Engineers laying mines

[PlasmaKrab]

!!!Warning!!!

From my own experience, range=O implies game crash. Test it if you want, I may have had other issues when I tested that, but as soon as I fired a range=0 weapon, it all went fuzzy and back to desktop.

Better make that range=1, after all engineers are able to demine the next hex just as well. Make them area-fire into an adjacent hex and they will place their mines. More to the point, if you set them to fire (lay mines) into their own hex (provided you can) they have chances of 1) suppressing and pinning themselves, 2) not getting out of the hex with all their feet attached and 3) start demining their own mines.

The trick to attach a mine-spreading weapon to any unit, if you need to know, is the following: take an innocent unit, strip it off of its weapon and tweak as you like, then assign all its four weapon emplacement to the same, unoccupied slot in the weapon list.
Then leave that unit alone. Next step, go to the weapon page, copy to buffer any old FASCAM weapon, paste it to the very same empty slot you assigned to your unit and tweak as needed (range particularly). Do not try to change class. Save your OOB. Do not reverse these steps.
Important: DO NOT attempt to change the unit's data after you've created and assigned the mine weapon, otherwise you'll get stuck into this unit, the program will go on checking weapon/class incompatibility and you'll have to do it all over again.

In the first step you may want to change your unit's class to something inoccuous so as not to have the IA picking it and to separate it clearly from the rest.
This procedure should work with all kinds of units. THe trick is not to let the editor check the unit once the harm
is done.

That's a tricky workaround but broadly that's the only way to go (details may vary).

[Listy]

The way I did it.

I worked out the stats of the weapon, then classified it as a main gun, put it in it's place on the unit then changed the weapon to the correct class.
fed it into the points calculator, then went beck changed the weapon to a gun, added the correct points, then changed the weapon back to FASCAM.

Notes:
1. You will need one HE round as the Direct fire only works if you have HE rounds, don't worry this will not be used, the AP rounds will be. However when you run out of AP rounds you can still lay mines. I included the AP rounds to allow players to work out when they where meant to run out of ammo.

2. the Maximum mines you can lay per turn is 1 salvo, three weapons will provide the maximum coverage.

3. It may not cost many points, however, it won't kill many enemies, but it can throw a spanner in the enemies plans. on the whole a useful, but not overpowering weapon. Personally I don't know why it's not included, It makes people think more about realistic armies, IE: Mine clearing kit.

Oh and thanks plasmakrab...

[Mobhack]

I may need to put specific code in there to find and strip such weapons, and not just in mobhack. Only the minelet rocket and minelet artillery units will have minelet weapons.


That one has been trashed over for 5+ years. Situation is as the consensus of that time's discussions (some of which you can probably find in the yahoo groups, if they have not fallen off the queues due to age . So it will not be rehashed yet again.

No engineer minelaying, as no time to lay a realistic hidden and buried field, and only the 2 appropriate off map unit types will lay minelets. Human player would lay strings of mines in mission types where the AI does not buy engineers (only does so when assaulting, as a rule).

I may have to physically kill any units not of this type (damage the weapon or something) if folk insist on breaking the safety code built in to mobhack to any great extent. I'll monitor use OOBs for any proliferation of units which spread mines as if a farmer muck-spraying his fields !

Cheers
Andy

[KevinRanger95]

so it really won't cause any problems with the FASCAM being off map units? Thanks for the warning with the range 0 thing I tried it with a RTO or flame weapon out of the russian oob and not only did I crash the game but before it crashed I watched myself burst into flames and watched was left retreat, does that mean when i die I'll see how everything happens(lol), My main concern is say I have this weapon on a Blackhawk or some kind of heavy lift helo, can I control how many hexes that mines are laid to?
It was alot easier when I just printed out how to do it off this forum, really alot easier!!!!!!
My engineer buddies and I had this conversation today, and I totally agree that its not over powering and its very useful, of course their argue is the same as everyone else's, whos better than the rest of the combined arms group! you know ENGINEERS lead the way! And of course I had to argue why armor is the king of battle!!!
I don't know for game purposes if having little sapper men run around laying one or two mines in the middle of a road is worth it or not, but on the other side of things I still play this as a platoon level game which would fit this type of warfare perfectly! And by no means am I asking for this unit to be created, If I want it I'll find a way to make it myself.
Thanks for all of this, this is the first time I have to MOBHACK any thing and I'm finding it to be fun!!!!!!

