Mines could add a lot of game depth

HAL · #1 January 13th, 2001, 05:23 PM

I generally don't like mines in SEIV. They take a lot of work, and even though the AI is currently dealing with them very well in my game, the general consensus is that the AI doesn't handle them well.

However, changes that I would like to see to mines are as follow:

1) Minefield decay. It is amazing how this large group of mines doesn't float away or disperse.

2) Mines with a hit chance on a ship base on the density of the field. One of the current, problems is that ships entering a minefield don't even get the chance to avoid the mines. Given the size of the tactical space this not a good thing.

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I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Eisenhans · #2 January 13th, 2001, 05:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Daynarr:
...But, you could design new type of warhead that only destroys engines, weapons or shield generators and make new types of mines. AI could be able to use them too with some changes to design files.
Important note: if you plan to make new warheads, make sure that they all belong to separate, unused components family and weapons family.

I'm just not sure: is the ability to distinguish friend from foe built in the mine or into the warhead? I didn't find it yet.
Designing new warheads that destroy specific components is not that hard, but I would rather like to see mines that just sit there and do nothing UNTIL a ship with a certain component or of a certain size comes along and then wipe it out completely.
That way some warships could move through a warp point without any problems and just when you thought it was save your troop transport or colony ship that was following gets blown to bits.
I'm happy to see that there are more people around who like mines. From some other threads on the topic I got the ipression that we would be a minority.

Barnacle Bill · #3 January 13th, 2001, 06:26 PM

Naval mines in real life are already far more sophisticated than "bump into them and they blow up". I see no reason why anybody would make a mine like that in the distant future. Also, space is much more vast than the surface of the ocean. Such a mine would not work in space, even with a proximity fuse, except where there is a pretty small area that ships would need to go through (like low orbit around a planet or a warp point). This is actually the case with naval mines in real life. Turning them loose in open ocean just creates a random hazard which is not very effective as a barrier (although the knowledge that someone has done it tends to deter commercial shipping from risking the area). To form an effective barrier they have to be placed in a channel or harbor.

I think that realistic space mines would be sort of a one-shot "bomb-pumped" weapon (i.e. directional) with a lot of damage. It has to be directional to avoid fratricide. It would have to use passive sensors only, and have a computer to run it which could tell friend from not-friend. "Not-friend" is not necessarily the same as foe, as the mine would probably bounce an IFF off anything it had decided to fire at and fire immediately if the correct response was not received. It would only engage (i.e. bounce an IFF off of) targets within effective range. The mines within a field could be considered linked by some sort of highly directional low-powered tight-beam comm system which would let them cooperate in terms of which mine fires first at a given target.

With the above in mind, mines should only work two places. One of those is warp points. The mines would be considered to be placed at firing range from the warp point and would fire at ships entering or exiting the sector via the warp point. If defenders other than mines are present, the mines would still fire before combat is initiated (with no combat if the mines eliminate the intruder). If defenders other than mines are present and the attacker enters from another sector in the same system rather than via the warp point, combat occurs. In that case, the mines do not show up on the map to the attacker but fire if the attacker's ships come close enough to the square they occupy. That square would be chosen by the defender prior to the attacker's ships being placed on the tactical map, with a given range of the warp point square. If nothing but mines from the mine-owner's side is present, and non-friendlies enter the sector from another sector within the system and don't try to exit via the warp point, the mines do nothing (assume space is vast and they don't come near the warp point unless they intend to use it).

The other place I would allow them is at planets. Here they would be assumed to be located in a square adjactent to the planet. If a non-friendly enters the sector but has no interaction with the planet, and no other defenders are present, the mines do nothing. If the non-friendly attempts to colonize the mined planet, resupply at the mined planet, drop or pick up cargo, repair, retrofit, scrap, etc... at the mined planet, and no other defenders (i.e. things friendly to the mines) are present, then the mines fire. If other defenders are present, the mines are placed in a square adjacent to the mined planet (mine owner's choice, placed before the other side is placed on the tactical map) and only fire at non-friendlies which come in range. Again, they do not appear on the map to the non-friendlies. If nothing but mines from the mine-owner's side is present, and non-friendlies enter the sector and don't try to interact with the mined planet, the mines do nothing (assume space is vast and they don't come near the planet unless they intend to interact with it).

