Jump Mines for Dummies

[Paul M (OP)]

The NCN is considering mining jump points to thicken their defences but I'm not 100% sure how this process works exactly.

What I understand is that I need a two stage missile.  This will be limited to 5 MSP, the assault stage will be 3 MSP and the mine 2 MSP (total is 5).

The questions I have are:
1.  Is there much point to putting an engine on the mine stage?  I wasn't planning on having it move far but it would allow for making up a minefield essentially.
2.  The assault stage needs to have active sensors?

3.  How do you launch a mine and avoid it automatically deploying the assault stage when it arrives at its target?  This is the critical question as I recall there is some trick to this.

[sublight]

1. Probably not. It will only be used if the mines detection range is longer than the maximum separation range.
2. Yes. Well, technically you could use thermal but active usually gives better range per msp.
3. The only way I've found that works is to load the missile tubes with the mine, set a waypoint, and then give the mine layer task force the 'launch missiles at' order. MSL launch aught to work, but generates jump blind fire delay errors for me and using a fire control causes the drone/mine to automatically deploy any and all payloads.

[Paul M (OP)]

So to mine the jump point Sol-Wolf 359 I could:

1. set a way point on or near the jump point.
2.  at a reasonable distance (50k km from the way point direction 90°) have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" which will leave 4 mines at that point.
3.  move to 50k km from way point direction 180°, have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" leaving a further 4 mines at that point.
4.  move to 50k km from way point direction 270°, have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" leaving a further 4 mines at that point.
5.  move to 50k km from way point direction 0°, have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" leaveing a further 4 mines at that point.

End result is 4 groups of 4 mines at 50k km and (0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°).  If I give the mine stage sensors good for 150k km and make that the seperation range what range of sensor should I have on the assault stage?

[Charlie Beeler]

At least the same range as the mine/bus.

[Paul M (OP)]

Ok...thanks.  At least that seems clear enough.  Take a while to work it into the research plan but once the new warhead tech is available it seems like something to do.  I might still go with thermal sensors on the assault stage but that is because the Wolvers have thermal output to beat the band.

[joeclark77]

The advantage of thermal is that they won't see it coming and shoot it down.  Once they spot an active sensor, they'll turn on their own anti-missile sensors and shoot down any mines that haven't launched their payloads.

Another option which I haven't tried yet is the idea of using a third "drone" stage to put the mines in place.  That'd be a missile with a fuel-efficient engine and lots of fuel but no sensors, carrying the 2-stage mine as a submunition, and it would allow you to lay mines in potentially hostile zones without having to go there in person.  I recently posted a thread on this board that linked to somebody else's thread about doing just that.

[Paul M (OP)]

The NCN is operating under the assumption that the detection, launch and travel time of the missiles should be all under 20 s which means the active sensor systems are still recovering from jump.  So in this case no counter missiles and no point defence should be able to engage the mine, the assault stage maybe but unlikely.

The jump point is the only place the NCN figures it can sucessfully engage a Wolver ship since they have 4x the speed of the human ships and so will always dictate the range in a deep space battle.

[Cocyte]

1.  Is there much point to putting an engine on the mine stage?  I wasn't planning on having it move far but it would allow for making up a minefield essentially.

No. do NOT put any engine or fuel on the mine stage. those will give an obviously unwanted very short lifetime for your mines.

2.  The assault stage needs to have active sensors?

You need a sensor - any sensor- as the mine stage only gives a "general direction" to the submunitions.

3.  How do you launch a mine and avoid it automatically deploying the assault stage when it arrives at its target?  This is the critical question as I recall there is some trick to this.

Usually, I set a ring of waypoints near the mining target, then order one of my destroyer to "shoot at WP" for each of those

So to mine the jump point Sol-Wolf 359 I could:

1. set a way point on or near the jump point.
2.  at a reasonable distance (50k km from the way point direction 90°) have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" which will leave 4 mines at that point.
3.  move to 50k km from way point direction 180°, have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" leaving a further 4 mines at that point.
4.  move to 50k km from way point direction 270°, have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" leaving a further 4 mines at that point.
5.  move to 50k km from way point direction 0°, have my TF "launch missiles at WPx" leaveing a further 4 mines at that point.

If you know of a way to simply tell a ship to "move to 50k km from way point direction 180°", i'll be glad to know. The only way I've found to perform a similar action is :
- Sending another fleet on the target warp point.
- Ordering this fleet to move at 1km/s toward a waypoint roughly set toward the 0° heading
- Ordering the minelayer to escort this fleet (at full speed!), setting the distance and angle accordingly
- wait for the minelayer to be in position, selecting it and creating a new WP at its position.
- Changing the escort orders, rinse and repeat until all my references WP are set.
- at last using those WP as target for minelaying.

yeah, it's quite unwieldy, but as long as it works...

[Paul M (OP)]

as for the ring...you can call up a graphic that puts a ring of a certain radius in km on the screen (this is from the view control list...can't recall specifically which panel it is under).  Change the zoom so the ring is easy to see.  Set 4 way points at 0°, 90°, 180° and 270° on the ring.  The order the ships to move from one way point to the other and at each way point "lauch missiles at WPx" this should make it simple and straight forward.

Thanks for the other info.  Won't be in the AAR for a while but eventually it should make it there....June of 2283 I'd say is likely the earliest (so 1 year or so).

[joeclark77]

Do you have to "move to WP 1" and then "fire missiles at WP 1" if it's an immobile mine?  Or will the game be smart enough to infer the "move to" order?  So far I've only laid mines right on top of jump points and I've always issued the "move to" order first.

[Bgreman]

Don't forget about holding shift, then dragging along the map.  This displays a line and its length (in km) and bearing from the initial point.  If you let go of shift before you let go of the left mouse button, the line will remain on the screen until you click somewhere else on the map.  This will allow you to add a waypoint at the end of the line segment.

As for the range ring, it is at the bottom of the "Waypoints" tab for some reason.

[Cocyte]

as for the ring...you can call up a graphic that puts a ring of a certain radius in km on the screen (this is from the view control list...can't recall specifically which panel it is under). 

This method require manual input of the various WP, and is quite imprecise unfortunately.

Do you have to "move to WP 1" and then "fire missiles at WP 1" if it's an immobile mine?  Or will the game be smart enough to infer the "move to" order?  So far I've only laid mines right on top of jump points and I've always issued the "move to" order first.

Any "fire missile at WP" order is actually a dual "move to WP" then "fire missile"