[Listy]

MOBhack, I would erge you Not to kill any units.
Just keep the Offical OOB's free of such units.

Allow us the freedom to play with the game, and use units we create.

[Mobhack]

Right now, I will leave that exploit of the bug in. No guarantees, but future editions of the code may well have some code added to look for illegal combinations.


Andy

[KevinRanger95]

Mobhack, I don't know alot of what you said, and I seen kill in there somewhere, and farmers muck and I know none of that is good, but everything else, well, You got me!
I think what you are saying is don't play these against or provide these to anyone else!
I also agree with the whole assualt thing, for AI purposes, But some countries don't bury mines anymore, they surface lay them with the intent to direct or manuver a enemy force in a certain direction. It takes less than 3 min to employ a M-21 tilt rod mine or 30sec for a ground or air FASCAM minefield, now don't get me wrong I understand what you are saying, and this is strickly conversational not a plea for a piece of equipment, but many engagements have went one way or another due to a Airborne Engineers hasty laid minefield of 3 mines across the road to buy some time for what ever reason, and that is what I am trying to create!

[KevinRanger95]

I also know you can't determine a mine being buried or surface laid in the game!!!!!

[Mobhack]

A hex is 50 metres.

let's call it square for ease of calculation (it will actually be more)

Let us assume that 1 mine point represents about one mine in every 5 by 5 metre box for ease of calculation.

50 times 50 is 2500 square metres. divide by 5 times 5 is 25, so 2500/25 = 100 mines as a WAG for the amount needed.

100 anti-tank mines, are not carried in the back pack of a 10 man engineer section.

Additionally - SP minefields are dual purpose. So add a minimum of 100 anti-personell mines to our little garden of death. probably more, as apers to AP ratio os usually 2 to 1. say 300 mines.

A 1 point minefield may well be less than that figure i first guessed at - assume a narrow belt somewhere in the 50 by 50 square, rest being empty, so back to maybe 150 actaul mines. Still, probably a truck-load. And much more than a quick "phut" from some mine dispenser vehicle, which probably can throw a couple of dozen per discharge?. A bar mine layer might have 150 mines inside, but to plough that area would take it a half an hour (more?) - plus initial survey of the ground, placement of tapes and so on.

Any real minelaying is therefore not realistic in game terms. manual digging of the things would need a couple of sections (20 or so guys) and an ammo vehicle, with no interruptions, for maybe 2-3 hours (I dont have my mine warfare text to hand ATM). Surface laying would possibly bring the time down to 45 minutes or an hour - still not feasable in game terms, and we do not have a counter or any real concept in the game engine of an engineer task that needs 30+ turns uninterrupted to complete a task.


A mine symbol is not 2 engineer guys placing a half a dozen real mines into a 50 by 50 meter (half a football pitch or so) area.

Cheers
Andy

[Mobhack]

One mine unit is a lot of actual mines, covering a 50 metre hex area, and hidden, ie buried.

Minelets are auto detected (as they are on the surface) - but they probably should have been removed when we converted to DOS SPMBT but had been there in the original OOBS, and were probably there in some scenarios as well. it takes a long time (an hour plus) of 18 or so 155mm howitzers laying minelet rounds, to cover a 150 metre or so minefield to an effective level. They are not instant, ans so really as we cannot do fractions of .001 of a mine unit mine laying, then the only mines really should be the pre laid ones as with SPWW2. Minelets would make sense in a division level game, which this is not. hence the restriction to 3 or so rounds, and the high cost, to balance the unrealistic laying time the game engine allows them.

Adding crop-spraying mine units in human hands, is not therefore a good idea, as they themselves would need several reloads to fill a 50 metre square to an EFFECTIVE barrier level. 1 hex point of mines of mines in SP games is an effective barrier level, and not a "nuisance" amount.

Cheers
Andy