Shouldn't scouts be ignored by mines?

Well if they didn't then you could just  fly it over the mines to blow them all up Granted dealing with mines take too long now, but a scout immune to them probably isn't the best solution

I believe what is being said is: Mines shouldn't be able to "see" scouts.

Granted, a scout could actually clear mines given the above, but with its low firepower, it wouldn't be a worthwhile investment of time.  On the other hand, it wouldn't need to be micromanaged-assuming the scout was smart enough to fire on mines it "uncovered", anyway.

But, again, when you hit thousands of mines per planet, it doesn't matter.

It's hard for scouts to set mines off unless it is a vasari minefield in which case it is then probable. Scouts being so small and fast are effective when at taking mines out in clusters when you build about 30 of them. Unfortunately they need to be told to move from cluster to cluster with auto attack on or they will just ignore them. But back to the point no I don't believe that would be the right thing to do and make them immune to mines.

EDIT: actually no on second thought I think they should be immune. The only argument would be the Advent's mines are "homing"....

i agree they should be immune

Or how about instead of just being immune, mines can ONLY deal shield damage to scouts.  It'd at least make them somewhat vulnerable so you can't just use them to detonate all mines in a still active enemy territory b/c they'd just get picked off by something else in the well easily right after.

Let me try again.

Mines should ignore scouts.  They should not blow up when a scout passes by-as they seem to not blow up when strikecraft passes by.  (Has anyone been able to blow up mines by running strikecraft through them, without making them vulnerable to fire via scouts?)

I have a scout.  I fly it over a bunch of mines.  The mines do not blow up.  The mines do become vulnerable to being fired upon.

If I send in another ship with the scout, the mines won't blow up on the scout, but will blow up on the other ship.

I don't see this solution as overpowered because scouts have very low firepower and it would require a considerable amount of time for a scout-or even a number of them-to take out a minefield...particularly the minefields the size of which we've been seeing.

I agree that scouts should be immune as well.

Yeah, that pretty much what I meant, heh.

I need to check how the mines detonate later. If it's how I think, then making them ignore scouts isn't feasible. Generally, the valid targets for abilities and such are the entity types (frigate, capital, fighter, planet, etc). It doesn't break down on a by-ship basis, so anything that can target a frigate can target anything from a colony ship to a heavy cruiser. So if mines exploding is done through an ability (valid target enters range sort of thing), then I doubt excluding scouts can happen.

It's a good idea (and "scouts should be immune" implies they trigger the mines but take no damage, quite a bit different than "scouts shouldn't trigger mines" :P), I'm just worried about the engine limitation. Will have to peek at the mine entities.

how about rather than immune there be an option to research a mine sweeping ability on scouts to have them double as mine sweepers like you would in a current navy (to my knowledge navy minesweepers serve as detecters and sweepers) which would serve extra use in making scouts more useful

i mean obviously the devs would have to be bloody careful how they incorporated the idea because you dont wanna ship that makes mine fields useless but erm i hope people at least see what am getting at

scout goes in, scout detects mines, scout or group of scouts clears what it can before the local defenses respond, obviously they could still be destroyed like any other ship but they wouldnt be completely wasted

Well, I double checked on the mines and they do indeed detonate as an ability:

targetFilter
    numOwnerships 1
    ownership "Enemy"
    numObjects 4
    object "Frigate"
    object "CapitalShip"
    object "PlanetModule"
    object "StarBase"

Which basically means there's no way to single out scouts as not triggering them, because scouts are part of the Frigate object

Right now, there needs to have the scouts "somehow" immune to the mines attack.  I just had some homing mines chasing a small task force of scouts around a system while I tried to figure out how to have the other 3 fleets of caps/squadrons/frigates/cruisers attack the mines.  The mines would chase the scouts around, I would lead the mines on a merry chase (it IS Christmas, you know) through the middle of my other fleets and NOTHING would actually attack the mines.  I could see something vectoring when I hit the 'alt' key, but but the mines just keep chasing the scouts, I waste all my time trying to get something to attack the mines and the rest of my fleets get chewed up because I'm trying to get a couple of mine shot at.  Meanwhile, there are a couple of hundred more mines in that system just waiting.

