Minefields

Talk among developers, and propose and discuss general development planning/tackling/etc... feature in this forum.
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klauss
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Minefields

Post by klauss »

Turbo wrote:Speaking of making the VS universe more alive, we need space mines. That is, we need an immobile combat unit which can be (1) obtained as mission cargo to be dropped at particular coordinates, (2) set as a mission target, and (3) randomly generated and placed by various factions like other ship types. That way you can have missions to lay minefields, missions to clear/destroy minefields, and randomly encounter mines protecting bases, planets, and jump points. They would need to be theft-proof: if you tractor someone else's mine into your hold, it might fire at you, would retain its faction ownership, and once in your hold it would become contraband for purposes of searching and who would be willing to buy it.
Holy crap... how did this go unnoticed for so long?

Of course we need mines. I don't think it would be too hard to add mines, would it?

Just immobile units, with a couple of turrets or attitude thrusters, and lots of firepower (for their size).

We could try manual placement in custom systems first, to see how they perform, and then try to hook them into the universe generator.

Minefields!
Yay!
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pheonixstorm
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Re: Free models that could be good for VS

Post by pheonixstorm »

Not entirely immobile. You can have seeker mines which act like short range IFF missiles. Or if you really want to go all out homing mines that until a repair fee is paid will continue to track a ships location for whatever faction they belong to (mostly pirates). Nice way to track fat merchant ships or for finding pirate bases.

Mostly though I think proximity mines would be the most common. I dont see them firing at anyone, just waiting for some dumb target to come within a good 5k then BOOM a nice huge explosion that will cause a huge amount of damage to everything within a 5k range maybe more. The real kicker would be shock damage or EM damage.

Its deffinately a good idea to start a thread in features for (unless its already there).
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Re: Free models that could be good for VS

Post by klauss »

I don't think proximity mines like that would work in space.

My reasoning is: space spans huge distances. Littering space with mines densely enough to make explosive mines useful would be cost-prohibitive, except perhaps with seeker stealth mines. Cheap mines with some kind of overpowered automatic gun, however, would be a lot more cost-effective. Their size would protect them somewhat from retaliation, making the very hard to sense and target.

We should explore both.

PS: I'll excise mine-related stuff from this thread ;)
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pheonixstorm
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Re: Minefields

Post by pheonixstorm »

Even in space prox mines wouldnt cost nearly as much as others. Explosive and prox passive sensor and maybe a small rock to attach to. Litter thousands at a jump point or along a well travelled space lane and you have a lot of hurt ships.

With a weapon mounted mine you have the weapon cost as well as the cost of advanced tageting systems as well as ammo stock or some type or reactor to power the weapon. Then you have to have enough fuel for the reactor to make sure it will last for a long time.

Granted prox mines in space don't make the best type of mines, but generaly they are cheap and the most disposable. I think the best way to look at this is what you want to mine. For naval you would go after shipping lanes or harbors, over land.. well, any place you see a lot of infantry traveling over. Roads, choke points, open fields... So for space if you go by any of the above a small fleet jumps in system and starts to spread out. With weapon mounted mines you have something to taget. Even if cloaked you cant hide the projectile or the beam so you can pin point where the fire is coming from and neutralize it. Now, jump into a system with prox mines. Fleet spreads out and starts setting off half the minefield. If you cloak a prox mine you may never find it. It doesnt let off an EM sig, doesnt have a weapon firing off rounds you can track and even if it isnt cloaked after the first one goes off there is already too much debris from your buddies ship you can get a good read of whats debris and whats a mine.

Now, a seeker mine though... you warp in the mine activates and in a second or two you have a bunch of bumb rocket powered mines hitting you or maybe they are guided who knows, but between the two something based on the dumbfire would be cheaper and at a jump point just as effective. In open space you would deffinately want something that can change course until it hits.

Just my 10 cents anyway
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Re: Minefields

Post by klauss »

I see your point, it all depends on context.

So, lets try all types.

I still stand by weapon mounted mines. Their biggest advantage is that they can afford to be overpowered and overshielded, they only have to last for a little while, and in that time inflict massive damage. They don't require propulsion or any other complex system, all they require is a generator that can power up on-demand and a powerful gun. And if you still don't like them as mines, you can use them as stationary defenses :p

Which, BTW, bases and planets would be in need of.
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Re: Minefields

Post by pheonixstorm »

yeah, stationary gun platforms are a must around some installations. Something like the golan space platform from star wars or just orbital sattelites such as those form one of the stargate SG-1 episodes.
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Re: Minefields

Post by log0 »

It's just an idea, but what about being able to drop armed missiles? I mean selecting missile and releasing it without a target locked on. It would remain in space looking for foes in sensor range and attack them. It would work best with more sophisticated/expensive units of course carrying 360 degree sensors and IFF.
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Re: Minefields

Post by pheonixstorm »

Thats what the seeker mine is pretty much. Anyway, heres a partial list of mine types


Proximity: Sits in space until something gets too close then BOOM! Variations might be low and high yeild versions. Low would have a blast radius up to 5000 meters and do less than 100-250 points of damage while highs might have a blast radius of 5k-10k and do up to 500 or 1000 points of damage.

