Question, Armor and mines

[geoschmo]

Actually Q, removing QR and restricting Solar Panels was step one in the mod. That's already done. All this talk about mines is step two.

And we were considering changes to repair as well, so I guess you could call that step three.

Geoschmo

[dumbluck]

Ummmm, what mod are you talking about?

[Jmenschenfresser]

History Mod, I think. I just finished doing the beta of it Last night. I spent probably an hour retuning mine damage...still not sure I am happy with it.

Wish I had read this thread before I starting modding. Oh well.

Our goal in the History mod is to slow the dynamics of the game down in every area possible. Something like the side effects of proportions made intentional....except we aren't trying to slow the game down that much. Doing it in a controlled way. Problem we saw in the first history game was that it took great restrain not to just start glassing everything...such things aren't too conducive to story writing. We wanted a real limited war. We are trying to make it to where the battle for a few planets or a system, or even for a warp point, is a grueling affair.

My mine solution:
-Mine warheads now do 10, 20 and 30 kt damage respectively.
-I took out the cloak ability of the mine hull and made a separate component which you get when researching mines 1, 3, 4, 5. The Last of which blocks all sensors. Takes 5kt.
-All mine sweepers are out of the game.

Conclusion:
-The most powerful mine field you can build (assuming you can build 100 mines) does 12,000kt of damage. I know that sounds like a lot, and it is, but remember that is later in the game.
-The first mine fields you build can't do more than 2000kt of damage. That is 100 mines. You could do that same damage with 10 mines in unmodded game.
-But remember these mines won't be cloaked. If you want to build cloaked mines: A) they are more expensive and B) you can put one less warhead on each mine. So those two numbers I stated before will come down to 9,000 for late game fields and 1000 for early game.

If this proves to be too powerful, I will simply lower the mine per sector number. If it is too weak, I will raise it.

Although I have a feeling 12,000 is a little high, but it is damn tough to have things work well in both early and late game.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Geoschmo, why not add a component limited to bases with Sector-Damage to simulate an advanced mine field? It would be unsweepable (at least before it does it's damage) and damage every ship in the fleet. Make it like 450 KT, and do low damage, since multiple bases will stack. And make it very expensive, but possibly with a lot of built-in maintenance reduction (mines are mainenance-free, after all).

I got to thinking about this more, and this might be a nifty thing to mod into the game. Not for History I think, but a different mod. It would finally be a way to restrict your allies from going places you don't want them to go without having to break your treaty with them.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

Oh, hey! This Sector - Damage ability works quite nicely, even on mine warheads. It does some very interesting things.

I made a mine warhead with standard warhead damage, and 20 points of sector damage per warhead. If you have no treaty with the person they can sweep your mines as normal and as long as they have enough sweepers to take care of all the mines they take no damage from the sector damage ability.

If however they have a treaty with you, they cannot sweep the mines and they do take damage from the mines. Your ships do as well, but you can self destruct the minefield if you want to get by and lay another one after you do. Finally mines that can stop your allies!

If you do this you have to keep the sector damage small though becase each warheads sector damage gets applied to every ship, and it does stack. Only 19 mines with two warheads with 20 points each destroyed my light cruiser. And since the damage is given to every ship that enters the field you could have 500 Light Cruisers and they would all be destroyed by the same 19 mines. A very expensive mistake if you have one of these protecting your planet and foget it's there. You could lose an entire fleet to your own field. And your ally could as well.

Key points.

• each warheads sector damage is applied to every ship that enters the field, keep the damage per warhead small.
• If an enemy hits the field the mines do detonate so they won't Last forever like a sat with this ability would
• can be swept like normal mines as long as you don't have a treaty

Perhaps this ability should be given to a specialized mine body instead of the warhead. One that cannot have standard warheads, and does not cloak. Thus it would act as sort of a beacon. "Do not pass here, even if you have a treaty. Off limits." That sort of thing. You could then have a slightly higher damage per mine, but they would still be sweepable by enemies.
Geoschmo

[LGM]

So do the sector damaging mines inflict damage on themselves as well? In other words, are mines affected by sector damage or are they immune. If you trigger enough of these things will a chain reaction occur that will destroy all of them?

[Jmenschenfresser]

It's the "Ally Mine."

Dunno, it's a cool trick, but what would you do with it. That is unless you wanted to seal off part of your empire from even yourself for enough turns to make it worth building and laying them.

Could be useful against pesky AI allies that won't stop sending colony ships into your territories. Perhaps they would be good over dedicated construction worlds that have no resupply facilitt. Ships are built and then they leave.

Just trying to think of a senario where I'd use such mines for more than just to snub my neighbor.

[geoschmo]

They only affect ships or units that move into the sector. If you sent a minelayer into a sector with an exsisting minefield it would take damage. So your field size would effectivly be limited to what you can launch in one turn, or from several layers in a fleet. Being in the sector is not damaging, only moving into the sector.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

You know, you can always spread these Ally Mines around, and leave yourself a winding, secret "safe path" to follow.
Just make sure nobody's watching you do it.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
You know, you can always spread these Ally Mines around, and leave yourself a winding, secret "safe path" to follow.
Just make sure nobody's watching you do it.

Don't worry Gretel, I'll leave this trail of breadcrumbs....

P.S. One other wierd thing I forgot to mention is if an ally hits your mines, you don't get a message. There ship just disapears, or stops I suppose if there aren't enough to destroy them. If they are sending cloaked ships you might never know they were there.

[ August 20, 2002, 18:44: Message edited by: geoschmo ]