Mines, Layers, and Sweepers

Mines in space! just the vast, humongous distances between stars makes it very unlikely mines would just happen to be placed on a fleets course.It is just not economically viable to mine space that big.We aint talking the english channel here,lol.

Talk about Spacempires4, which had everything you could think of in military terms, but it also had a dire A.I because of the 1000 options.You couldn't lose the game.

Mines are actually quite mobile these days, as they could be in space. The sensors and onboard nav computer could easily have a map of the sectors and just be out there rolling around like a small asteroid, waiting for a change in the magnetic signature of the sectors is has sensor range on. If a dense enough change happens (such as a large fleet or even a large heat source, what ever triggers the startup sequence) the mine kicks in its drive and become more of a skipper missle using active and passive radar / ecm homing. Would add a bit to the ECM capabilities that have to be researched aboard ships.

W/R
Meow!

I don' t think it's reasonable to be able to place a mine-field in a sector of space, since the issue of volume to fill has already been addressed. The only place a minefield would be workable would be as a defensive module on a starbase, or as a planetary defense option. That way you're deploying mines to a very well-defined and relatively small area.

Even if mines were mobile, they'd require hyperdrives on them to move around. At the start of the game, your engine only moves you one or two sectors a turn. Mines would essentially have to be mini ships, which isn't an economic option.

Agreed with Zoomba. In the GC universe, mines, even mobile ones, don't make much sense, unless there's some kind of tech that grants a fast, economical, short range, one-shot FTL engine, and that's stretching it.

The scale of GalCiv is on the galactic level so I don't tend to think mines make a lot of sense.

More than that though, every new military element you add in requires a corresponding change to the computer AI to deal with it.

Think how hard it is to write a good chess algorothm in which you only have a half dozen different types of units and a very limited number of move combinations.

In GalCiv, as-is, there are a lot of different possible combinations just with units. On top of that, you have starbases, freighters, and what to build on planets.

You throw in mines and what exactly does this gain you? What is the "fun" that it adds in? Let's be realistic, people would use mines to build "walls" around their planets which, IMO, would be absurd in space since you could go around them.  So how do they add fun to the game?

Any time we talk about a new strategic element being added the questions we have to ask are:

1) Does it make the game more fun?

2) How does it affect the computer AI?

3) How much does it cost to implement?

4) How much time would it take to implement?

There are games with tons of different strategic elements in them, but those games tend to not have very strong AIs in them and rely on users to play them on-line against other people.

I'm not really convinced by mines either...

Will there be antimatter missiles (i.e. suicide ships) in GalCiv II ?

I like better a satellite defense system than mines, watching a Stargate rerun, Daniels create this satellite weapon system that could destroy a gul mothership. Maybe something like that would be good.

what if you put a mine on a trade route. made it invisible. and made it huge. like a quater of sector huge. oh yea and to vertan mayito. its to late now but shouldnt extreamly advanced races have satellites?
(random comment) we need a stargate the video game. who doesnt wanna fly a X3O2 or shoot a staff weapon. (dont ask if you dont know)

Indeed. Maybe satellites, like cloak satellites send them to someones planet, spy on them, make the spying part of the game more interesting.

I like better a satellite defense system than mines, watching a Stargate rerun, Daniels create this satellite weapon system that could destroy a gul mothership. Maybe something like that would be good.

mayito. Isn't a satellite defence system just planetary defences

I do not think defense satellites are needed. You can already build slow-moving, low-range defense oriented ships to protect your planets.

I thought of something similar to a mine. Have two satalietes with a beam between them that senses ships. When it senses an enemy ship, it turns into a powerful laser/bomb and detonates. Not really the same as mines on earth, but ships in space are nothing like ships on water either.
Also, the mines could search for surounding ships and shoot out lasers at them too. (Obviously there would be a limit to distance.)

Would that work?

I'm really not seeing anything about mines that can't be done with ships, save the pre-determined suicide strike.

Hmmmm... That could possibly be implemented with a missile type that does damage to the launching ship.

The big issue here is that there are now 3 weapon and defense types. Which would be deployed against a suicide ship? Logically, that would be anti-missile defense.

