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Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: February 06, 2017, 07:09:10 PM »

If you have active sensor buoys, can they pick up technology info from ships that transit?  Is the chance of getting information proportional to time spent under active sensors, or number of active sensors?

Cause that would be a huge reason to have a bunch of sensor buoys near an unpleasant neighbor.  It would probably be worth more, long term, than a bunch of mines killing a random ship.
Posted by: Bughunter
« on: February 06, 2017, 07:19:42 AM »

I'm no expert, but just spreading them out a bit should work I think. Especially if you have some idea about likely destinations like towards another jump point.
Posted by: joeclark77
« on: February 06, 2017, 07:09:48 AM »

Putting thermal sensors on the warheads is a good way of avoiding overkill, you might still get every mine launching at one ship, but once that's destroyed the remainders will retarget anything in range.

Yes, but the same applies to active sensors, so that would be my choice.
Also, I would think you always want the same sensor on the submunition that you have on the mine itself.  If the mine's sensor is more powerful, it might launch submunitions that cannot see the target and are wasted.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: February 05, 2017, 11:43:25 PM »

Putting thermal sensors on the warheads is a good way of avoiding overkill, you might still get every mine launching at one ship, but once that's destroyed the remainders will retarget anything in range. If you don't put thermals on the sensor stage then you shouldn't get friendly fire incidents. Unless some unlucky NPR wanders into a warp point assault or something.
Theres some other ways to avoid mine overkill. Laying mines with alternating sensor range, or missile speed is one idea, or maybe having each mine launch different submunitions.
You could even make multistage mines where after being triggered half the mine jumps out as warhead stages following the enemy, and the other half of the mine is an entirely new mine.
Posted by: joeclark77
« on: February 05, 2017, 12:46:13 PM »

I once used mines with thermal sensors, because I thought they would be less likely to be shot down before they could fire.  The problem was, they were triggered by friendly aliens, starting a war I didn't want.  I think active sensors are the way to go, because they only fire at enemies.

There was a thread a few years ago by somebody who used a 3-stage system to deploy mines in the middle of system-wide combats.  The mine with its submunitions was deployed by a large first stage from PDCs on Earth.  He'd launch from Earth at waypoints on the enemy fleet's route, and the mines would do their work.  I've never tried it.  The only drawback I think would be the research cost -- you'd have to re-research all three stages for any upgrade in any stage.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: February 05, 2017, 04:40:42 AM »

So now I am wondering about good ways to use mines that won't have them all get used up on a single probe ship.

I wonder if EM sensor equipped mines are the route.  Not thermal, but something designed to home in on active sensors.  Which means they would be quiescent the first 30 seconds of an enemy transit, because they won't have active sensors up.

Have enough mines to kill a probe ship, or active defenders, and a bunch of decoy drones that are nothing but active sensors and armor to soak point defense missiles.
Posted by: Erik L
« on: February 04, 2017, 03:52:15 PM »

I looked, but I didn't see any accounts of the mines being deployed or used, Erik.  Which story has them being used?

I might not have written it up. From what I recall, the mines all detonated on the first ship to come through.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: February 04, 2017, 05:29:48 AM »

I looked, but I didn't see any accounts of the mines being deployed or used, Erik.  Which story has them being used?
Posted by: Erik L
« on: February 02, 2017, 10:55:19 PM »

Do you know of any campaign write ups where mines were used?  I am interested to see accounts of how they were used in practice, and what it takes to get them to be effective.

I might have one circa version 4 or 5ish. I know I've used them before.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: February 02, 2017, 08:35:46 PM »

Do you know of any campaign write ups where mines were used?  I am interested to see accounts of how they were used in practice, and what it takes to get them to be effective.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: February 01, 2017, 04:12:29 PM »

I am a bit torn about the best size for mines.  The larger the mine, the better sensors you can have, the longer the range it can engage at.  But the larger it is, the more easily it can be detected in turn, and potentially taken out before it can launch.
20 is a good size for a light mine. 50 or so is the better for more standard mines. You can get way with having a small mine only firing one missile, like the CAPTOR mine. Even the largest missile you could make is still the size of a very small fighter.
So what range do mines need?  Their most notable use is as warp point interdiction.  So they need enough range to cover against the enemy jump engine range, and possibly a TL up from that.
Warp point defense, you only need a couple million or so as the best way to use them is to seed a ring around the point instead of all directly on it. For a general purpose mine you can use anywhere, 30 million to 50 million. For system defense (where you want to mine a whole system for whatever reason) you would really want 120 million+.
I could see mines being used as a forward defense of a warp point, where they are used to thicken the medium ranged firepower of the defense, before beam range.  The theory being that the defense will use point defense against long ranged bombardment, will duck out through the warp point if there is a truly large missile wave, trusting to fighters staying behind on the warp point to whittle through the loitering missiles, while the mines make it hazardous for the attackers to move in while the defending fleet is on the other side of the warp point.
I use them in a few ways. 1) To detect enemies and defend warp points so I don't have to keep ships out by the point. 2) Seed a contested or owned system to protect against mass invasion fleets. 3) A defensive system for my scout ships. 4) Infiltrate an enemy system or travel route and lay mines to mess with them.
Actually, if defenders continually cycle part of their fleet through the warp point, they are likely to cause long range missile bombardments to lose lock outside of the range of their onboard sensors. They still go to their target's last location, but if that was offset from the warp point, the myopic sensors on the missiles might not be able to reacquire.
My dedicated mine missiles/torpedoes usually have a sensor range of 1 million or so. But the enemies I usually find use 15k ton ships as a standard so I can afford to increase the sensor resolution to 200-300 to keep the sensor small. Remember that mines are meant to fire without the aid of support, so they need to be designed to handle those scenarios.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: February 01, 2017, 03:33:40 PM »

