Varied questions: mines, sats, experience

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by Taera:
So the question finaly formed in my brain:
What is the practical use of mines in large-scale games against human players?
Very well. in the earlier game it gives the advantage to the defender.
A little later, even with LCs loaded with Mine Sweepers II can take out minefields relatively easy, given the 100 mines-per-sector limitatioin.
Are the mines any effective?

For the most part, this is true. You can, however, be sneaky about where you put mines. Your opponent isn't always going to have a mine sweeper everywhere he is sending ships.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by Gandalph:
I am designing a Psychic race now that uses sat's with allegiance subverters at warp points. Imagine coming through a warp point and staring 30 allegiance subverters in the face at point blank range!

The Azorani AI uses that technique as well. It can be rather... disturbing.

[Grandpa Kim]

One of the strengths of SEIV is its balance. To me it is so artfully balanced that no part of the tech tree can be ignored. With that in mind, I can't agree that mines are near to useless late in the game-- else why am dragging two or three minesweepers along with my fleet of dreadnaughts? If nothing else, it forces caution. That mines can defeated only serves to indicate the balance in the game.
One could argue that ecm and combat sensors are useless late in the game because everyone has them. Maybe we should agree to redesign our ships on turn 100 to not include these components and add another gun instead.
The balance is there to be used as you wish. It is those differences of opinion on what is best that makes the game interesting-- and eminently replayable.

[Mephisto]

Originally posted by Taera:
So the question finaly formed in my brain:
What is the practical use of mines in large-scale games against human players?

Don't just count the combat losses you inflict with a weapon. By having mines over some planets and warp points you force your enemy to have sufficient minesweepers in every of his fleets costing him resources while your mines are free. The same holds true for carriers/fighters and missiles. It forces your enemy to have PDC on his ships (or build some Aegis ships). This reduces the combat value of his ships against other ships and is expensive. Remember, large empires win or lose a war by their economy.

[ June 04, 2002, 12:03: Message edited by: [K126]Mephisto ]

[Taera]

Hmm. Good points. Agree.

[mac5732]

Mines and sats are both still worth using even in the later parts of a game. Besides what has already been said on their use, if you use the combined arms technique they can still be deadly expecially on wormhole defense. Imagine, Starbases, with 100 sats and 100 mines on a wormhole, you come thru, the sats are going to gave at least several good shots at you, depending what you use, before they are wasted, but those shots might mean the difference in winning or losing the battle.
Mines and sats can be put anywhere, this does force one to build sweepers, which like Mephisto and the others said uses resources. If you don't then the mines take out your ships. Plus Sats can be cloaked, put several of these in each system with scanners and you can see what's going on. In closing, if your enemy builds them, you must defend against them, if you use them your enemy must defend against them, therefore there is an action and a reaction. If he builds mines and you don't use sweepers......or vica versa, so you might not actually see any big use later in the game but they still cause players to react.

training facilities, I don't use them in Sp play only in hot seat when other human players are in game. Until Ai uses them it seem unfair in sp play. (in my opinion)

just some ideas mac

[ June 04, 2002, 20:43: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

[Batman]

One thing that I've always thought would make satellites a lot more useful would be to increase their size slightly, or decrease the size of the robo-miner components. That way remote mining could be started at the beginning (or close to the beginning) of the game, and profitably.

Having to wait to research large satellites (something I generally don't get a chance to do until later on) to me greatly lessens the effectiveness of remote mining. RM has always seemed underused to me; I expect that if humanity ever makes it to the stars then that form of mining will be a significant portion of all mining done.

Actually, this makes me think of something interesting; I'm going to start a new post to discuss it. (See Mining makes me sad)