But if the device explodes out of defense range, sending shrapnel... Then you have a mass driver situation.

What if it's a one shot laser?

It seems that adding dedicated suicide ships would be a bit too complicated in the current setup, but I could be wrong.

It seems that adding dedicated suicide ships would be a bit too complicated in the current setup, but I could be wrong.

Well there were suicide ships in GalCiv I : Anti-matter missiles. They were quite cheap and had a huge attack factor, but had a low defense factor and were automatically lost when attacking an enemy ship. However, if they were properly managed, they allowed to destroy or severely damage more expensive ships, thus were a gool tool to protecte your planets against a superior enemy.
We could imagine a 'suicide' module for GalCiv II that would give a huge attack factor but destroy the ship when it first attack.
However, as new choices (3 sets of weapons/defense) are now offered to the player, I am not too sure that suicide ships are needed any more.

It seems to me that "space mines", although a cool idea, are really limited to a tactical role. This being a game of galactic stratagy, any mines should be limited to pure defensive use.

I agree, this is small scale stuff for divisional commanders.You can abstract this stuff into the planet improvements, in your imagination.Everything and the kitchen sink was tried before, it was called MOO3,lol.

I have to agree that Mines wont fit in GC2, However what you can do is if kamakazi modules are added you could stick one on a tiny ship, Build about 40 of them and fill up an entire sector on guard mode...

As Suralle pointed out, ships don't really have to bump into mines. 'Dumb' explosives are obselete in modern militaries today, let alone 200 years from now. It's not really reasonable to suggest that interstellar combat, in which two ships find each other in a cubic lightyear of space, and then quickly match velocities, is possible - but a ship would never encounter one of trillions of mines lurking in that same cubic lightyear. Both concepts are abstract, and if a ship can find its enemy, so can a powered mine.

I envision a few types of mines:

1) Nanomines. Depending on miniaturization tech, these could range from the size of a golf ball (30mm dia) to the size of a BB (4.5mm dia), with a 100mg antimatter charge. With a passive sensors and laser propulsion (no drive mass other than photons, which is more mass-efficient that an ion drive) they could interdict ships using the low acceleration of a laser drive, if they spot them far enough in advance. A mine the size of a BB does not sound powerful, but 100mg of antimatter would easily destroy any ocean ship Earth has ever seen. And a 100-kT cargo ship could carry and drop 200,000,000,000 of them per mission... The most modern antipersonnel mines are often airplane-dropped, the size of a deck of cards, and include electonics to handle arming and disarming (after a set number of years, or when a signal is broadcast). I have not seen any mobile land mines yet though

2) Sleeper Missiles. Similar to those discussed earlier in the thread, these "mines" are really just normal ship missiles modified for extremely long range and fitted with some passive sensors. When an enemy ship is detected, the missile launches itself. These are much simpler (technologically) and more powerful than nanomines, and much more likely to attack a ship (per mine, given their vastly increased attack range and detonation radius), but much more expensive per mine - you could probably only lay one millionth as many.

3) Laser Mines. Imagine a highly-charged capacitor, in which the dielectric is a lasing medium, and one of the charge plates is a mostly-reflective mirror, with an attached columnating lens. Essentially, a laser tube that doubles as a capcitor. With an attached sensor pod, attitude jets (compressed air, a hypergolic fluid as used on the Space Shuttle, or tiny ion drives), and a targeting computer, this mine waits until it senses an enemy ship within effective range, then reorients itself and fires a single laser beam... and then it is dead (energy supply used up) and fires a scuttling charge. Ships enroute don't travel in zigzags, they just accelerate in a straight line until the halfway point and then decelerate... and lasers don't attenuate in space... so these could hit any enemy ship within the sensor range as long as they shoot straight and the target does not change course or take evasive action.


