Mines & Attacking with Starbases

the ruiner kinda fucked yeah.

you could sap/sabotage the AM with light frigates but you are still left with a crapload of deadly, deadly mines

i'm not too worried about turtling because you can still go around a hard point.... if you can find a way through the mines anyway. Several thousands of resources in mines plus a bunch in a starbase means the enemy has that many less ships to fight you with soo *shrug*

the AI is quite a bit cleverer about penetrating your defenses now too, so be careful.

With starbases the way they are and every system being mined, almost everything will be a hard point after a while.    Of course, fleets will be huge too.

Seconded. With a tech upgrade.

Great idea.  Flak right now are half useless anyway.  Make it a research option and you are good to go.  Flaks are so meaty anyway that this would fit the ship beautifully.  I also agree mines in general are OP.  They are disgustingly powerful

excellent idea.  Make flak frigs minesweepers. 

Yeah the ruiner needs to be addressed.  Ruiner mines are free and the micro to use it without cluttering your marvelously created empire needs to be updated.  Personally I think mines should be limited to the outer ring of the gravwell only

flak ships should  do more vs fighters... like an extra damage / armor type     squads having Strike-craft armor  and flaks having anti-strike craft damage...

flaks being minesweepers is a good idea

this immediatly solves the problem of carrier spam with amassed mines, reven tough they do little.. they DO hit squads

Its not that mines are too powrful, its that there isnt a good counter. The flicker bug needs to be fixed if it hasnt already, and flaks should get minesweeping abilites. Lets face it: Flaks are half useless in combat now and scouts are totally useless. Why make them both half useless when you can make flaks 100% useful? You would still need scouts to SEE the mines, but flak would have a special researchable anti-mine ability that will clear out chunks of enemy mines.

^ that and they are too cheap. I like having really powerful mines, but not when they are everywhere! They should be used to funnel ships, by placing them in strategic locations.

I agree, the AI seems relentless in mining their systems, even when I have set it as a hard agressive. I think the starbase is fine, because they are reletively weak until you get a chance to upgrade it. My hard AI tried to build one in my system but I managed to take it out with 3 battleship before it could upgrade its weapons. from the player side, i feel that the starbase should allow 1-2 more add on at a exponentially higher cost, to the point where i could choose to give my starbase at a strategic system the extra upgrade, or build a whole new starbase in a different system.

I kinda agree with the turtling opinion. It took the hard Agressive AI about 2 hours before it would even attack.

I'm still playing through it in different factions, and throughly enjoying the beta of entrenchment

It took me a while to figure out how to sweep mines. Finally I figured it out (At least for TEC, should work for the Vas as well, Advent may be skrewed). If you make a fleet of nothing but scout frigs and flak frigs, they will make a nice, solid formation together instead of splitting into two lines. This can very easily be placed near a group of mines, and the flaks will tear them to ribbons in a matter of moments.

I'm noticing turtling by the computer as well. I built a custom map that has plenty of resources and all the AI does is build Starbases on every planet, mine it to cahoots and wait an hour. When it does attack it is much better though. I admit that!

Without taking advantage of neutral extractors though, I find the AI is still at a huge disadvantage.

Yeah, I was thinking to try this...I figured Flaks with Scouts would work.  A lot of my initial problems were from the mines "flickering".  Still, against Vasari at least, the whole gravwell will eventually be mined.  It is difficult to even jump ships in...you have to feed ships to the mines to give yourself an opening.  You are pretty much using a small task force to try to manage the problems caused by a couple minelayers.  Now, if you combine that with active defenses in the gravwell, plus minelayers trying to lay mines under you while you clean up the existing mines, it is pretty annoying.  Not to mention if you find a large ship eating starbase waiting for you.  Mines should probably damage friendly ships as well, because minefields are hard enough to counter without having a small enemy fleet in the gravwell.  You can't risk suiciding your own fleet, but your minesweeping groups get killed by the defenders.

i'm currius as to what you mean by this?

in vanilla sins you beat your enemy's fleet and then went on a ranpage throu his worlds, how is that strategy? imo the whole concept of blitzkrieg in space warfare is kinda hmmm.