In the above context, minesweeper components would be considered a specialized point defense system which detects the hostile mine IFF pulse, uses it to locate the mine and quickly shoots at the mine before it can detonate. If you think the mine design would be sophisticated enough to put the IFF tranciever remote from the weapon (it would, in real life), then assume the minesweeper component includes a short-range sensing system which detects the mine despite its stealth, but only detects them at the mine's firing range, and gets off the first shot while the mine is processing transmittal of the IFF pulse. Also keep in mind that some simplification would be required for playability.

Cloaked ships would not set off mines unless one of the mines in the minefield (i.e. part of the same "group" of mines) has an installed sensor component capable of detected them.

There might be an option to set up the minefield to fire without trying to IFF first. Assume minesweepers still work because they have bigger & more sophisticated sensors & computers that let them still get off the first shot. This option then just lets your minefield work against your allies if you want it to (of course they would get angry...).

Jubala · #4 January 13th, 2001, 07:17 PM

Bill, good idea. I like it and I don't like mines as they work now, mainly because they keep going boom until there's no more mines or ships.

Barnacle Bill · #5 January 13th, 2001, 08:35 PM

As I proposed below, I'm afraid that once they started going off at all they would still keep going boom until you ran out of either mines or targets. Given the interpretation that they are one-shot bomb-pumped weapons, you could give them a % chance to hit which is less than 100%, though. In fact, you could make "to hit" loss due to ECM and size of the target vs the "to hit" add from small combat sensors in the mine part of the equation. Even so, either all the mines fire but it is not enough to kill all the targets, or all the targets get killed before all the mines have fired (or, rarely, the Last mine kills the Last target).

The only way to end that is to change the assumption to one of a big bomb with a proximity fuse. They are assumed to be far enough apart to avoid fratricide, which means you could get lucky and get through the minefield without triggering one. Everything I wrote before would still apply about where mines can be placed (at warp points or at planets), because space is still too vast for there to be more than a remote random chance of anything coming in range out in the middle of nowhere. However, any time a ship or fleet does something which can trigger a minefield(approaching the planet, using the warp point), there would be a separate % chance for each ship that it triggers a mine. The chance would go up with the number of mines, probably maxing out at 99%. Each ship would separately go through this determination, and until/unless a mine is triggered you don't know there is a minefield there. For planets, it would take more mines than for a warp point for each incremental improvement in the chance of hitting a mine, because the mines (in tactical combat) would be evenly distributed among all squares adjacent to the mined planet.

For simplicity, you would assume that ships are going too fast to stop or change course if somebody in the same fleet hits a mine, so if a fleet goes through a minefield they all undergo the determination in some random order. However, after every detonation the % chance of hitting a mine would be adjusted for the new number of mines for the remaining determinations. For simplicity you would also assume no ship hits more than one mine per minefield transit. Cloaked ships would still be immune unless sensors in the mine can detect them (if they can't be detected by the mine, the mine doesn't know to explode).

Mine sweeping would also be a % chance based on the number of mines which are there. If a minesweeper transits a minefield (in ignorance or just taking its chances), the minesweeping component has no effect and the minesweeper takes its lumps. If it didn't work that way, even 1 minesweeping component on board would make any ship mine-immune. To sweep mines, the minesweeper would have to use the order to sweep mines. This would expend one movement point, and result in each minesweeping component having a % chance to detect and destroy 1 mine (that number would go up with levels of minesweeping component). What the chance is would depend on the number of mines present, just like the chance of hitting a mine while transiting the minefield. You'd never know if you got them all... To prevent being able to sweep mines at a higher rate in tactical combat than in strategic motion, each minesweeping component could only be used once per combat (reload time of 30).