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Join Date 02/2008
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Space Mines?

April 9, 2008 8:31:52 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

I was just wondering, in a game with so much movement throughout the galaxy and specific phase lanes and such, shouldn't there be space mines?

Something along the lines of a minelaying cruiser or a logistics structure that like takes 2 or 3 slots and places a mine field in th grav well. The mines could be similar to StarCraft spidermines that move a short distance towards an enemy craft and explode on impact doing a small area of heavy damage and possibly disabling emeny weapons fire for a short period if the ship survives the mine. The damage is obvious but the weapons thing I was just thinking that a ship that's just been hit by a mine would be a least a little messed up and it'd take some time for the crews to get their stuff together and begin firing again. Or there could be different mine types such as EMP mines or something like that that disable the ships for a while...

I saw a revived dead post about "Dead Mines" and it kinda triggered this. It'll probably be a big pain to add, and if it is please don't flame me for proposing some sort of crazy un-addable idea, but I was just thinking how much fun it'd be to see a couple LRMs go pop when the guy comes in with a LRM blob thinking he'll wipe out the planet. Or they could be very useful in protecting neutral extractors from those pesky Vasari scouts. Also, I just like space mines eversince I found the minelayer corvette in Homeworld. It doesn't matter how powerful or useful they are, I just like deploying space mines. It would also provide another reason to scout, since nobody likes to walk into a minefield. It could also make it even less advantageous (or more disadvantageous, depending on how you like to say things) to make huge closely packed LRM blobs and other such fleets with little to no support or unit variation.

As for removing mines... maybe flak frigates or fighter strikecraft could do it. well actually, any strikecraft could do it if you're willing to lose a couple of them. But it'd be something else to consider when attacking a planet.

As for which ship will deploy them... ummm carrier cruisers? I like the idea of carrier cruisers deploying mines since they seem to be quite under utilized since their damage/supply seems quite low. And it kinda makes sense since the already have facilities to manufacture small strike craft and stuff. Or there could be a new ship, which might possibly be a pain to add, I don't know.

Or if you prefer an orbital structure, it could maintain a small mine field or something. I'm not sure how to describe it, maybe allow it to place two small fields and have it maintain, say for exmaple, 5 or 6 mines in each field. Then if you need to move the field, simply "recall", in other words self destruct, the minefield and begin placing one in a new area. If this method for delivery is used, I think a system where it pops out 1 mines every say.... 20 seconds up till the fields are filled and then replaces lost mines at that same rate is preferable to having the field "built" all at once like orbital structures. Of course, if this method is used, then the mines won't be able to protect neutral resource stations.

 Edit:grammer, spelling and another little random thought

They'd also help slow down those pesky guys who like to skip past your border worlds and just randomly attack in the middle of your empire. And It would seem to make sense that an empire, especially the trader empire would like to protect vulnerable trade routes, or the vasari who are running from some mysterious enemy would like to slow down it's progress with some space mines, or at least they'd have the technology to do so.

maybe each race could have a different type of mine. Eg, TEC could have conventional mines that just do damage possibly directly to ship hulls, Vasari could have mines that disable ships, and Advent could have... umm drawing a blank here... Culture mines? lol. but seriously, damage to shields? (but it'd have to be a greater amount than the damage to hull from the TEC). Or, they could all jsut do lots of damage to light armour and strike craft. That seems to make sense too.

Space mines also seem to fit the mould of defences in SoaSE. They slow down and destroy a small portion of (or the entire thing if it's a small fleet) an invading fleet.

Just thinking of how fast they should move, I was thinking they should only move a short distance before exploding regardless of whether they impact an enemy craft and they they should be roughly the same speed as fighter strike craft. I figure a good player who's willing to micro it for a short while should be able to kite the mines a short distance and get them to explode and thus save himself a couple of strike craft of ships.

strategy
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Andrew Cory
Join Date 04/2004
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Reply #1 April 9, 2008 4:12:19 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
That's a seriously fantastic idea. Probably not for a patch, but I'd love the devs. to think about minelayers for the expansion...
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Coelocanth
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #2 April 9, 2008 5:09:08 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Yeah, I really like the idea as well.
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homefleet
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #3 April 10, 2008 12:12:31 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
After reading your post some ideals game into my head. Form one of the shows that I watched, they use a type of mine, that was half missile, and half ship. The "mine" as they called it, could jump like other ships, but would explode on impact with enemy ships. You ideal is good, but other games have already do this, and the extra use of memory, would be to much for the computer market, that sins is trying to reach.

Remember, that this game not only could play well, but could play on most old computers. But other wise, your ideal is not just good, but needed.

So here the information on the mines form that show.

Space-Time Mines:
"A very powerful, long-range anti ship missile. Filled with Anti-matter, the mines have a powerful explosive yield. Also each mine is self-propelled, and is able to produce its own Space-time bubble. This allows the mine to attack long-ranges in plane space."

So where is my ideal, to replace the strike craft for one side(I vote Vasari), with mines. This would allow for more difference between the factions, as well as add more depth, as well as save memory, and make the carrier cruisers more useful. To allow for it to be easy to learn, the mines could have two modes, one defense and one offense mode, just like you have a defense strike craft and an offense strike craft. In defense mode, it targets enemy fighter, in offense mode, it targets ships. Less memory as there is only one type of mine.