atleast now there is time to rebuild a fleet and try to make a comeback

I understand the time factor argument ( not wanting to play for 12hours in a mp battle) but imo this is a bit faulty argument. If you want faster games play small maps, a 20star map shoud be an epic undertaking not a dang i lost my fleet /surender

in vanilla sins you beat your enemy's fleet and then went on a ranpage throu his worlds, how is that strategy? imo the whole concept of blitzkrieg in space warfare is kinda hmmm.

atleast now there is time to rebuild a fleet and try to make a comeback

I understand the time factor argument ( not wanting to play for 12hours in a mp battle) but imo this is a bit faulty argument. If you want faster games play small maps, a 20star map shoud be an epic undertaking not a dang i lost my fleet /surender

I wholeheartedly agree with this.  I've always hated the fact that if you start to lose, the enemy just rolls right over you.  Having some serious defensive structures to retreat behind will allow you to regroup and retake lost planets.  I am loving the more tactical nature of the new hangars and turrets.  The starbases still need a bit of work, but if they get increased range, slower build times, and the ability to scuttle upgrades and replace them with others, then they would be perfect I think.

Awesome idea!  Upgrade should let them not only distroy mines, but also detect/unphase them as well.

Out of curiosity... if anyone is playing Vasari:

1) They reduced the cost of the mega-gun to 1800 (from 8000)

2) Has anyone tried to fire this at a system that is mined?  Wouldn't this or shouldn't this wipe out all mines?

What about an economic counter?  Mining your system heavily creates navigational hazards for your trade and refinery ships.

For example, Each cluster of mines covers, say for the sake of this example, 5% of the grav well.  Once a threshold has been reached, say, 20% of the grav well, trade suffers a 10% penalty.  The next threshold would be 50% of the grav well, with trade being reduced 25%.  And so on, for maybe 1 or 2 more iterations.  Basically, mining everywhere would destroy trade, while using it strategically would allow you to use some mines with a minimum of effect on cvilian ships. 

Another way to think of it is like a castle.  While the drawbridge is up and the walls solid, enemy soldiers aren't getting in, but trade goods aren't coming in or leaving either.

I like the idea of the flak frigates being mine clearers(with a mid-level tech) and even being able to see mines at very close range(high level or faction specific).  Scouts should be given a boost in detection range(or a low level 2 tier upgrade or faction based), to keep them useful.  I also like the idea of the kostura cannon as a mine disabler.  It wouldn't destroy mines, just their cloaking devices, so the defender would be forced to scuttle and rebuild the field if he wanted them to be cloaked again.

The one problem with that is that space is extremely vast. The probablilty of a ship running into a mine even without IFF is extremely low, and the trade ships should have everything marked for them by the Navy. Give mines a limited mobility capability, and the chance of them hitting anything that you didn't target for them are even lower. And, if you need to, you can clear away mines.

@ people who are complaining about being rushed by minelayers: Use bombers and Heavy Cruisers to clear the way for your cap ships. Don't just send them through in the first wave and hope for the best. There are always counters, you just have to try them against a friend.

On the kostura, couldn't a Novalith also be used? I think the idea is to launch either a single, extremely powerful bomb, or millions of small bombs, to smother a target. So, why not use mines to soak up the fire of a Novalith/Kostura? That way, the industry is untouched, but you lost plenty of mines, and probably any mineslayers nearby, allowing for an assault by your fleet.

Yes, I know space is vast.  But even we have problems in our own local space with floating junk.  I just put it out there as an "in-universe" idea for limiting the spamming of mines, by giving you an economic incentive to not mining heavily.  If you spam mines, great, but you just cut off trade.  I dunno, to me a consequence like that, with an explanation, is better than just putting an arbitrary number limit on mines/mine fields.

Besides, giving the codes to civilian ships is a bad idea.  Say you had a trade agreement with an enemy.  His trade ships now have the codes to locate/deactivate your mines.  Wouldn't those trade ships immediately give them to the enemy Fleet Intelligence?

The novalith fires one massive bomb.  I forget whether it damages ships and orbital structures, though.  If so, I don't see why it wouldn't also damage mines.  Maybe only mines that were placed close to point of impact.