While the mines are a good idea, esp. for defense, there needs to be some serious tweaking done.

pek

Well, here's the sucky part. The Vasari and Advent mines have their own "SpaceMine" entity type, which means it should be a valid object for a TargetFilter if there was an ability made for the scouts themselves to diffuse the mines (which I think would solve a lot of issues).

You could just attach a damage-over-time effect to the mine detection ability (and maybe limit the number of mines hit by it so a single scout wouldn't be able to knock out a big stack of mines too quickly) that only targets the SpaceMine entity... but the TEC mines are Orbital Structures, not SpaceMines, so that whole idea falls apart.

It's kind of a shame, because to me making the scouts themselves disarm the mines would be the most ideal solution. You'd have to use them as forward mine sweepers, and if it takes a few seconds to destroy all the mines in their detection radius, the enemy has a chance to kill the scouts and at the same time your fleet doesn't have to babysit the mine fields themselves.

Simple solution: Make the TEC mines SpaceMine as well.  Turn the current TEC mine implementation into an in-gravity well minelayer (ala the construction frigates).

Might be difficult to have it have a credit/resource cost at that point, but neither Advent nor Vasari has a credit/resource cost per, either.  I'm of the opinion a cost per isn't the best way to deal with the spam, anyway, although obviously there needs to be some kind of limit-even with a minesweeper.

I, personally, don't want to deal with planets with >5k mines in the gravity well ever again.

Yeah, to turn the TEC mines into SpaceMine they would not be able to be built the way they are now, it would need either a building to deploy them or a ship. I also did make the assumption that SpaceMine would be a valid object in a target filter for an ability, since it is a separate entities and so far every other entity can go in there.

Uh... why should scouts be immune to mines? 

I agree that scout AI should be smart enough to AVOID mines, but if they hit them, they should absolutely detonate and take damage.   If you're dumb enough to park in the middle of a field of homing mines, you should die.

What should happen is that ALL ships should avoid detected mines, and scouts just happen to detect and map all mines within its detection radius.  So in theory, it should detect and dodge any mine it encounters. Scouts should also have a greater mine detection radius than the mines have home-in-on-you radius.

Success rate will/should vary with maneuvering speed.

If you're looking for a way to use the scout as a minesweeper by ramming mines, I would prefer to see mine destroying weapons mounted on the scout. (of the one-shot-one-kill variety)

Because currently it's impossible to sweep mines without intense micromanagement.

Have you not run into >3k mines per gravity well yet?

Scouts also need for their detection range to be increased.

My personal theory for why "realistically" scouts wouldn't detonate the mines is that they're traveling fast enough to 1) not detonate the mines or 2) the mines are smart enough to know even if they detonate on a scout they won't catch it.

I base this off mines not detonating on fighters/bombers, and the scout is the third fastest unit in the game (barring Vasari speed buffs or Kodiak's ability), although it is admittedly much slower than fighters/bombers, so it makes a moderate amount of sense from a realism standpoint as well.

But, basically, scouts detect mines, so why would a scout run over one?

Explain to me how being immune to mines is any different than "dodging" them.

Maybe we're talking about two different types of immune, here.  All I'm saying is that scouts shouldn't detonate mines.  I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't take any damage from them.

If you'll read up, you'll see that I said that if another ship is accompanying the scout, it should detonate the mine.  If a scout is in the blast radius, it should most certainly take damage.

I can buy strikecraft not detonating mines.

But Scouts are frigates, big ships with lots of crew. They should go boom but be smart enough to avoid them since they can detect them.

First, the insane amount of Vasari and Advent mines should be addressed. After that the clearing of mines shouldn't be as much of an issue.

Again, how is not detonating them different from "dodging" them?  From a gameplay perspective, at least.  From my perspective, it allows approximately the same solution to be implemented with less coding.

I said they should go boom-if another ship is present to detonate the mine(s) in question.

I think we can all agree on that last point.

I mean that scouts shouldn't be allowed to fly through minefields.

One use for a minefield should be just that - prevent Scouts from getting intel on your systems or at least make it more costly to get it.

Right -- avoiding minefields and being immune to them are two completely different things.  Avoiding them means you can only pass if you can find a safe path AROUND the minefield or clear a path through it.  Being immune means you can ignore it and charge straight through it with no delay or other penalty, which is absurd.

I agree the mines need work (See also other threads on this subject), but granting immunity to certain frigates is not the solution.