Visible and Cloaking Mines...

[Captain Kwok]

Out of curiousity, I wondered what most players would prefer regarding mines in mods...

Should mines always be cloaked? Or should mines be visible if the right sensor requirements are available?

[Fyron]

I think a system where mines do not have cloaking built in, but instead have cloaking device components to use, can make for an interesting game. I am fairly certain that the mines in a sector would all use the highest level cloaking device available in that sector, so you don't have to worry about blowing up obselete mines to replace them unless you fill the sector.

[Captain Kwok]

If that is true, can a player just make 1 mine with a cloaking device to cloak 99 normal or lower cloaking mines?

[Fyron]

Given how other units stack cloaking abilities (one cloaking sat cloaks the whole stack), I would assume so.

[Baron Munchausen]

It's not smart to do that, though. You don't necessarily know the order in which mines are 'triggered'. The mine with the cloak might be the first to go, leaving all the others visible.

And, yes, btw, I think mines ought to be detectable with sufficient technology advantage. And differently visible to different scanning techs, of course. They aren't crewed, so they ought to be invisible to ANY level of Psychic Receptors. But standard Tachyon Scanners and Gravitic Detectors and whatnot ought to be able to see them.

[ March 08, 2004, 03:02: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[tesco samoa]

i like the idea kwok...

I wish we could have a cloaked sweeping vessel as well...

[bearclaw]

I've always felt that mines should have their own cloaking devices and that each sensor type should have their own appropriate cloak. I've done this for my Dark Nova 3 Mod, and I'm still looking into creating the mine equivilant too.

[Tanus]

I've done this in a MOD I'm currently working on, based on the Honor Harrington universe (book series by David Weber).

The mod's still a long ways from completion, but when it's done, it'll make (or it's supposed to anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) smaller ship classes still viable in later game, and missiles will be a lot more effective in the late game than they are currently... among other things.

For now, I'll just keep plugging away at the data files... maybe in a month or two http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Aiken]

The only cons about mine cloaking device I can see is that you have to cloak every minefield manually, which is rather boring.

[Baron Munchausen]

As far as I know "small" units are automatically cloaked when deployed. This is good for mines, but bad for fighters since you can't turn it off. At least you couldn't Last time tried. This 'feature' might be related to the problem with satellites being unable to intercept intruders at warp points if there is a cloak anywhere in the stack.

[ March 08, 2004, 15:11: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Parasite]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
They aren't crewed, so they ought to be invisible to ANY level of Psychic Receptors.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have played a Roleplaying game where a Psychic skill is "DangerSense" or somesuch.

If we move into that sector without minesweepers "BBBBaaaadddd" things will happen.

I just would not automaticly throw out Psychic tech.

[Fyron]

That does not throw out psychic tech... it just makes psychic receptors unable to detect mines, operating on the assumption that psychic receptors work by detecting mental energy patterns. More like a telepathic scanner.

[Captain Kwok]

Originally posted by aiken:
The only cons about mine cloaking device I can see is that you have to cloak every minefield manually, which is rather boring. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nah, you just have to press "x" once.