An Update To Minefields

[baclodrifr]

Current mines: The only way to make minefields, as of now with the current mechanics, is to either, make a single entity with random blocks of warheads spread throughout a sector, because a block does not have to be directly connected to the core to be counted as part of the ship. Or you could make several different entities, all having their own blocks of warheads. Of course the second option would cause more lag, but it ensures that the whole minefield won’t go down if the core is shot or enough of the warheads are destroyed, unlike the previous option.

New Ideas

1: Missile-Like Mines

This option for a stationary minefield involves removing the “thrusters” from missiles and making them stay in place. They will explode and do the same damage as a regular missile its size would. But doing this might cause more lag as the “missile mines” would still be counted as projectiles without any other changes. And as most of us know, the game starts deleting projectiles when too many are spawned, that’s why no one uses swarm (and of course the probability of hitting yourself).

2: A new, dedicated mine block(s)

Adding a dedicated block for mines would make them a lot more useful. You can place them on ships (for any reason) or place them in the middle of space. Kinda like when you spawn a station, it doesn’t use a ship core, it just spawns a block near you that you can then attack a build block to. Mines placed within a certain radius of each other will be counted as a minefield and not individual mines.

3: Mine launchers

This would work with the same mechanics as the missile mines, but would also add a launching mechanism. It would work along the lines of shooting multiple in a random direction and spreading them over an area. This would of course save time and sanity by not having to place them individually.


Hate the ideas or love them I don’t really care I just got bored during school and made this

 

[The_Owl]

I believe minelayers are planned. Again.

 

[baclodrifr]

I believe minelayers are planned. Again.

fuk

 

[Valiant70]

Maybe one form of mines could be a sort of "sleeper missile" that has a small thruster on it. It just sits there until an enemy ship gets within 100m or so, then fires its thrusters and slams into the thing like a normal lock-on missile.

 

[baclodrifr]

Maybe one form of mines could be a sort of "sleeper missile" that has a small thruster on it. It just sits there until an enemy ship gets within 100m or so, then fires its thrusters and slams into the thing like a normal lock-on missile.

That's very interesting but imagine having 100 0f those going off at once, thats alot of lag

 

[Valiant70]

That's very interesting but imagine having 100 0f those going off at once, thats alot of lag

Hopefully not if they're optimized correctly. Weapons have been optimized considerably of late.

 

[baclodrifr]

Hopefully not if they're optimized correctly. Weapons have been optimized considerably of late.

well i hope they do get optimized, it would help the poeple with lower specs alot on incombat

 

[kiddan]

I believe Saber mentioned in-stream that there's a high probability of minelayers appearing in the Weapons Update. I'll be interested to see how lag is dealt with/prevented, though. What will prevent a player from continually dumping mines in one sector?

 

[baclodrifr]

I believe Saber mentioned in-stream that there's a high probability of minelayers appearing in the Weapons Update. I'll be interested to see how lag is dealt with/prevented, though. What will prevent a player from continually dumping mines in one sector?

Well nothing could stop someone from dumping infinite mines in one sector without special rules. The only things that can stop that is if the mine layers have a mine limit or server rules against it to stop lag

 

[kiddan]

Well nothing could stop someone from dumping infinite mines in one sector without special rules. The only things that can stop that is if the mine layers have a mine limit or server rules against it to stop lag

Yea, I'd be down for some popup like; "Sector instability is causing mines to explode!" It would be a server limit disguised as barebones lore (mines become unstable in large groups).

 

[Valiant70]

Well nothing could stop someone from dumping infinite mines in one sector without special rules. The only things that can stop that is if the mine layers have a mine limit or server rules against it to stop lag

Yea, I'd be down for some popup like; "Sector instability is causing mines to explode!" It would be a server limit disguised as barebones lore (mines become unstable in large groups).

Perhaps having too many mines in one place would cause some of the mines to mistake large groups of mines for a ship and launch themselves at it. Think about it - the sensors you'd put on a disposable munition like that (that might not ever go off) are going to be pretty cheap and simple. They'd be easily confused.

 

[baclodrifr]

Thats a great idea, now lets hope this post doesnt get lost in the "We'll think about it"

 

[Dire Venom]

Myabe minefields could be delt with more so as "Regions of probability".
E.g a minefield chamber is added to a station. The station randomly generates (x) number of mine positions within (x) distance to the station. These postions are simply recorded as numbers, and may or may not be represente by visual floating icons on-screen for friendly members (or with scanners).
E.g

They are not entities.
When an enemy ship gets within (x) distance of a mine postion a mine is spanwed in and attacks the ship.
For Overlapping minefields, the smallest one is always disabled.

 

[Calhoun]

Hopefully not if they're optimized correctly. Weapons have been optimized considerably of late.

Missiles were optimised recently. They now go out of their way to miss their targets and still cause nearly as much lag as before.

 

[baclodrifr]

Myabe minefields could be delt with more so as "Regions of probability".
E.g a minefield chamber is added to a station. The station randomly generates (x) number of mine positions within (x) distance to the station. These postions are simply recorded as numbers, and may or may not be represente by visual floating icons on-screen for friendly members (or with scanners).
E.g .

This is an amazing idea. Maybe the minefield chamber size can affect the size and density of the minefield. More minefield blocks = more mines/larger radius. Or with more minefield blocks they could have setting sliders for the range, with more blocks the max range increases, and when you turn the slider down the mines have to get closer and closer together. Or you could turn the slider all the way up for a very large area, but mines are much farther apart.

 

[NeonSturm]

Mines could be sprites like plants.

They could be rendered only in x distance to the ship.

They could be simply Number / Chunk.
A 2k sector would have about 70^3 chunks = 243000 chunks or 1/4 MB in memory (we have GB of it).

With at max 1 mine per chunk it's 1/32 MB

 

[Spartan-228]

I would like to point out you can already make mines and minelayers. And with the new power system it is a lot easier.

All you need to do is make box or missile shaped entity. Place a reactor on it with enough stealth chambers to permanitly jam and cloak it. Add some thrusters and warheads along with a AI, faction block, and to make sure it gose off a logic triggering system and bam, there's your mine.
Then all you have to do to use them is get a bunch added to a fleet order them to jam, cloak, and guard sector.

The only thing that might stop you from doing this, would be if a server has not increased warhead damage to a usable level. Because let's face it default warheads are like firecrackers.

 

[NeonSturm]

The only thing that might stop you from doing this

The second thing is about how many you need to cover a 3D cube.

 

[baclodrifr]

I would like to point out you can already make mines and minelayers. And with the new power system it is a lot easier.

All you need to do is make box or missile shaped entity. Place a reactor on it with enough stealth chambers to permanitly jam and cloak it. Add some thrusters and warheads along with a AI, faction block, and to make sure it gose off a logic triggering system and bam, there's your mine.
Then all you have to do to use them is get a bunch added to a fleet order them to jam, cloak, and guard sector.

The only thing that might stop you from doing this, would be if a server has not increased warhead damage to a usable level. Because let's face it default warheads are like firecrackers.

I am very much aware of this. But it should be revised to one of the ideas already stated or one that will be stated later. The proccess of spawning and fleeting any large amount of mines takes far longer than it should

 

[Spartan-228]

The second thing is about how many you need to cover a 3D cube.

Not a problem really. In my tests I found they would go after things in the next sector over.
So the biger problem is getting them to stay in the sector you want them. Although guard sector should fix that, I can't say for sure.