Hello,
As some of you may or may not know, Sahara-class heavy prowler has received a major upgrade to it's mining system. Which is great. But there is a problem: no, no with Sahara itself. This time our wicked subjects are factions standard scouts: ONI Sloop and Covenant DAV. So, where's the problem? First time I noticed it after Sahara mines reaction range was changed: scouts, trying to deal with minefields begun explode. Which means that they stay too close to minefields, which have received adjustements to their range, while scouts have not.
1. Mine Radius
"HORNET Mine activation radius increased to 1000 from 200, and are now deployed over a larger area than before" is the primary reason for these changes to be implemented. But the reason for this thread is different: I noticed that scout ships began blowing up upon detection of minegields. Although, it's a beautiful sight, I can't deny it's a bit unfair to both ONI Spooks and Covenant Grunts. So...
Now the situation is next: ONI Sloop has 2 ways to reveal mines: one is pre-rebellion way and the second one is post-rebellion way. One way has range 875 distance, 2 sec cooldown and 999 damage value to mine it detected and the seconds one simply has detection range 1000. But none of these values is big enough to grant scout vessel safeful demining. So, I suggest to do next:
1) Increase range of first ability (damaging one) to 1050 and increase cooldown to 5 seconds, so demining won't be so easy and safe, but at least not suicidal
2) Increase second ability (basic detector) range to 1500. Why? Hornet area of deployment has increased and number of mines too. So, these plus 500 to range is good enough. Not to be, so AI could vaporize all minefields on sight.
2. Abilities flavors
Alright. Now it would be great to pay some love to abilities strings. After all, it's Halo and usual Sins strings weren't made for Halo universe. So, I tried to bring some sense.
1 Ability (1050 range, Damaging)
Ability Name: Remote Demining System
String: This ship possess specific EWAR equipment, capable of disabling and destroying enemy mines without risk of detonation. Requires ship crew to maintain close distance till demining is complete.
2 Ability (1500 range)
Ability Name: Close Range Sensor Array
String: This vessel is equipped with powerful close range sensors array, capable of revealing hidden mines. Although, it's incapable of revealing cloaked ships.
3. Change to Sahara ability flavor
In order to make it somehow correspond with previous flavor changes, I suggest to replace Sins default mines flavor by more appropriate.
Ability Name: Lay HORNET mines
String: M441 HORNET mines are stealthy, plutonium-cored, nuclear devices with a nominal yield of 30 megatons, capable of inflicting heavy damage to enemy ships.
4. Change to mine flavor
New name for object: HORNET Nuclear Mine
