Mine granularity

[Suicide Junkie]

There are many situations where the larger mines become more effective.

Economics:
Using your numbers, it would take only 1 bigmine to kill a battlecruiser, but it would take 12 small mines to do the same job.
This situation is much more common than the escort attacks

Game Limits:
The large mines are essential once you begin to reach the units-in-space limits.
At the extreme case, you will have a choice between 5000 small mines, or 5000 Huge mines.

Deployment:
Another advantage is when laying the mines. A minelayer can deploy X mines per turn. Say a particular minelayer can deploy 12 per turn.
It can then kill 12 battlecruisers per turn using the large mines, or 1 battlecruiser per turn using the small mines.

Sweepers:
The biggest disadvantage of using larger mines comes when minesweepers enter the picture. A MS-V will kill 5 mines, no matter whether they are the expensive large ones, or the cheapo small ones.

Find your balance

EDIT: wow, almost the exact same reply at the same time

[ 20 February 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[Arak Koba]

What I am wondering is wether the game will know to use up small mines first, or waste the BMs against small ships if the sector has a mix of SMs and BMs.

[Fyron]

The game uses the mines in the order that they were deployed. The first mine you set down will be the first mine to detonate. It is the same as how ground combat works. First down, first to action.