Clearing mines

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Sure - that's the point.

The reason for a minesweeper is to reduce micromanagement and tedium, not reduce the ability to place mines (even to the point of significantly impairing mobility).

Perhaps instead of being made as a weak ship, the ability would merely take a while to use. Not so useful for quick strikes, but in a drawn out assult, it would definitely make a difference to have minesweepers.

Just a thought.

Sure, I agree that the point of placing mines is to reduce mobility. But like I stated before, every move should have a counter-move. And currently, there's no way to clear a mine field without just ramming ships through it. The reason for a minesweeper is NOT just to reduce micromanagement and tedium. The purpose of a minesweeper is to add balance to a game. Minesweepers don't reduce the ability to place mines (although that could be an interesting level-up ability if that function was added to a Cap ship). They ensure that a system that I've captured and held for hours of gametime actually looks like MY system, not the Vasari's (and I can move my ships around my system without worrying about them getting blown to smithereens by a faction that's been wiped off the board).

You could just give the ability to destroy more mines to the Flak and Siege Frigates but Leave it as a researchable ability, a research station or two beyond the mines ability. It could be called phased rounds and do as the name suggests, launch phased round or weapons. You could explain them being different from Vasari phase shifted missiles  as they only have the ability to enter phase space, not exit it and cause damage. This would allow them to act as an effective defence, if only for a while. If you capture a planet. I think we should have the ability to remove all mines and capture all civilian structures, while destroying the military structures(mines are included). You could always make it so that you need a starbase to activate mines as the phase cloak things disrupts their scanners. Though you should have at max a 50/50 chance of destroying the mines.

This boils down to the purpose I proscribed - reducing micromanagement and tedium.  Without the minesweeper, you can still do all the things you said (ensure that the system looks like YOUR system, blah blah) - the problem is, it will require a lot of micro and tedium for you.  With the minesweeper, you automate the micro and tedium away.

In case your not aware, there gonna be a new update soon to address the problems with Entrenchment.

And they do not need a mine sweeper ship. They currently have 2 ship that IMO are perfect for minesweaping. Flak and/or scout. Granted the CURRENT build does have it at an imbalanced. So, be calm and wait for the update then lets go from there. Ironclad is 999.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% aware of the mine issue.

Why bother making a custom ship? Just have the mines cleared automatically after you have control of the planet (and there are no remaining enemy forces that are not mines). Have the clearing process start slow and accelerate.

If this were the case then perhaps the ability to clear mines could be added to the construction drones.

I have to disagree with you. This does not boil down to what you described. There's a difference between micromanagement and tedium in which you have to move a ship able to clear mines (without taking damage because this is what it's designed to do) from field, to field, to field, until all minefields are cleared from a system, and doing the same thing with a ship that is able to clear mines ONLY by taking damage to the shields and hull. This opens said ship up to destruction by the mines or at least damage that may become a sudden liability if said system is attacked (and the capital ship anchoring the fleet is damaged from clearing mines by ramming into them).

Micromanagement and tedium refer to whether or not the mine clearing is automated or needs to be manually directed by the player. I'm not even addressing that issue. What I'm concerned with is how the field is cleared (ship capabilities), not who's doing it (manually by the player or automated by the computer).

I hope the new update to Entrenchment truly does address the imbalance of the mine issue properly.

Is it just me or does the AI in beta 2 not use mines as much as before?  I mean, that's good because I don't want to be mine spammed, but in the game I was playing they didn't use any...

Only TEC uses mines in beta 2. Advent and Vasari are temporarily disabled until we verify the new placement method is satisfactory.

<<There's a difference between micromanagement and tedium in which you have to move a ship able to clear mines (without taking damage because this is what it's designed to do) from field, to field, to field, until all minefields are cleared from a system, and doing the same thing with a ship that is able to clear mines ONLY by taking damage to the shields and hull.>>

I have no earthly idea what you are talking about.  Sure, there is a difference between the two things you said.  Thing is, nobody has proposed the second thing you said.

I'm not sure I proposed the first thing you said either.  The ship I proposed wouldn't have to be manually moved from field to field to field, unless all those fields were on different planets.

<<Micromanagement and tedium refer to whether or not the mine clearing is automated or needs to be manually directed by the player. I'm not even addressing that issue. What I'm concerned with is how the field is cleared (ship capabilities), not who's doing it (manually by the player or automated by the computer).>>

I'm not even sure you yourself know what you are trying to say at this point.  "How the field is cleared," and "who's doing it," are combined issues.  If the field is cleared by you manually clicking on a scout, and then manually right clicking on a mine, then that's both "how the field is cleared" (by grabbing a scout and pointing and clicking) and "who's doing it" (you).  Under my proposition, "how the field is cleared" would be by "minesweeper sweeping them," and "who's doing it" would be the AI.

I agree with you, Carbon.  I personally have no issues with mines.  My comments were to try to propose something reasonable to placate the mass of people who DO have issues with them.  You see, if good people don't speak up and offer good solutions, then bad solutions will be implemented (like, getting rid of mines altogether).  An example of this was when the PJI was uber-nerfed coming out of beta.  Some people screamed bloody murder about them, good people didn't speak up, and out came the nerf axe.  I didn't want the same thing to happen to mines.  But if all the devs hear is "I hate mines!  Take them out of the game!" then either they will be taken out, or just nerfed to the point that they might as well be.

Well, My post was not 100% directed at you. Ive made many of a post in different topics all with the same underlining theme. All, I was trying to say is IC will balance it. It was only beta 1 at the time of my post and beta 2 was on it way out. And yes, your right we who do like mines need to speak out. Im still afraid they might get the nerf axe or ban hammer. Which would be a shame. As we see from this lastest beta that IC is still on our side with a good change to mines and with the scout and flak getting a new place in a fleet.

LOL, and on a related note we should form the P.F.E.T.O.M. (Players For Ethcial Treatement Of Mines)

we dont want the whole thing to blow up in our faces...

I get anoyed when I loose part of my fleet ariving at a sun.  Even more so when it is in a system I've controlled for hours.

P.F.E.T.O.M. suggest you minesweep better.

I don't know if it was a bug or not, but on occasion I've been able to actualy sweep the homing mines with the point defence of my fleet.  But the gravity mines still cause me to have to make more ships.

The mines are not 100% balanced yet. I know IC has resorted to robots and caffine pumps, to get everything so far.

I think a better answer would be just to limit the number of mines in a system to 30 or something like that. you couldn't have mines everywhere

With a lower number like 30, you do realized that increases the chance for ships to fly thorgh a 'mine field' undamaged?

30 is too little 150 isn't unreasonable, and since they cost resources it's unlikely to get the cap on many grav wells unless it's a long game.

A bigger issue is that it's possible to stick mines right on jump-in where they detonate on the whole fleet before anything had a chance to sweep. The only resort is to send some suiciders to clear the jump-in point (if jumping at another angle is out of the question, anyway).

Yeah, I do agree that mining the jump point is a bit cheap. It be nice if when a ship exited phase jump it disrupted and disarmed the mines.

Well, my original idea was to just make the scout detection disable abilities on the mines (since all mines detonate through an ability). That way, once a mine is detected it's disabled and can't detonate. That would also solve the turning arcs issue which still exists if you aren't careful with your ships and they try to turn around

Edit: Sorry double post, forums went boom.