How they would work, if I could have it my way. The Mines would have the HP of an entire wing, which would count fuel. As time passes, fuel is used up and there for the HP is reduced. When it reach zero the mine is destroyed. This makes it easy to defend against long range. The mine, can jump like any ship! And there for can attack enemy ships that are jumping away by getting ahead of them when they jump(the mine is faster in phase space) or jump and attack enemy fleets, about to jump in. The mines firepower is also equal to an entire wing. To balance this out, the mines, take twice as long to build, and can not do a return pass like strike crafts, as they are destoryed the second that they hit the enemy ship. Where strike craft unload there weapons, and return for other pass.

This would also help to make the game to make more sense, as based on one post, called Yet Another Vasari Opinion: But I swear its different.
"
Carriers and Fighters

Why do the Vasari risk such valuable population manning such things? This would be a great way to differentiate the Vasari, eliminate their fighter/bomber wings entirely, and make the Carrier a dedicated repair and support ship... hell, the regular shipyard could stay and the Vasari Carrier could become the shipyard I mentioned above.
"

Now with mines the Vasari, are not risking there valuable population




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homefleet
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #4 April 10, 2008 10:22:22 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Is it that bad, of an ideal or is no one just reading this post anymore?
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littletortillaboy
Join Date 02/2008
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Reply #5 April 10, 2008 10:43:54 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I really like this idea. I would propose that the mines be a purely defensive weapon, though. I'd say you could build a tactical slot structure at planets (call it a hoshiko mine factory or something like that), and this structure comes with a minelaying frigate. This frigate can be destroyed but like the construction frigate, will automatically and (free of charge) immediately begin building again. Each frigate could field about, say, eight mines with a decent area of effect at any given time. You could upgrade mine damage and area of effect later on. Perhaps you could also put the mines on a setting where they don't detonate until you click a button (that way people don't just send some fighters flying past and you waste a mine on fighters).

I'd also suggest introducing a new minesweeper frigate to counteract this ability. It could, obviously, detect and destroy mines. It would have to be researched. It would cost antimatter to destroy one mine, so you would need to have quite a few minesweepers to get through a large minefield.
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homefleet
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Reply #6 April 10, 2008 11:12:59 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
One thing about those mines, in the show, was that they were part mine, part missile, and part starship

Mine part.

They could sit there like a mine, till an enemy ship was just right to attack.

Missile part

They just don't explode, but head to there targets, or wait till there target let down there guard and then move in for the kill, like a missile.

Ship part:

They can jump like a ship.

But I also understand that the defensive part of the gmae, needs to be increased.
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Kashgar
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #7 April 15, 2008 10:54:33 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
Long ago, in the days of dial-up and BBSs, I used to play a game called Tradewars 2002. Although it was text-based with a bit of ASCII art thrown in, it shares many similarities with SOASE. In that game there were mines. There were two types: regular ones that exploded when your ship came in contact with them, and limpet mines that attached to a ships hull. The limpet mines were like a tracking beacon that gave you the location of the ship it was attached to. The mines could be removed if you scanned your ship, detected it and had it removed. I think something similar could be implemented in SOASE.

I really like the idea of mine fields. Perhaps you could deploy them where they have an area of effect in a gravity well, similar to other structures like repairs bays and jump inhibitors. However, they should be able to be deployed from a ship so they can be present in planet gravity wells that aren't colonizable.
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Jotanhorn
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #8 April 15, 2008 11:14:04 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
I would reccomend reading the books by Jack Cambell's "Lost Fleet" series.
There are 3 books right now and they do a great job of explaining mine fields, realativistic effects and space combat in general. Granted in Sins, we are not fighting at 0.2 or 0.5 lightspeed, but you still get the idea of how the mines should be used.


I think we need the carriers to manufacture mines, but it should be a talent like rapid manufacturing. These mines would be a small cloud deployed in a set location like the TEC sova's missile launcher augmentation. That way you provide more strategic and tactical depth to this already awesome game.

Strategic depth is provided by being able to place minefields around jumplanes that your enemy might use to attack you, or his trade ships would use to increase tradelanes etc. this helps create more bottlenecks or force the enemy to build small, inexpensive ships to keep his more powerful ships from getting banged up before they even get started. This helps hinder rushes and can provide that little bit of extra kick to take out that last ship before your last one dies.

Tactical depth is provided by forcing the enemy to commit a larger number of resources to defeat a numericaly inferior force. mines give large battles in a single gravity well a little bit of room for manuvering because your opponent has to take a death trap in the face in order to get to you. This also would make raids on enemy planets more interesting because you can use embargo + minefields + strike craft raids on industrial targets = one seriously handicapped world for a minute or two.

All in all a good idea, however we would need to give the constructors of each side an ability to clear minefields in the gravity well, that way, you don't lose logistics to prefent something that may or may not happen. This gives the advantage to the gravity well owner in a seige or raid and balances quite well I think. Also I believe that the ability to lay mines should be reserved to the carrier cruiser ONLY. That way players might make a little different force composition and it would make carrier cruisers more useful other than sitting ducks with a single squad of strike craft.
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BowAndHammer
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #9 April 15, 2008 11:16:05 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums
GREAT IDEA !!!!
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