Minelaying to victory, or, Jump point assaults are hard?

[Wintrow]

Quick question;
How do you prevent all your submunitions going after the same target?

[Steve Walmsley]

Quick question;
How do you prevent all your submunitions going after the same target?

You don't . Sub-munitions will always pick up the target of their parent missile if they are guided by fire control. If they are using internal sensors and they are in the same salvo, they will likely pick up the same target.

If you mean, how do stop all your mines attacking the same target, then spread them out as you would in a real minefield.

Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

How about being able to set a delay for mine activation?
That way, they wouldn't go off all at once.
After all, "on one spot" is still a sphere of 10k km, that's not exactly clumped up.

[LtWarhound (OP)]

Use different mines, if you insist on clumping them all in one place.  Have a mine with a sensor that reaches out 1m km, another mine that reaches out 650k km, and a close range one that reaches out 250k km.  That way you get staggered launches.

Or, have mines with the same sensor range, but different speed submunitions.  So, the salvo from the fast submunitions (which all should have their own active sensor) destroys the target, the slower submunitions will get to the last target location and start looking for a new target.  Same effect of staggered launches.

The means are in the game, just think a little outside the box, you know, the one labeled 'make Steve tinker in a new feature just for me'.  That box is pretty small, and tends to be overflowing already.

[UnLimiTeD]

I'm supposed to create a few dozen mines, and research them, and them launch them all, and that's less work then putting them in different places?
Ultimately, mines only work offensively like in this now fixed abuse in Aurora, for they are just huge, stationary missiles, easy to see, easy to dispose of, and there is no logistically efficient way to put down a high enough volume that an equal tech point defense would have a serious problem with it.
The only thing they are good at is jump points, whether offense or defense, and there they exaggerate the logistical problems that missiles already have over the course of the game; because you now have missiles that you periodically have to replace even without using them or advancing in technology, with extra size devoted just to keep them existing.
I just don't think mines have any justification aside from role-play.

[Thiosk]

I don't really see how the use of mines is justifiable for anything beyond mining jump points.  And I think thats ok.

Even if you gave them a bonus to detection avoidance, you'd have to BLANKET millions of kilometers of space to have much hope of actually getting ships to fly through them, with the exception of course of planetary orbits and jump points.

i mean, its mines.  in space.  space is big.  I don't think navies typically dump a bunch of mines in the pacific ocean and hope fleets cross it, you put them in front of the harbors and between islands in order to damage and slow down ships that are going places you don't want them to go. 

You know what would be cool?  Tractor beam mines.

[LtWarhound (OP)]

If the mine is using passive sensors, its no more (or less) noticeable than a similar sized missile.  Actually, less, since there is no drive thermal signature to give it away.

If you are running into problems with NPRs that outrange your missiles and outrun your ships, try running away (directly away) so the NPRs pursue you in a straight line.  Then dump some passive sensor mines overboard and keep moving, letting the mines take care of the pursuers.

Don't want to bring your fleet into range of the launchers in the PDCs on that NPR homeworld? Drop a minefield in the orbital path and let nature take its course.

With mines, you can stack a huge salvo, since you can offload all your mines in one pile, then turn on the big ASS on that fleet scout, and lure the targets into range.  This lets you swamp point defense that your standard salvo can't breach.

That's off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more tactics possible with mines.  Saying that mines have no justification other than role play is a bit short sighted.

[UnLimiTeD]

That's still less sensor range than an equal tech Anti-Missile sensor.
Then you have a dilemma of choice.
Put them all on one spot, and a single fighter is going to set them off.
Spread them out, and the enemy can activate them one at a time and take them down, not creating a huge salvo at all.

Alternatively, you can fit your ships with reduced size launchers, and invest the material you save on sensors and generators in more ships and more missiles.
If an enemy outranges and outruns me, sure I can use mines, but I can also just use point defense.
For one S5 launcher for a mine with 3 submunitions in such a runaway situation, at normal fire  speed to get enough mines, I could also have 30+ S1 box launchers to have the same submunitions without sensors.
I mean, to actively attempt that tactic, I need ships with huge missile Launchers, and design mines for it; wouldn't it be easier to just design a missile with higher range in that case?
Mines exponentiate the Logistic problems of Missiles, as I stated already.
Is that really worth the effort?
Sure you can trap NPRs, but they aren't exactly bright to begin with, and against idiots, anything goes, you really don't need any help there.
Really only leaves RP for me.