Looking for comments on possible mine suggestion.

[DavidG]

My 2 cents worth.

1. Minesweeping should be somewhat dangerous. So the sweeper should not have a 100% chance of killing the mine

2. Minesweeping is time consuming so perhaps a fleet should use several movement points to sweep a field.

3. Provide many more levels of mine and mine swwep tech and make it so that low level sweepers cannot dectec high level mines.

4. Remove the minefields 100% hit chance against ships. Surely a small ship could get lucky and bypass a mine field. Space is big, really big

[Skulky]

how about mine detect components, and components on mines called mine cloaks???

[Puke]

lots of things 'would be nice' but there are only a couple things that can be modded. if i remember, the max mines per sector is moddable via settings.txt

mines could be made far more useful if there was a higher limit. say 1000.

mines could be ballanced in their effectiveness if there were mine detecting sensors. this can be done by using a specific sensor type for mines, say Gravetic. this could also add another layer of depth to the game by creating a tech race for mine cloaking and mine sensors. small Groups of visible mines could lure fleets into vast fields of cloaked mines.

regarding PDC mine sweeping, the Devnull Mod does this. its easy to incorporate into any mod.

regarding destructable sweepers, good idea, does it work?

[Will]

A long time ago, in many galaxies far, far away (sorry, I just couldn't resist)...

I used to play a game called SpaceMerchant, which was based on the old TradeWars 2002 BBS game. The way that game eventually implemented mines could, IMHO, be adapted to SEIV.

SpaceMerchant had a map system of usually many "galaxies", each galaxy a square of sectors that wrapped; think a system map in SEIV, where if you were in the top right corner, and moved right, you'd be in the top left corner. However, you couldn't always move between adjacent sectors, there were paths that had to be used. Galaxies were linked via warps.

So, for each sector, there is a maximum of five entrances/exits. The way SpaceMerchant did mines, the total number in the sector were divided by the number of entrances, and a random modifier was applied. When you moved into a sector, that amount of mines would "attack" you, and a certain percentage would blow up next to you. The effect was: you got a small amount of damage (usually not enough to come close to killing you, unless you were already close anyway), any course you had plotted is erased, you lose three turns in the attack (turns were often very limited, 1 move = -1 turn), you're decloaked.

From there, you had a few options. If you went back from where you came from, nothing else happens (unless some mean person laid mines there while you were in the other sector ). If you continue attacking the mines, you face all of them at once (there was a max of 50 in a sector). If you try going through some other exit, you don't move, and it's the same as if you just entered the sector, but, the sector you tried to move to is now the "safe" sector, where you can go without worrying about any other mines in the current sector.

There is a bit more to the mine stuff in that game, but I don't want to explain the entire game, and that gives a general idea of how they work.

That could be modified for SEIV. When ships enter a minefield, 25% have a chance of hitting, and an extra movement point is taken. If the ships withdraw the same way they came, they don't encounter any more mines. A sweeper can stay in the field and attempt to sweep the mines, having a chance of getting all, or none, or anything in between. If ships attempt to exit some other way, 25% of the remaining mines have a chance of hitting, an extra movement point is taken, and they can continue. Ships cloaking are turned off on encountering a minefield (they'll know where you are from the pretty explosions, after all).

Change the sweeper's rating's from "Can sweep X mines" to "Can sweep X warheads", and have them destroyed on use. Moddable, of course, for those who would like their mines to be more/less powerful.

[Pax]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Hank:
Lastly, a question. If a sweeper does not completely sweep a minefield, can it be destroyed by the mines? If so, this should be changed. A sweeper should be able to spend many turns sweeping a particular minefield and not get hurt by it. Think of it as the sweeper clearing a path into the minefield as it moves into the sector.

I would only support this if the other ships in the fleet with the sweeper get bLasted. Otherwise what's the point? All you would need is one sweeper regardless of the size of the minefield.

Geoschmo

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Well, perhaps it would work better if no more than ONE mine could hit a ship, for each X kT of mass the ship had (say each 150kT, the size of a single escort)? Makes sense after all; a sector is a big place, 100 mines won't hit a single ship all at once.

That way, you -could- try and "bull" your way through a minefield, especially if your ships were armor-heavy ... but you'll be hurt by the process (especially helpful for when it's a Warp Point and the defender has ships/sats/base(s) present to immediately fire on the now-damaged ships ...).

Now the question is, is that effect hard-coded into the executable, or MODdable ... ?

[Fyron]

Hard coded.

[dumbluck]

(This would be better as a PM. Sorry.)

[ July 12, 2002, 10:11: Message edited by: dumbluck ]