Hey boys and girls!

I'm writing to you to talk about that one thing that many of us feel uncomfortable with.  It's that intimate relationship between a spikey little explosive thing and the movements of units!

Now, a lot of us might be uncomfortable talking about this subject - well - don't you fret just yet cause' I won't get into all the nitty gritty details - just the things you should know.

First of all, when a young and inexperienced little ship enters a new system and sees these little beauties floating about in space, he may not know what to think of em'.  Still, this young ship should always use proper precautions when navigating themselves at this point in their lives as to avoid a volatile incident with lil' miss mine.

Unfortunately for most of these brats they just don't know what they're getting into and they jump themselves right into a predicament.

</cowboyaccent>

Ok, now that I'm done writing informative rubbish, some basic points:

1. The ship movement AI in Sins needs a revamping to make ships attempt to avoid mines they can see.  In fact, having 3 modes of avoidment in fleet menu might not be a bad idea.  For example: stay clear of mines, attempt to avoid mines, or a "wreckless" mode that the player can choose from.
2. Mines need to nerfed.  Encrusting a gravity well with an incomprehensible number of mines just shouldn't be an option available to anyone.  Maybe make each mine a structure rather than another entity - structures that need a large amount of space to be deployed.
   
3. Mines need to decay or should be able to be shot at when seen.  Something along those lines.

Take these pictures as an example:

Not So Bad:

Bad, Very Very Bad:

Actually the second picture used to be much worse. My fleet pop used to be zero and the list on the left didn't even reach the squadrons.  After going through the lower half of the mine field in the second picture, it went back up to about 428.  Carelessness on my part?  Yes.  A little ridiculous that there were that many mines in the first place? Also yes.

I didn't write this to mock anything or anyone, but mines are extremely easy to exploit right now - especially Vasari and Advent mines.  Just think something like a build limit, or placement distance between them, or some other nerf needs to be implemented.

Thanks and have a good one.