How would these make the game more fun? Well... they add possiblities. An evil, warlike race has no reason to develop mines, as they suck resources and research and cannot be used aggressively. A good race really shouldn't, lest they kill innocents by mistake. Peaceful neutrals, isolationists, and minors would benefit greatly. Minefields are not impenetrable. If you lay them thinly, fleets can go right through them; if they are too low-tech, they will be spotted and evaded or destroyed; if they are too weak, the enemy ships will be hit and undamaged. Mines are more like corporate "poison pills", or the bitter taste of milkweed (and monarch butterflies), or a car with "the club" on the steering wheel - you can buy out a company with a "poison pill", or eat a monarch butterfly, or steal a car with "the club", but why not pick on their much tastier neighbor instead? Minefields mean the attacker will have to accept more losses OR have to invest in point-defense and/or sensors and/or minesweeping ships. The defender has to do additional research and spend large amounts of money on minefields that can never be used offensively, never stop a determined attacker, and never engage the target they want (e.g. a minefield near Mars cannot be used to reinforce Earth).


The way I envision minefields working:

Minelaying ships can lay mines at a certain rate in a square, which increases the number of mines in the square. There is some monetary cost per mine (or per X mines) so that a minlayer set to "Lay Mines" costs money to operate, while a minelayer moving or idling is free. Any ship moving through the minefield may be hit and damaged (or even destroyed) by any number of mines. The number of mines that target a ship is a function of the size of the ship and the number of mines in the sector. These mines may or may not hit, depending on the ship's size, speed, sensors, weapons (maybe it can shoot them), and point defense/chaff. Every mine that targets a ship, whether it hits or not, is removed from the minefield. In other words, ships going through a minefield deplete the minefield somewhat, and may be damaged.

Minesweepers, on the other hand, never get hit by mines, and can clear "X" mines per turn (for free) in a mined square, until they are all gone.


So - I think it would be fun. Depending on the (money, time, and research) cost and effectiveness of mines and minesweeping, they could have major, moderate, minor, or zero impact on the game - somewhere between moderate and minor seems appropriate. But I certainly think they would add a fun strategic consideration, and economic as well if mined space can kill trade minifreighters - this could be used offensively, or even be an economic penalty to the isolationist approach of surrounding your capitol with minefields.

-Cherry

Any time we talk about a new strategic element being added the questions we have to ask are: 1) Does it make the game more fun? 2) How does it affect the computer AI? 3) How much does it cost to implement? 4) How much time would it take to implement?

These are always important concerns, but they boil down to a matter of opinion. I don't imagine that GalCiv II will have mines at release. However, an expansion pack might have them.

1) I love mines and traps in games that do them well. They are rarely done well, but when they are, it allows people to be much more devious and tricky, which I find fun.

2) Mines and stealth can destroy an AI that is not programmed to deal with them. Master of Magic dies to invisible units, Age of Wonders lets the AI see invisible units, and Space Empires IV's AI cannot handle mines. But then, the AI in these games is very bad, and minefields in SEIV are implemented in a very unrealistic way. If you write an AI to correctly deal with mines, stealth, and stealthy mines, then it will; if you add them without changing the AI, then it won't. On the Age of Wonders forums, I (and others) enumerated specific, simple, and viable algorithms for the computer to realistically deal with stealth units (instead of letting the computer see all stealth units). They were ignored, because "that's not how our AI is written".

3+4) The cost depends entirely on the implementation. Any time a minefield is encountered, you could pop up a window of "Minesweeper" (included by default in Windows XP) and damage the fleet based on how well the player does Minigames are fun! But seriously, I imagine that adding mines, sweepers, tech, AI support, graphics, and interface additions would require roughly 1/3 the time ( == cost) it took to do all of those things for starbases... but, I don't know what the cost was of adding starbases. Mines might require 2-14 days from the whole team, depending on how complete, complex, and intricate they are; and whether they are "designed in" or "hacked in by mutilating existing functionality" (much faster!); but I'm just a programmer, not an experienced development team leader, so that's a stab in the dark.

I'm not campaigning for mines, or a game too complex for its AI to cope, or even for a delay in development time. But of the possible features that could be added to the game (in, say, an exp. pack), there are a few that stand out to me (listed below). The only ones with much chance of appearance are mines and additional ship components, and it seems like nobody was clamoring for them, so I thought I'd toss out a line and feel for a nibble. I suspect that this board is dominated by GC1 players who are used to its higher level of abstraction, so hopefully I am presenting the point of view of outsiders who love extreme complexity and diversity. These two (goals / concepts / ideals) are sometimes considered bad or inelegant, but I love Jagged Alliance 2 on the "Tons of Guns" setting, Dominions II with its 1100+ units (and at least 100 spells) and Total Annihilation with hundreds of units largely because of the immense diversity and scope of strategies, viable or not, and all the neat features they pack in.

