52 replies to this topic

[Defender0]

Why should they? Seriously... human players go nuts with them so why shouldn't they be there for the A.I to use? Plus I believe that they would make excellent traps for Flood when they come to your worlds. (not sure if infect them or not)

they cant be infected while inactive (the "in phase space" buff prevents this), and when theyre active, its for a split second before they explode

[TheOtherXtremeRoflcopter]

they cant be infected while inactive (the "in phase space" buff prevents this), and when theyre active, its for a split second before they explode

Great just gotta place them around the grav well to prevent flood ships from infecting the mac wall

[Defender0]

when i play the public release, i do that on my important worlds

[TheOtherXtremeRoflcopter]

Normally I don't bother with them unless it really late into the game and I have nothing better to do since I'm already fighting another fleet, or if somebody keeps spamming the bounty button on me.

[atlas117b]

it seems to me the covies would need them more, seeing as how they dont have MACs.

[Aunt Gruntie]

It really isnt that hard to clear mines if you just use a few mako's with a few prowlers( 2-6 makos with 2-4 prowlers works pretty good).
only real problem is that clearing mines before your main fleet arrives is pretty dang impossible with fighters being able to rip prowlers to shreds in seconds.

Probably the only way to clear mines before your fleet arrives would be to constantly send 1 prowler with 1 mako at a time in one spot until you've cleared up enough space for you fleet to got around, youd probably need close to 15-20 prowlers and makos(sending them all at once they would all die at once from one mine exploding).

I noticed people complaining about the reveal mine ability also. Even though its an active ability, I never treat it as such as prowlers will reveal one mine at a time and that's disgustingly slow.


What I do (this is after i cleared most of the gavwell of defenses) is send the above makeup (2-6 makos with 2-4 prowlers) and move the prowlers and makos towards the mines so that the prowlers reveal mine ability range covers 2-6 mines at once (having multiple prowlers insures that if one dies from a mine or otherwise you don't wait to build another) and the prowlers will auto reveal all the mines within their field (if you dont know the range of their ability hold ALT while mousing over the prowler, or mouse over the reveal mine ability) and the makos will destroy pretty much all the revealed mines at once.

This tactic will generally clear up 50-100 mines within 30-60 seconds without to much micro managing. But no matter what mines will slow you down which is what they're supposed to do.

[Defender0]

Probably the only way to clear mines before your fleet arrives would be to constantly send 1 prowler with 1 mako at a time in one spot until you've cleared up enough space for you fleet to got around, youd probably need close to 15-20 prowlers and makos(sending them all at once they would all die at once from one mine exploding).

This is a generally good idea, but what i do is send in my entire fleet at once with cradles. When the mines explode, my ships immediately get repaired. Most of the time, i lose just a few makos and parises. Nothing severe at all.

Once again proving the usefulness of the cradle

[Aunt Gruntie]

Yeah the cradle is probably hands down the most useful ship the UNSC has.

[KhevaKins]

The problems not even the prowlers abilities and how it gets rid of mines. The problem is most of the time it decides it isn't going to use/ autouse the ability so it takes ages cause you have to do it yourself. I say make it a passive ability so you can just fly the prowlers nearby the mines.

[m468]

I've never had the problem I just move them with in range of the ability and it spots all the mines within range.

[greyknight132]

I've never liked the way minefields work in sins, they always felt like more of a burden to the defender than a hindrance to the attacker. It was always time consuming to properly mine a gravity well and even then a large fleet could simply move through it with little damage. Simply put minefields never seemed to be very cost effective and the tactics to counter them are a simple as forcing your ships through a small section of the field. There also is the issue that you don't have very much control over how the mines are placed and that they sometimes simply fail to detonate when they should. Not to mention that 150 mines in a gravity well is taxing for ones machine, especially if you have a large front to defend in game. The only solution to this problem that I have seen that address these issues is the way minefields are handled in the Sins 4x mod in which the minefields are 1 mine that have a persistent aoe that does a set damage over time instead of exploding. The mine limit in the gravity wells is reduced to somewhere between 10-20 and the size of the aoe is the same as what the area in which the mines are created in vanilla sins. This works to not only allow for more control and strategic use of mines but to also create a greater threat and force your opponent to either properly clear the mines, look for another route, or try their luck. It also has the added benefit of reducing clutter in the gravity well and the stress placed on your computer. I think a similar concept could be used to enhance minefields in this mod as well.

I think that a similar system could work but would require a few tweaks in order to fit better with the fast pace this mod. I would suggest that there be researchable levels of damage for the mines as well as a debuff such as reducing weapon range, ship speed, and armor to represent systems being damage by the minefield. This would allow for a better defensive planing but would also speed up gameplay since it would increase the efficacy of minesweepers due to their being less mines overall. For the upgrades to the mines I would suggest something like having the mines start off only doing damage, something like 20-30 per sec while the upgrade increases damage by around 15/30 points while adding debuffs like reduces ship speed by 8/12% armor by 2/4 and weapon range by 10/20%. Something that could also be considered and would be cool would be to add a high level research (tier 8 or 9) that gave the mines the ability to detonate a nuke that deals a large amount of damage to ships within 2/3 or 1/2 the range of it's aoe. The mine would be consumed in the process of course. To balance the mines out their build time would be increased, something like ten times how long it takes to build a single one now. Overall this kind of system would allow a defender to better control how an enemy attacks their planet while at the same time allowing for the clearing of a minefield to be simpler.

This is of course my opinion based off of my distaste for how mines are handled in the base game and given the current defensive installations available to the UNSC (also off the assumption of an anti-fighter platform that I think I read about) and as such I hope it don't come across as saying what should be done and is only my thoughts on how to in my opinion increase the usefulness of mines while creating interesting tactics for both attacker and defender while having the benefit of perhaps increasing the flow and performance of the game. Sorry for the long post and any feedback is welcome. Can't wait to see what comes next.

[Aunt Gruntie]

lol golly