Mine effectiveness

[Krakenup]

I don't like the way mines work. They are pretty much all or nothing. If you have sufficient sweeping capacity, it's like the minefield never existed. If you don't, it's like your fleet never existed. Sometimes your fleet is just damaged, but not often.

I don't think that mines or minesweepers should be 100 percent effective. A small ship with an experienced crew and good electronics should have a chance to sneak through a small minefield, and sometimes a mine should go off while being swept, damaging the sweeper.

I would suggest:

1. Each mine has a chance of damaging each ship in the fleet with a percent chance of say (100 - ship defensive bonus)/10 with a minimum of 1 percent. Once a mine hits a ship, of course, the mine disappears.

2. When a minesweeper enters a minefield, it attempts to sweep mines up to its capacity. It would have a 95 to 99 percent chance (depending on tech level) to sweep each mine. If unsuccessful, the mine would do warheads/5 damage to the sweeper. After sweeping all the mines it can, the minesweeper would be subject to being hit by the unswept mines.

3. If a ship with a minesweeper component is hit by a mine, there would be a 10% chance per sweeping capacity to automatically sweep the mine.

4. If the entire minefield has not been swept, the minesweeper can sweep more the next turn or move out of the sector.

For example, a minesweeper with a 10 mine capacity enters a 60 mine minefield. It sweeps 10 mines but screws up on one taking 200/5 = 40 points of damage. Out of the other 50 mines, one hits but is successfully swept. He stays in the minefield and sweeps 10 more mines the next turn leaving only 39 mines. The following turn, the light cruiser guarding the minefield finally shows up and blows him away.

Or, a fleet with some sweeping capacity enters a minefield. Some mines are swept; others hit ships. Some miss everybody. Results: most of the large ships are damaged, the small ships either make it through or are destroyed, but there are still some mines left to surprise stragglers.

What do you think?

[Puke]

good ideas, they might be implemented in SE5, but not before. I would suggest that it would be simpler (but have less of the features you describe) if mines respected cloaking values. as it is, its pretty darn pointless to research anything besides stealth armor, because sensors are so cheap compared to cloaking devices (unless fighting the AI..) different levels of mines would detect different levels of cloaks.

of course, my idea cant be modded either, so i might as well go back to wishing that my local breakfast joint served bloody marys, which is just about as likely to happen as any of this.

good thoughts though, deffinitly send them in for the se5 wishlist. there is a slim chance that MM could be persuaded to add "percent chance for sucess" abilities to both sweepers and mines, and "percent change for mine success" ability to ECM. personally im going to keep my fingers crossed for the bloody marys instead. i wonder how much it costs to file for a liquor license on el camino in milbrae..

[Suicide Junkie]

It seems to me that your method leaves sweepers too powerful. 95% accuracy, plus chances to block hits after that...

How about this:
1) Minesweeping components have 95% to 90% chance to miss, depending on techlevel. (Woah, wait for #2 before your flame )

2) Minesweeping components stack on the same ship, and also among multiple ships.

3) Stacking is calculated thusly: begin with 1. Multiply by the rating of each sweeping component in the fleet. This is the chance that a mine will get past the sweepers and bLast one of the ships.

4) Mines themselves have a "chance to fail" ability. Maximum 99%, it can be increased by adding sensors, thrusters & miscellaneous components. Multiply by the number of ships in the enemy fleet.

5) Giving a "sweep mines" order to the sweeper, increases the mine's chance to attack to 100%


All this means:
- sending a fleet of warships in alongside the sweepers will encourage more mines to attack, and cause more damage. Send in the sweepers first, and they might survive, repair and whittle down the field.
- running a minefield is possible, if it is small and/or has weak detection/movement abilities.
- extra components will be cruicial on mines. If you make powerful mines, they will be contact mines, and will allow field runners through more easily. Heavily enhanced mines will be weak, but will catch those sneaky ships.

A) Now, a ship (Destroyer size?) with 5 MS V's (90% to miss, each) will have a total chance to miss of (.9)^5 = 59%.
That means 59% of the mines that notice the ship will do damage.

B) A fleet of five minesweepers has 25 MS V's. Chance to miss: (.9)^25 = 7%

C) With 25 MS I's, (.95)^25 = 28%

If the mines in question have enough features to notice the ships 20% of the time, and there are 100 mines:
In case (A), one ship, so it meets 20% of the mines. 60% of them get past the sweeping components, so up to 12/20 will likely hit.
If the destroyer takes two hits to destroy, it will likely take out 3 or 4 mines before being killed.

Case (B), five ships: 80%^5 = 33%, so 67% of the mines will notice the fleet and attack. The sweepers miss only 7%, meaning 5 hits, 62 kills and 33 mines unaccounted for.

Case (C). Given only basic tech, let the mines have 97% chance of failing. (basic 99% minus 2% for "proximity trigger II").
Five ships, (.97)^5 = 86%, so 14 of the 100 mines attack. The sweepers miss 28%. 4 mines detonate, 10 are killed, and 86 lie dormant. The sweepers are damaged, but most survive, plus the field is still very hostile.

As the sweepers are whittled down, by the randomly successful mine hits, their effectiveness will drop.

[Krakenup]

Hmmm. That sounds like an interesting implementation. Of course, it would take a lot of playtesting to get the numbers just right, but I think it could cover all the goals. Namely:

a) Allow a ship a chance to run a minefield (a standard plot element in most war movies).

b) Make it advantageous (sometimes) to add a sweeper component to ship designs to help run minefields.

c) Make it possible for one minesweeper to clear a minefield if left undisturbed, forcing the minefield owner to add fighters or warships to protect the field.

d) Make clearing a minefield dangerous to the sweeper.

e) Remove the absolute numbers. If you have 100 mines, you currently need exactly 25 MS IV's, for example.

f) Leave a few mines sitting around for surprises if you don't deliberately clear the field.

[Baron Munchausen]

I've been posting the same opinion, in various words, again and again and again in both the beta and the public forums. Keep speaking up, and email directly to MM as well. Sooner or later we are going to be head.

[bearclaw]

I've had a big beef about mines since the start. First off, why are they totally undetectable right from the start?

I had an idea that I think would make mines much better and a little more fairer, but it would mean some changes to some other things too. This is the idea I sent to MM directly Last spring.

Mines should have their own sets of componants. Basic mine with just warheads would be deadly but also visible. This makes for a deterant feature. Like putting up a "do not enter" sign.

The Mines tech should cover several areas. Getting construction lv 1 opens up things like, Mine Hulls tech, Mine sensors, mine cloak, mine sweepers etc. I see minesweepers should do a certain amount of damage when mine sweeping instead of simply removing 1-5 mines each. That way, someone could make a set of mines that are heavy in Mine Armour but are totally visable. it could take a long time for sweepers to get rid of them, but they are still doing what they were ment to.

Another feature is mine sensors. A mine without sensors would miss a cloaked ship of a ceratin level. This would remove the overly strong capabilites (IMHO) of mines being able to take out anything that crosses it's path.

This,however brings up sensors and cloaks. Different sensor types should have their own advantages. There should be cloaking devises for each type of sensor (Active, Passive, Gravtic etc.) Then there would be a point to researching different fields. Your sensors may work on one empires cloak but not anothers.

Some of the ideas for Mine componants are: warheads, mine sensors (each type and level), Mine cloak (diffenrent types and levels), and Mine armour.

I do agree that highly advanced mines should be invisable, but not at the beginning.

Just my suggestions

Nick (bearclaw)