Things I like:

1) More customizability of ships (more weapons, armors, expansion modules, afterburners, repair subsystems, etc)
2) Time-limited AI: Give the computer a time limit - 1 second, 10 seconds, 10 minutes, whatever - and allow the AI to use up to that much time to ponder moves, each turn (like in chess). I'd rather play a harder AI than have fast turns.
3) Mines.
4) Modding support - especially AI modding Without reverse-engineering, I mean.
5) A realistic resource - production - supply model, with different resources (mineral types, for example). Like Stars! but more realistic and less tedious. Managing a space empire that really has food freighted from a remote farming world to a high-population commercial center, at cost, and vulnerable to increception... and having the ability to blockade the enemy's main source of trilithium, forcing him to draw on the black market or shut down his economy to conserve fuel for military use (like many countries in WW2)... would be like I was living in a good science fiction novel.

-Cherry

Ok. Say i toss a tennis ball. Say my friend is running very fast towards me. The tennis ball smacks him in the head. I didn't throw very hard, nor was the ball moving all that fast compared to my friend, but the combined force of both the ball and my friend makes a hard impact.
Now, imagine this same thing with mines. Mines wouldn't even have to be explosive, or very big at all. Like saber cherry said, a bunch of BB size mines don't sound very effective, but when a ship moves through them at super high speeds, it's probably going to look like swiss cheese afterwards. Just a thought, maybe an expansion or somthing

Heh

Reminds me of the opening scene in Pitch Black where our civvy transport flies through a meteor storm...

It would be cool but not very fun gameplay-wise imo.

Leviathion, any ship that can't handle a BB is going to be in big trouble even without being shot at. If you don't have some kind of defense against micrometeorites, you'd better not be going very fast, as space isn't that empty (at least not inside/near a solar system).

The AI isn't going to be able to handle them on release, so we don't get them. It might be possible that we might get them in an expansion, but I wouldn't bet on it.

As for the various technologies discussed, we're still talking about some rather large distances here. The odds of a laser hitting something moving at FTL speeds can't be too good, even if it didn't take weeks/months to get there. Missile-based mines would need an FTL drive to cover any reasonable distance, and we don't know how big of a missle that is going to require. It may be that the tiny hull is so named because it's the smallest hull that a practical FTL engine can be put into.

This isn't saying that I wouldn't like to see mines included. I don't think it's going to happen, and I think the rationalizations here need some more work.

u guyz really havnt seen any movies or TV lately right,that stargate episode some1 mentioned or countless other episodes they showed big motherships trying to get pass millions and millions of mines sorrounding planets, and u know what ?? they couldnt, too many of them on 1 place, even if less than 10 of those mines hits 1 mother ship, that ship is a goner.

My point is I doubt that they'll add mines to be used and planted by some special ship, since thats stupid cuz of all the space you would need to cover, and thats not counting the 3 diferent types of mines you would need to use and implementation of AI , BUT they can anywayz be used for planetary defence, it makes sense to deploy lots of mines around a planets, coupled with a missle defense system and satelite dfense system, there you have the 3 weapons, missles from planet, lasers from satelite, and lots of mines around planet as mass drivers. I know could be expensive and hard for maintenance, but is a pretty damn good way of defending an important planet in the back of your big empire from a specific weapon if you need to, that way theres no need to have lots of old cheap or few expensive ships defending incredibly important planets.


Monclova34

Personally I don't miss mines a second. I can't remember a single strategy game where I really liked to use them. Usually it's lot of micromanagement for little effect. And I agree with the above posters who said that mines are below the scope of the simulation of GalCiv. They are a part of the planetary defense systems you can build.

Very easy way to implement mines into this game.

Make a unit with no capability for travel, make a module that can only be attached to that unit, make unit buildable by only constructor. Now have module do offence damage x 10 and defence x 10, make the unit very expensive but with cheap maintenance, have constructor build in a sector like a starbase, what do you have?

A minefield.