The gravity well that took 40 minutes to clear was completely inundated with mines. I had 7 level 4 capital ships to start with (Mass Transcendence got them there/synced) and when I finished clearing the gravity well the cap ships were almost level 8 from the experience (divided 7 ways!) This was after the host disconnected as we were mopping up a game, so I was all teched up. I had the 7 cap ships, 12 illuminator vessels (which seem to be able to shoot mines), a line of 5 scouts to spot, and some other ships that may or may not have been able to target them.

I wouldn't really mind if there was some kind of cap on mines, there were thousands in this gravity well (maybe it is what caused the host crash.)

I have been trying to self-limit my mine deployments to 4 or 5 squad clusters in systems I'm defending due to the obvious detriment syncing 23402978 mines has on the multiplayer situation, so to see the AI going nuts with thousands of mines (even during offensive actions) is kind of disheartening.

The problem with the Advent mines isn't that they autodeploy so much as there is no good default action. If you toggle off autodeployment for the Homing Mind Squadron, they become more usable. By default, any scout zooming into your system from an enemy will result in the mines deploying on top of the hangar.. I don't consider it to be a big problem, except that when compared to the incredible swarm of mines those Ruiners spit out (and their auto deployment action!) completely dwarfs the time investment of manually managing Advent mine deployment.

The mines themselves do have some kind of 3d space element, as I saw when trying to clear them, but it only seems to come into play with very large densities of mines.

Edit: To clarify, I like the way the Advent mines work, and I like managing defenses, but it seems like parity of functionality between the races is not even close. I suppose over time, or if I was AI, I could have a ridiculous number of low cost mines as Advent as well though.

It would be great if you could at least detect mines in orbit around friendly planets without scouts... my homeworld was attacked by Vasari and I had to spend 10 minutes mopping up mines (they had Ruiners in their fleet and threw out a hundred or so during the attack.)

only things that need to be done about mines is:

invisible to every ship but scout:

reduced CPU useage

reduce max ammount of mines that can be in one grav well ( should still be possible to deploy alot tho)

Thing is, at least with TEC anyways. Is the mines are only effective as a defensive strategy in numbers. I've seen whole fleets pass thru with only a couple casualties. Until you thickin the field up. I think just an effective counter would work wonders.

i have an idea!!!

DONT Run your fleet into minefield and expect to live, you know mines are there not for you to pickup

Ships blithely waltzing through known minefields shouldn't happen; it breaks immersion unless we suppose that everybody's devolved into technically-gifted idiot savants.

Thinking about mines in space:

- Space is big.

- It is not particularly logical that an expensive space-faring warship wouldn't be bristling with sensors -- detecting various forms of radiation, both passive and emissive.  And since even small objects moving at high velocity might be dangerous, they're going to be monitoring all sorts of things.

- Any sane ship captain is going to seriously scan space junk, if said space junk has a tendency to conceal command-detonated fusion bombs are the like.  And if a mine is using power, it's building up heat which is going to be radiated away at some point.  Given that most space junk should be cold, this should be fairly suspicious even if the mine isn't using any active detection methods, moving, or communicating.

- Ordinance is basically free in the _Sins_ universe, so a paranoid captain has little reason to be stingy with fusion bombs or the like for clearing volumes of space of potentially threatening objects.

- 'Space junk in phase space' might excuse not being able to shoot at it, but is definitely not going to be treated as innocent and something to blithely pass by.  Inert 'safe' objects shouldn't be staying in phase space...

As I see it, in most situations a known minefield may cost substantial time and firepower to clear (thus possibly making it worthwhile to go elsewhere -- area denial -- or compounding danger because there's something else firing on you while you're trying to clear the mine.  Think carriers on the other side of the grav well harrassing you with strikecraft while you attempt to clear the field so you can reach them, for instance.).  Actual casualties directly from the minefield itself should be fairly limited unless it's a newly seen field, or a betrayal (known 'friendly' field being command-detonated on you as the owner backstabs you), or where you landed right in it (e.g. immediately being within effective lethal radius upon leaving phase space or wormhole).