I like the idea of densly packed mines "snowballing" It seems like a pretty good way to balance mines. And it would be really fun to build a ton of them in one place and then watch them all explode. The only problem I can see is impementation. The mines are invulnerable until detected, so they can't be damaged by other mines. If you get rid of their invulnerablity you don't need to reveal them, you can just shoot them.

The other thing mines really need is a scuttle/self destruct option. I was in a game as the TEC, and their was an Advent right next to me. From my scouts, I learned that they were building a massive fleet to attack one of my planets next to theirs, so I built a ton of mines on my planet. They jumped in, and 3/4s of their fleet was destoyed, and the rest was destroyed quickly after. With their whole fleet gone, I used my fleet to smash all their planets and defeat them. Now I have a planet that still has a ton of mines on it, but it is in no danger of getting attacked. It totally slows my computer down, and I can't get rid of them. You can't scuttle them.

I think mines should be an option (just like pirates have become).  I was playing a game tonight and just had to stop because it was a medium sized map and eventually got to the point where attacking an enemy gravity well became impossible because there were so many mines.  I had a huge fleet and 6 scouts.  This wasn't even enough.  Almost my entire fleet got destroyed.  Then, because there are random ships in the area, my units weren't smart enough to figure out to attack the mines first because they are in the way.  So they bludgeon past them in order to get to the enemy ships and get destroyed.  It's was essentially a stalemate so I just stopped playing.  I'll try the other factions but unless this mine issue is dealt with soon, I won't be playing much of the beta.

The bottom line is mines need to be easier to destroy AND they need to be limited.

I like the idea that Mine Fields slow down friendlies that move past/through them. I also like the idea that mines in close proximity to other mines can cause collateral mine damage when they detonate. I would add the following idea:

Fighters and perhaps Bombers do not set off Mines, or at least they take far less damage, being more nimble and more able to evade sudden hazards. Think of Mines as being made to counter movement of larger starships. Fighters and perhaps Bombers - but especially Fighters - could excel at hunting & killing Mines, as long as they are detected by Scout vessels. This would also add more depth to Fighter units.

I could stomach a minor resource cost per mine layed, although I`ve never really liked that idea. If a cost were to be associated with Mines it definitely ought to be very small... something that has a minimal impact upon operations with a single Minelayer active, but which adds up with multiples operating (the point being not to prevent saturation Mining, but to prevent easy saturation Mining in short periods of time of multiple sectors). I`d definitely implement the previous suggestions first though before tagging a resource/credit cost to the issue.

The best solution I can think of is to just make it easier to kill mines.  Obviously it can't be too easy, or there won't be any point in building them in the first place, but I suspect that if mines were auto-targetted properly and revealed as long as the Scout is around rather than whatever it is they're doing now, that would solve quite a bit of the problem.

Or perhaps another solution would be to make the Vasari mines, at least, cost more antimatter.  I can't speak for the Advent--haven't tried them out yet in Entrenchment--but the Vasari's mines do seem a bit cheap.  Perhaps something like making the cruiser build a field of mines for a moderate antimatter sum would fix that?  It'd mean you can't place as many because 1) they'd be more expensive and 2) you can't cluster them as closely.

I also liked WarlokLord's idea of making fighters anti-mine, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here and point out that then you can just send one scout around and clear out the mines with zero danger to your actual fleet, assuming you have a few carriers.  Perhaps something along the lines of making mines more like fighters--lower health, easier to kill--would work well.

Then again, the TEC's mines seem fine as is, since they're fairly expensive.  Maybe with a proper targetting system the TEC mines could remain the way they are, and and Vasari's could be treated as fields for placing purposes.  I'll have to test the Advent's over the next few days and see what I think.

tl;dr version: Proper mine-targetting and placing Vasari mines as clusters might fix this.

SNOWBALLING? no I dont think this would be possible becuase ALL mines are Phased out. they must be in range of something to detect and must bet set to AUTO if you dfetect it, or can be manually detonated assuming a shiop is nearby. It doesn't even make sense that they would snowball if you think about it.

Cost per mine layed? well TEC has to pay per field already, and I really think that it is FAR too expensive, but I dont understand how you would quantify a cost for mines from a mine layer. I mean I usualyl just make a predesignated path for the layer to follow and let the thing go for the whole game until the system gets attacked. that could add up, and I'm not real thrilled about the prospect of money being drained like that.

No, honestly I think the fix is THIS, YOUR MINES IF DETONATED NEAR YOUR SHIPS OR YOUR BUILDING DAMAGE YOUR STUFF. that way if I'm offworld I can suicide into an NME mine field and destroy anything he has too close to the blast raduis of mines.

As far as clearing mine fields it is very easy for advent to clear using illusions from illuminators. I agree that fighters should excel at mine hunting, but only with the presense of a scout, but disagree about strike craft NOT being able to set them off with general proximity. If I want to suicide my strike craft into mines I should be able to do that more effectively than shoot them. They are expendable and free to create. ALSO I dont see why some strike craft shouls be able to simply fly right thru my mine field without taking any damage. This only encourages carrier spammers.

ALSO does it or does it not defeat the purpose of having phased out mines if everyone can see them without the scout ship being nearby. SEriosuly? come on give me SOMEthing that i can make double blind.

Scouts should reveal a much larger area of mines. The should be a limit on the no. of mines deployed at one time in any given gravwell. Mines should NOT be visible without scouts.

In the case of the Vasari, Ruiners should have a limit as to how many mines they can deploy at a time. Kind of like how the Vulkoras can only deploy 3 seige platfroms at a time. If 1 extra mine is placed, then one mine will self-destruct.

TEC mines taking up tactical slots makes sense.

How about vasari mines requiring support slots (might have the wrong name, I'm referring to your fleet total, with each group of mines costing as much as a frigate to deploy. The deploying ship is basically a mobile factory that can only generate mines.

Haven't played advent yet, so cannot venture a reasonable opinion.

It works now. I can scuttle them. I don't know why it wasn't working before.

It was because of my Flaming Ninjas, Kyroge.

Samurye.

I really agree with brad207. That's actually what I envisioned from the beginning (I don't have the beta, so I can't tell exactly) but the ideas he posed really make sense.

We're not looking for simple fixes though, and that wouldn't be a fix anyway.  They need to be tweaked and balanced, not turned off.