I think the most efficient way to lay mines is to use fighters or LACs with box launchers.

You can either use 3-stage mines, or deploy them as buoys.  And you can make fairly big mines that you can nonetheless deploy relatively rapidly.

I am a bit torn about the best size for mines.  The larger the mine, the better sensors you can have, the longer the range it can engage at.  But the larger it is, the more easily it can be detected in turn, and potentially taken out before it can launch.

So what range do mines need?  Their most notable use is as warp point interdiction.  So they need enough range to cover against the enemy jump engine range, and possibly a TL up from that.

But if you are using fighters to deploy or 3-stage mines, you can deploy them in unexpected places, in the path of an expected enemy movement.  And for that you need a much larger range.

I could see mines being used as a forward defense of a warp point, where they are used to thicken the medium ranged firepower of the defense, before beam range.  The theory being that the defense will use point defense against long ranged bombardment, will duck out through the warp point if there is a truly large missile wave, trusting to fighters staying behind on the warp point to whittle through the loitering missiles, while the mines make it hazardous for the attackers to move in while the defending fleet is on the other side of the warp point.

Actually, if defenders continually cycle part of their fleet through the warp point, they are likely to cause long range missile bombardments to lose lock outside of the range of their onboard sensors. They still go to their target's last location, but if that was offset from the warp point, the myopic sensors on the missiles might not be able to reacquire.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: January 31, 2017, 09:50:12 PM »

Post your mine design here.
If your first stage has no engine and fuel then it's considered a buoy, it will be dropped exactly where the launching ship is and will wait around with it's sensors on looking around, if it detects something it will launch the second stage at it. That second stage should have a sensor on it too but I don't think that's actually required, but I could be wrong, the first stage might vanish the second it launches it's payload. (which makes no sense as it should stick around long enough to light it's target to destruction).
If your first stage has engines and fuel then it's not a bouy, it will travel to a waypoint it's aimed at, or any other target, when it reaches that target or runs out of fuel it will fire it's secondary. Which means if your secondary payload is the warhead it'll be wasted.
If you want to long range launch mines you'll need 3 stages, a Payload missile to hit the target, a secondary bouy with sensors to look for targets, and a tertiary stage which carrys the bouy to the waypoint.
That stage will probably be quite large unless you make the mines very small, In my opinion since mines don't require fuel or an engine, and you can lay carefully with large slow reloading launchers then it makes sense to make them quite large, potentially able to mission kill a ship with a single hit. Or at least carry enough standard missiles to cause a decent alpha strike.
Posted by: Marc420
« on: January 31, 2017, 06:21:36 PM »

I am having trouble deploying mines. If i launch them with the Combat overview they will immediately deploy the secondary payload at nothing. I have tried deleting the way point both before and after launch as suggested but they still do this. I have also tried using the "Launch missiles at" order but they do not deploy. If i try and use the missile launch button I get a popup about recent transits. I have gotten it to work by jumping the minelayer across the JP and back again resetting the jump shock flag(?) but the error returns on the next salvo. What am I doing wrong?

I'm curious about this, as I think I've seen the same thing.
If I drop one of my bouys, either on a JP or on a WP, and then advance 5 sec at a time, I see the secondary payload appear to launch.  Those short range missiles last a few 5 sec impulses then die off.  However, the mine does remain and stay deployed.  I may be mistaken, but I think that if the payload had actually fired, then the mine itself would disappear, right?  So, while I see the payload appear to fire off, it then proceeds as if this has not happened.  Haven't played for enough for any enemies to stumble along and see what happens next.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: November 13, 2016, 06:34:04 PM »

Has anybody had success with mines in deep space encounters?  If you have a slower fleet that is running away from a faster one, it seems to be an exploit of the AI, but won't they generally head straight in on a predictable path?
Yes. In one of my games just before a DB update, the only kills were from my scout-frigates and minelayers dropping mines in front of a big battlegroup that were chasing them.
Can missiles launched by mines home in directed by a missile that has a dedicated sensor head?  Might require a 3-stage process, a missile to get the mines in position, the mine itself that has the submunitions, and some of the bases have larger sensors to get the missiles close to their target while the submunition wave includes some missiles with sensor heads.
Possibly. If you create a missile that drops a mine 1m km from the target and the sub-munitions don't fire until 600k km, then it may work. Although it is equally as likely that the mine will not retarget when enemies come into range and make it a failure.