How do you make mines?

[Vanigo (OP)]

I'm having some trouble getting mines to work. I can make a buoy with thermal sensors and some submissiles, and I got it to release them when it saw a thermal contact, but the submissiles, which had weaker sensors, couldn't see the target and just sat on top of the mine, since that apparently counted as their initial target. Shouldn't they get targetting data from the buoy? I tried to set the engagement radius below the sub-missiles' sensor range, but it didn't seem to work; the mines fired as soon as they saw the target. Do I have to build my mine missiles with sensors as sensitive as the mine itself to function?

[ShadoCat]

The main mine needs active sensors in order to target ships.  Without that, the mines are launching without an actual target (like shooting a gun because you heard a noise).

[ty55101]

The main mine needs active sensors in order to target ships.  Without that, the mines are launching without an actual target (like shooting a gun because you heard a noise).

I saw you didn't have a thank you and you helped this lad out. Here you go. 

[83athom]

I saw you didn't have a thank you and you helped this lad out. Here you go. 

1. This was before the "thank you" was a part of the forums. 2) The information has actually changed since then (about how mines work).

[ty55101]

1. This was before the "thank you" was a part of the forums. 2) The information has actually changed since then (about how mines work).

Well your just replying to all my posts aren't you.

[83athom]

Well your just replying to all my posts aren't you.

I'm only replying to new posts, or ones somewhat new (unlike some people  )

[ty55101]

I'm only replying to new posts, or ones somewhat new (unlike some people  )

I'll have you know I was searching because I have never made a mine before and the wiki never specifies how to make them.

[83athom]

You want to do this;
1) Design a munition with active sensors seeing at least 1m km (range doesn't matter, just use your judgement based on what kind of munition you want to fire).
2) Design a missile base (without a warhead, engines, or fuel) with passive sensors and multiple (or just one) of the munition for the submunition (with the deployment range set to the range you want it to fire).

When deploying, do these in the same increment;
1) Create a waypoint.
2) Click "fire" on the missile fire control that has the mine set to it, with the waypoint as the target.
3) Delete waypoint.

There are other ways people deploy mines, but this is how I do it because my mine layers usually can lay different types of mines at the same time.

[lennson]

Tangentially related, how does mine deploying interact with jump transit shock?

I know jump transit shock disables active sensors on the jumped ship but if it drops a bunch of mines will they activate immediately?
If this is how it works it would let the jumped ship effectively fire at jump point defenders without needing to wait for its active sensors to come back online.

[ty55101]

I don't think you should do it, even if it is possible because it tricks the game mechanics since you would be using active sensors on the missiles and if not you should still need passive sensors on the missiles which I believe are also effected by jump shock.