Whos to say you can't use the blitzkrieg tactic in space? Break through the enemy lines into relatively weakly defended areas, and rape his worlds, forcing him either to attack and do the same to your worlds, or draw his fleet back to deal with you. If he takes long enough to decide, or if his fleet is far away, you can take several of his worlds before his fleet gets there. Mines might damage his fleet a little, but thats why you have heavy cruisers and light frigates to sacrifice in exchange for sweeping those mines, especially since scout frigates are now prime targets for bombers and light frigates, as well as flak frigates. (By the way, I've always thought that flak frigates, with their heavy armor and high hp, are more useful escorting carriers against light frigates, or providing an escort for capital ships that doesn't cost as much as a Heavy Cruiser, and is much more effective than a light frigate. Besides, enough flak frigates can sweep the area around them clean of fighters and bombers.

We have problems with space junk because Earth is large enough to effect them. A single mine wouldn't. Who says that you wouldn't just clear a small path for the allied trade ships to pass through? I never said that they would have the codes for deactivating the mines anyway.

or for instance, you could give them intentonally wrong locations for the mines...

Mines wouldn't be detonated by a friendly ship.  That would be nuts.  IFF would certainly prevent that.  I don't think mines are overpowered as it stands now, at least not TEC mines.  I haven't dealt with the others much yet.  I think scout detection range might need to be bumped up a little, but sending some scouts with your fleet will let them see and fire on the mines.  I agree that it would probably be a good idea to have an upgrade for flaks that would let them destroy mines, but then you're taking that ability away from scouts, which it really makes sense for.  Maybe just increase the damage that flaks do against mines, so that they, along with scouts for spotting, could clear out minefields more quickly.

First of all, most people get rolled over because they sit there and watch there fleet get annihilated instead of falling back to world with repair bays and system defenses to help them hold the line. 

What I meant was it was possible to have different strategies other than everyone dig in and chip away at the enemy positions bit by bit.  I enjoyed using multi-fleet strategies.  I will probably still try to use them when I can, I won an entrenchment game last night by holding one front while a small raiding fleet destroyed another front that had not been fortified yet.  Eventually all fronts will be fortified, and it will be kind of painstaking to take the last worlds if the person does not wish to surrender.  Fine for single player but tedious for multiplay.

20 STAR??? Do you mean 20 planet?  20 planet is a 4 player map??  50 planet, 1-3 star is a 8-10 player map.  50 planet games generally took about 2 hours to finish which is the upper end of what most people can handle.  20 planet games took about 1 hour.  One of the 20 planet, 4 player Entrenchment games I played went 2 hours without either team achieving a decisive advantage, then it crashed.  I'm seeing games take roughly twice as long to play with Entrenchment.  The Epic 20 star games are the realm of Single Player, and groups of friends who meet regularly to complete their campaigns.

I don't think mines should be detonated by friendly ships, but they should certainly hurt friendly ships if they do detonate.  It is very annoying to be trying to clear mines and be attacked by ships of the other player, not to mention suicidal minelayers.  Then when the mine detonates, the enemy ships are all ok while yours all die.  And I'm not really complaining about TEC mines or even Advent mines....wait until you run into someone using Vasari mines on you. 

I understand that there's a difference in what works well for short games vs. what works well for long games.  IMO that's going to be the toughest problem to solve, as they are just 2 different styles of game.  Short games to me are more like traditional RTS games, which I really don't enjoy because it becomes all about build order, short-term resource management and rushing.  Longer games played with more effective defenses end up requiring more strategy and better tactics.  Completely different styles of play going on.  It's tough to satisfy both, but that's what needs to be done here.

True.  I think we're going to need very different solutions for the mine issue for each side, and we shouldn't be looking for "one-size" solutions to the problems.  I think the TEC issues are the easiest to solve, as their methods are simple and confined to gravity wells they control.  Advent and Vasari have somewhat more complicated problems.  I'm playing a new game now to experiment with them.

I'm having fun with the power of the mines themselves for now, at least for TEC.

Vasari minelayers are way too OP for me. I'm thinking the shields/hp should be dropped on those by at least 25% to try and prevent them from just running into the middle of a fleet and dropping mines.

And like so many others have said, the detection range for the scouts needs to upgraded either by default or spending a research point in t2 or t3, along with upgrading flaks to have anti-mine capability.

As it stands now, I worked out a strategy of suiciding scouts to defeat advent mines. Although, it does take some micro managing since you're plotting a course for the scout to drag a lot of mines then letting them kill the ship. Trying to just detect them normally sucks due to the detection range of the scout and the big range the homing mines seems to have.