Mines on survey points?

[linkxsc (OP)]

Hey, so I know a lot of people out there use mines, specifically piling them up on jump points that hostiles are likely to come through and such, but I had a bit of a thought.
Why not put them at the survey location associated with that jump point?
See I've been trolling around in a game, and am about 3j from sol in every direction completely scanned. Made sure to drop a sensor bouy on each jump point, and I've only come across 1 alien race down 1 path, (3j from earth) nothing else. Now assuming that I did go and start expanding a bit more and came across say, an NPC grav survey ship, adn I were planning on preventing them from finding a way to earth. Wouldn't it be more effective to mine the survey point so their gravsurvey ships get taken out before they discover the actual jump point. If I mine the hell out of the jump point itself its fine, but if they already know where it is, they could get crafty with a mine removal type ship. At least I'd buy some extra time by having that gravsurvey ship blown up earlier.

[83athom]

This would be an interesting thing to do, but it would only be "effective" in systems they haven't surveyed. Don't get me wrong, I would do this to, but it would take a lot to get your minelayer there and out without them noticing every time they try to scout that point and keep mining it before they reach it again. And remember, the JP does't always spawn anywhere near the survey area. One time I surveyed a spot and it spawned the point in towards the star by a layer and around by a points (ie surveyed 26 but spawned next to 12).

[Starmantle]

That's very clever, linkxsc.  I'd never thought of that.

Of course, it doesn't matter where the actual JP is.  Gravsurvey ships will have to go to the survey locations and that's where you're leaving the mines.  They'd probably need insanely long endurance to be useful.

Could you post the design for one of your mines?  And could you let us know if they ever get a kill?

[83athom]

Could you post the design for one of your mines?  And could you let us know if they ever get a kill?

In my old game, I did do mines and they got a few kills (about 2 destroyer equivalents and a few freighter/transports) (deleted the save though because I "won" and was bored thereafter). What you wan't for your mines is around 5-10 size 2 missiles (in the second stage) or 10-20 size 1, passive sensors (both), and ecm. What you want for your specially designed missiles is speed over range (max power small engines), and the majority of the missile is warhead. Here is a quick one I threw together from my AMMs.

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 19.933 MSP  (0.99665 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 0 km/s    Engine Endurance: 0 minutes   Range: 0.0m km
Thermal Sensor Strength: 0.7    Detect Sig Strength 1000:  700 000 km
EM Sensor Strength: 0.7    Detect Sig Strength 1000:  700 000 km
Cost Per Missile: 16.9957
Second Stage: 1/AM-PD-1 Missile x17
Second Stage Separation Range: 100 000 km
Overall Endurance: 2 hours   Overall Range: 126.0m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 0%   3k km/s 0%   5k km/s 0%   10k km/s 0%
Materials Required:    4.25x Tritanium   0.8397x Boronide   1.4x Uridium   10.506x Gallicite   Fuel x4250

Development Cost for Project: 1700RP
Don't mind the 0% hit chance, that is for the mine itself.

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 28
Speed: 20000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 105 minutes   Range: 126.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.868
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 560%   3k km/s 168%   5k km/s 112%   10k km/s 56%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.618x Gallicite   Fuel x250

Development Cost for Project: 87RP
Note; When you make your own mines, specially design the missiles. Using an already designed, general use missiles don't work as well as special "mine missiles". Try to get the range around 25k-100k km (the number in the separation range is thousands of kilometers so put 25-100), with a prime number damage (starting at 3), and fill the rest with engines ("speed is key" ).

[JacenHan]

Note; When you make your own mines, specially design the missiles. Using an already designed, general use missiles don't work as well as special "mine missiles". Try to get the range around 25k-100k km (the number in the separation range is thousands of kilometers so put 25-100), with a prime number damage (starting at 3), and fill the rest with engines ("speed is key" ).

Damage follows squares (4,9,16,25), not primes, but otherwise good advice.

[83athom]

Damage follows squares (4,9,16,25), not primes, but otherwise good advice.

Yah, sorry, I knew that but I said primes. I even had 4 as the number then edited it to 3 (because 3 was the first prime and 4 wasn't one)

[linkxsc (OP)]

In hindsight, with testing its not the bestest plan ever.

Mainly because to be truly effective you have to mine most of the survey points. More effective to just mine the jump points, heavily.

[83athom]

In hindsight, with testing its not the bestest plan ever.

Mainly because to be truly effective you have to mine most of the survey points. More effective to just mine the jump points, heavily.

Exactly what my view on the topic was. Mines are good, but not to mine the survey points.

[Paul M]

The other thing to consider is that the survey points are a game artifact.  Realistically they could be oriented anywhere, as in you could survey any arbitraily laid out pattern that covers the volume you are searching (so they could be rotated in a plane by essentially any angle).  So mining them is effectively just exploiting the game mechanic.  It's a solo game so doing it or not is up to the player but it hardly makes any sense to do so. 

[Bgreman]

The other thing to consider is that the survey points are a game artifact.  Realistically they could be oriented anywhere, as in you could survey any arbitraily laid out pattern that covers the volume you are searching (so they could be rotated in a plane by essentially any angle).  So mining them is effectively just exploiting the game mechanic.  It's a solo game so doing it or not is up to the player but it hardly makes any sense to do so. 

I've always interpreted the survey points as being laid out in a fixed orientation that establishes the long-sought-after inertial reference frame, at least for the given star.  Some of the fluff for my LP is heavily based on this concept.

[iceball3]

Well, if you want to stop grav survey ships in their tracks, how about heavily mining the survey points closest to any jump points in system? As opposed to mining all the points in the system, you may only need a single decisice strike to take out a grav survey ship. Can be useful against a race trying to push through a system you know they are trying to get through, but don't want to waste your military  chasing down their difficult to track grav survey ships, and instead can focus on taking out any warships who will be a lot more visible with their active sensor flaunting all around.

[83athom]

You can just mine the JP if they already "found" it but haven't explored it. But that is a big IF.