Minesweeper Question

[SWizzardS]

You guys have all been very helpful. In the FAQ it doesn't actually tell you that a minesweeper component can clear that many mines per square it hits each & every move it makes on the same turn. The component does say "per use" but that to me could have gone either way & I was preferring to not find out the hard way

Asking because I have a fleet of ships attacking multiple planets in one of my games (I believe 5 in one simultaneous turn). Didn't want to find out that the guy had 100 mines over the first planet & that my mine sweepers started to peter out after that.

Thanks again for all of your assistance.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

So, I guess we can assume that shields are down outside of combat.

You're welcome.

[psimancer]

per most tv/movie shows shields are lowered unless combat looms (probably so the captain can spout those overly dramatic words " raise shields" thus informing the audience in its infinite intellegience that Violence will now commence (oh no hide the wimmin n chillin)

however justification is usually that the shields interfere with scientific sensors and are a major power drain

what i dont like is that we dont have a small (i'd say hardcode to max at 25%) settable chance to detect mines before we run over them i mean come on them scientific super sensors etc should be good for something right

[Parasite]

If you are moving at speed 17, it means you must be on Emergency Propulsion. This points to not being in a fleet of ships which means you are most likely to be alone. You would then take all the damage on the minesweeper.

An interesting mod would be to have a (cheap) mine that killed only minesweeper components. You could place them one hex away (or surrounding) a heavily mined hex. The first mines would just remove any minesweeping components but leave the fleet speed intact. It could move on and hit a bunch of large mines taking the damage from all of them. It would only work if you were not able to totally clear the first mined hex, but why let reality interfere with my plans to conquer the universe.

[Suicide Junkie]

Better to have the mod simply remove minesweeper components.
Then, mines can be low-damage without being useless.

You could also limit mines to 10 per sector, say, which means if you want a serious minefield, it will be multiple sectors deep, and cover a large area.

[Parasite]

A large mine can have 4 big explosives on it. 1200 shield skipping damage with 100% chance of hitting if not swept. That is pretty hurting no matter what. They are even likely to be cheaper than fancy engine damagers whose damage could be fixed that turn by repair ships in a fleet.

Yes, It was a BB I meant with 20 sweepers, not a BC. Good catch Alneyan. Max it could go would be 17 unmodded, though I have never had one go that fast. If 100 mines were in each hex, 1700 mines could be swept in one turn. But I expect 105 mines in one hex would be it's downfall if there were two players teaming against it.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Hmm...A mine that takes out minesweepers...