Seeker: Sits around waiting for target. Passive targeting up to 100km or more. Damage type varies based on warhead size. Can be something like a dumbfire or as advanced as IFF. Either way, its just a large mine straped to a rocket motor with a basic guidance package attached.

Sentry: Large weapon mounts with nearly unlimited ammo (maybe). These are mainly anti-cap ship mines or satellites. More heavily armed and armored versions exsist but are considered defense platforms rather than mines.

Homing: Homing mines fall into two categories. Homing mine, and tracker mine. The first will lock onto a tracking device and follow its target until it gets close enough to explode or act as a data sensor collecting and sending data on a given target and its location (for use on finding and tracking pirate bases or the reverse heavily traveled shipping lanes). Tracking mines are just simple beacons letting the trackers owner know the realative location of the tracked ship. Often used in conjunction with homing mines.
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Re: Minefields

Post by klauss »

I like all the first three.

Not sure where you're going (gameplay-wise) with the last one though.
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Re: Minefields

Post by Psyco Diver 69 »

I think the Sentry mines would be good for bases, they could be a first line of defense, maybe 2 types, anti-cap ship and anti-fighter mines. They would be a good idea for a base in the middle of no where cause then you just have to buy the mines, not the fighters and pay pilots to protect the base
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Re: Minefields

Post by CLoneWolf »

IMHO, fighters are always needed in the case of a lone base, as long as you have the chance to approach the defense lines from afar (opposite to jumping directly in their range as it'd happen if they were guarding a jump node and you came right through it).

This at least if you can snipe the sentry from beyond their firing range, undisturbed (smile, cap turrets, you're on candid Jackhammer :mrgreen: )
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Re: Minefields

Post by travists »

Anyone remember Wing Commander? The mine fields there where cheep low power balls. Each one having the power of two hits from the least powerfull gun in the game. But a field streaching 100's or 1000's of km with an avg distance of 50 m or so between could do in the unwarry. Aditionaly, those buggers where magnetic! No propultion to speek of, but they just kind of drift tword you. Touch one and BOOM! The simpelest mine is a warhead and contact triger in a case. VS tearms probobly about 10 cr apice.
1 mule = aprox. 8,000,000 that would be 800,000 mines.
figure 1 mine per 100 cubic meters:
cube root of 800,000 = 92.83177667
100 * 92.83 = 9,283

So, If my math is right, for the cost of one mule you can mine an area of about 10,000 meters (10 km)!
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Re: Minefields

Post by TBeholder »

pheonixstorm wrote:Even in space prox mines wouldnt cost nearly as much as others. Explosive and prox passive sensor and maybe a small rock to attach to. Litter thousands at a jump point or along a well travelled space lane and you have a lot of hurt ships.
Jump point, yes. Then again, it makes sense to put there a big nasty fort with really big guns already trained at it.
But how a "traveled space line" can be a place if everything orbites?
pheonixstorm wrote: With a weapon mounted mine you have the weapon cost as well as the cost of advanced tageting systems as well as ammo stock or some type or reactor to power the weapon.
Not "as well as", but rather "or" (rockets, of course). Even from existing VS weapons - being greeted by several streams of Swarm or Hail can be rather unpleasant, especially when shields are down because a few moments ago the ship was in SPEC or jumped. :)
As to the targetting, a mine already needs to locate and identify targets, and either way, with rather puny effective range it would have to track at less than 1/1000 of the weakest radar's range in VS.
Another variant, is a FF kinetic missile in a box, waiting for a target - though it needs longer radar range.
pheonixstorm wrote: Then you have to have enough fuel for the reactor to make sure it will last for a long time.
Rocket box would need more power than a bomb box only when it turns after a target in range is detected. And probably would have to do it only once or twice in its active lifetime. In VS even missiles have mini-reactors. :wink:
klauss wrote:I still stand by weapon mounted mines. Their biggest advantage is that they can afford to be overpowered and overshielded, they only have to last for a little while, and in that time inflict massive damage. They don't require propulsion or any other complex system, all they require is a generator that can power up on-demand and a powerful gun.
IMO, at best enough of cheap armor (e.g. raw iron-nickel alloy :wink: ), to withstand a few hits of PD beams it may take before it's out of ammo.
Depending on whether the fore surface that's mostly one big rocket pod with a radar may be considered "armored".
klauss wrote:And if you still don't like them as mines, you can use them as stationary defenses :p
Which, BTW, bases and planets would be in need of.
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Re: Minefields

Post by travists »

Turbo Beholder wrote:Jump point, yes. Then again, it makes sense to put there a big nasty fort with really big guns already trained at it.
But how a "traveled space line" can be a place if everything orbites?
It can if it is placed in a specific orbit such that the relitive posistion remains about the same. Also, what is the lifetime of a given minefield in VS? It may be that the field expires well before orbital dynamics move it out of line too badly. To be an effective obstical, a minefield will need to be dozens if not hundreds (perhaps thousands) of km across.

A weapon mine seemes to be the kind of thing to use as a boobytrap. Set it on the suspected path of a known ship or convoy whose timetable is not fully known. Prox mines are more for strategic denial of an area (for a limited time). Long term solutions require larger emplacements/drones, regular patroles, or a station.
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