Mines - Suggestion

I've mentioned this in another thread, but I think it's legit enough to put here too:

I think it'd be awesome if there could be a tactical structure that could auto-deploy mines to a specified location for you. This structure would also have the capability of slowly replacing "used" exploded mines autonomously, but each of these structures could only maintain a certain number of mines. (10, 50, 100, whatever balances the best).

This makes mines less of a micro-management thing as well as the whole "OMG 1000s of mines" kinda thing that also take forever to clear and seem to bog down a lot of computers graphically.

I think the mines are horrible, and they are impossible to clear. The fact that they phase in and out all the times makes them impossible to clear. Played againt the comp today with a friend of mine and there was a lot, and i mean a lot of mines in his system. I think the amount of mines one ship can deploy should be limited, the sweep area of scouts increased and no flashing phase out thing which makes them impossible to clear. Might be worth lowering their duration too.

As I said in another thread, allowing players to turn on/off mine deployment (like we can pirates) when setting up a game is a must. In larger longer games the mines make it a tedious chore to advance, and slow the game speed down a lot. (processing speed I mean, not just playing pace)

At the very least mines need to be changed so they are easier to clear, and there being a limit cap on the max amount of mines a player can have deployed over all if their systems. (this way you have to strategically choose which planets to protect with mines making them a more tactical weapon then a spamming one)

Also making it a prerequiste of only being able to deploy them in system you have colonized would help cut down on the mine spam we're seeing form the AI. (and any remaining auto destruct when another player seizes control of that system.)

Honestly if the option to turn them off isn't made available from the game set up screen then leaving them out all togther is the best alternative. Even though they're fun on small maps, larger maps are pretty much unplayable since their addtion. (and I suspect are the culprits behind so many desynchs)

Mines need to go the way of the DoDo bird!!  I have enough of a hard time clearing mines on an enemy planet before I can even BEGIN to attack a planet proper!!!  Then I see new mines popping up right next to my carriers which are then trapped!!!!!! 

Mines are broken (clearing them anyway) and are MAJOR game breakers!!!!!

i think mines are a great addition to the game because one of the majoy problems with the game on large maps for me its nearly impossible to win a game against a intellegent player. The mines allow for easy defence if your fleet is occupied elseware.

There does seem to be a problem with themines slowing down computers though and having graphical display errors when there are 100's of mines in a single system.

1. have a option to display/not display mines when viewing the galaxy, this way with nothing to display it wont effect the game play and cpu usage.

2. There has to be a option to dissamble your own mines because ships start deploying them as they come out of the shipyards which is messey.

3. As i said i love the mines - there does not need to be a limit but have one capital ship from each race have a special weapon where the capital ship just spams and fires its weapons randomly (loads of low powered blasts in rapid succession) as a method of clearing mines. It makes them less of a game stopper while still signifigantly slowing down enemy fleet progression

Mines should NOT have a timer. It would mean that defenders would have to constantly remine areas which would be very annoying.

Having an option to turn off mines would be stupid. Thats like saying having an option to turn off carriers.

Give them a cap per grav-well, thats all they need.

No, it'd be more like having the option to turn off pirates. If mines stay as game breaking as they are right now, turning them off should be an option.

If mines stay as broken as they are, it'd be the height of stupidity to spend time coding a toggle to use them at all.  For all the toggle advocates, let me just restate that it's never going to happen.

IC is working on revamping the mines system.  Make coherent suggestions on how to improve them and you improve your chances of enjoying them in the final version.

It's never going to happen unless the people who really really despise the way mines change gameplay make it clear that they hate how mines change gameplay and want to play without them, no.

If enough people say that? Who knows. Most of the suggestions to "fix" mines right now don't actually fix any of the problems that make mines broken and not fun. They just automate the tedium, so instead of very slowly moving through a system to clear them yourself, the AI moves very slowly through a system to clear them and you can watch. That's not really fixing the problem: mines don't work that well with the rest of the gameplay in Sins.

Wow that is a great idea i like it alot. Build it like any other building and them set the area for mines to be deployed but not in a circle but in a big gentle curve.

Like a ( you pick the location of it within a range of the building.

That's where you could have stopped writing.  Mines will be in Entrenchment and IC has said nothing to the contrary indicating about how they've just given up, woe is them, they can't figure out any way to make them better than they are now.

I agree with this and in fact had a similar post a while back:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/333941/page/2/#replies

See reply#29.

Some type of limit has to be put on mine deployment to prevent the computer from spamming them and to prevent the game from lagging.

I feel that this is also doable without interfering with game balance.  Besides, I feel that when it comes to space, any mine aside from homing mines is just plain unrealistic.  Even when placed in orbit around a planet, the distance would just be too great to hope that someone would happen to blunder into a drifting mine field (also in the post mentioned above).

As far as clearing the mines out, I played a game a while back where the minelayer also had the equipment to detect and remove mines as well.  You just had to select the "clear mines" function and it would automatically clear the area selected (and it used a laser to do this, which just plain looked cool).  Another option could be to have a ship equipped with a weapon with a large area of effect (which could be equipped by default or reasearched), such as a missile with a large fragmentation warhead that would send out large numbers of fragments to impact and detonate mines over a decent-sized area.  Or you could do some research that allowed you to upgrade your scouts into minesweepers, arming them with not just the ability to detect mines, but with one of the above mentioned weapons.  Not only does this keep players from discarding their scouts later in the game, but it also makes them MORE valuable.  Also, having the scouts with the ability to detect AND remove mines decreases micromanagement since they could be set on "auto explore".

Maybe the devs shoudl take a look at the homeworld series and mimic how they implemented mines? In homeworld you  could blast mines with pretty much any vessel that came within weapons range, however because 10+ mines could lock onto a vessel at a time getting them all before 2-4 got through and hit a ship they were still a threat. Combine this with some upper limit # of mines per gravity well and it might go a long way towards fixing the issue.