Minesweeper Question

[Parasite]

One BC with 20 minesweepers 5 and a speed of 10 could clear 1000 mines in one turn. It could clear 100 mines in each sector it moved through. 10 moves, 1000 mines. Getting 200 in two sectors is nothing.

200 in one sector as may happen when laid by multiple people would hurt.

[Alneyan]

A Battlecruiser with 20 Minesweepers will have exactly 0kt for other components (a mere 600kt is hardly enough for twenty 30kt components), so it isn't going to be built anytime soon, let alone move anywhere.

A Battleship with Emergency Propulsion V and Propulsion Experts should get the job done, though, and will sweep several hundred more mines a turn. Of course, most people don't lay a full 100 mines on every single sector.

[SWizzardS]

You guys have all been very helpful. In the FAQ it doesn't actually tell you that a minesweeper component can clear that many mines per square it hits each & every move it makes on the same turn. The component does say "per use" but that to me could have gone either way & I was preferring to not find out the hard way

Asking because I have a fleet of ships attacking multiple planets in one of my games (I believe 5 in one simultaneous turn). Didn't want to find out that the guy had 100 mines over the first planet & that my mine sweepers started to peter out after that.

Thanks again for all of your assistance.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

So, I guess we can assume that shields are down outside of combat.

You're welcome.

[psimancer]

per most tv/movie shows shields are lowered unless combat looms (probably so the captain can spout those overly dramatic words " raise shields" thus informing the audience in its infinite intellegience that Violence will now commence (oh no hide the wimmin n chillin)

however justification is usually that the shields interfere with scientific sensors and are a major power drain

what i dont like is that we dont have a small (i'd say hardcode to max at 25%) settable chance to detect mines before we run over them i mean come on them scientific super sensors etc should be good for something right

[Fyron]

Those sensors are present. They are called "Minesweeper V."

An alternative is to remove the cloaking ability from the mines. Maybe then add cloaking devices for mines, which depend on tech like normal ones do. Now, you get a nice mine cloaking vs. detection arms race.

[Parasite]

If you are moving at speed 17, it means you must be on Emergency Propulsion. This points to not being in a fleet of ships which means you are most likely to be alone. You would then take all the damage on the minesweeper.

An interesting mod would be to have a (cheap) mine that killed only minesweeper components. You could place them one hex away (or surrounding) a heavily mined hex. The first mines would just remove any minesweeping components but leave the fleet speed intact. It could move on and hit a bunch of large mines taking the damage from all of them. It would only work if you were not able to totally clear the first mined hex, but why let reality interfere with my plans to conquer the universe.

[Suicide Junkie]

Better to have the mod simply remove minesweeper components.
Then, mines can be low-damage without being useless.

You could also limit mines to 10 per sector, say, which means if you want a serious minefield, it will be multiple sectors deep, and cover a large area.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Tactical mod?...

[psimancer]

oo no mine sweeper component and half present damage mines limited to 10 or 20 per sector and mines are only lvl 1 automatic cloaking with components to cloak each type to a diff level

forces you to use ships kinda like icebreakers massive armor components and a repair ship nearby since even organic armor doesnt regen outside of combat

and with cloak components just for mines but only for one type of cloaking each you have much more interesting minefields

ex survey system see mines in a nine by nine square around the planet but each sector has a different number of mines some have 3 some 5 some 12 some 20 and you klnow the limit is 20

so is it a path into the planet with 2 mines ea that he forgot or is it a decoy path that will blow you to smithereens with the 18 cloaked mines in each sector

ms windows minesweeper for spaceempires IV ironic since spaceempoires IV for ms windows