Why?
- The damage is pathetic
- Aft-firing only, while thematically correct, places yet another limitaiton on them
- BOff abilities are relatively expensive - they start at LT and occupy slots that compete with far more desirable abilities
- The nature of STO's combat means that that vast majority of mines are wasted
- Limited Traits
- +Torp Spire consoles (widely used by Torp boats due to mixing and matching Torps) don't do squat for mines
- Current mechanics leave them with a triple disadvantage; they have to be dropped within/have an enemy close range, they have long travel times to targets, and are destrucible by even the slightest AoE damage for their entire existence
Yes yes yes, you
can make them work, just like you can make an Engineer do DPS. That's all piloting, which is by far the most important skill you can have. But that doesn't meant that they're not at a disadvantage compared to others.
Comments
"Go and have a wee, the second act gets considerably weirder." -Tim Minchin
That's it. Now every ship can (and should) use mines without having to give up a slot for something generally regarded as more useful.
2) Remove DPA.
3) Remove DPB.
4) Have HY apply DPB to the Cluster (dropping a larger cluster of mines at the target).
5) Have TS apply DPA to the Cluster (dropping a string of mines along the way to the target).
6) Convert Mine PWOs to Torp PWOs.
7) Have Torp PWOs affect Cluster Launchers.
8) Make the Tethered Quantums Friendly Target (attach to self or ally).
9) Convert Generic Mine Consoles to Generic Torp Consoles.
10) Convert Mine boosts to Torp boosts.
11) Have Torp boosts affect Clusters.
12) Add blind fire Cluster to R&D (Cluster that doesn't require a target and travels a specific distance).
Etc, etc, etc...you get the idea.
Damage is pathetic...... Have we so quickly forgotten when tricobalt CRTDx3 mines were destroying fully healed tac cubes in cure space (then elite) with all probes healing it below it?
Believe me, I'd love to have the projectile weapons re-worked, especially mines. I used to run the B'Rel with 2 mines aft, 2 cluster torps fore with 2 normal torps fore as well with mine consoles in tactical. The vaadwaar were destroying almost all the mines, even when deployed while the B'Rel was touching their ships. The Vaadwaar negated most of my best damaging projectiles. Using HY made some torps targetable, and those were destroyed more often than not, so I switched to spread or no torp mods and it became a long-drawn out duel of attrition instead of a deadly pass of torps and mines.
Also contributed to this discussion.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Kinetic Damage vs Shields.
Perfect...stupid ten letter requirement.
and in general... I think ALL torps and mines are toally useless, except plasma and tranny - and maybe neutronic - but on spread it got nerfed hard. and if you dont fly an exclusive torp boat, torps and mines are a waste too. never ever mix energy and kinetic dmg, bc every energy weapon will do more dps.
On my torp sci I use 2 plasma mines in the rear and use them like torpedoes. just have to stay under 6km. think this is the only way to use them properly.
Long shared CD that ALL mines share with ALL other mines and cannot be gotten around (compared to the mere 1 second most torps share with other torps).
Plus just long CDs in general, on average 15-20 seconds at least, and their CD reduction DOFFs are also Projectile DOFFs, and there are better options available for those as well, let alone how rarely they seem to proc.
Damage though, I'm not sure. If you are willing to really push them, you can get some good numbers out of em. Crits are really your friend here, and using the small AoE function of mines to get more damage out of them by hitting multiple targets at the same time.
I could see lowering the CDs, but the shared CD was because (if I remember correctly) people were spamming mines (and pets) and causing lag
i would like to have also the choice, for the rep sets. there is often a torp in the sets, if they could add the option of having also mines, this would be cool.
example:
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Counter_Command_Ordnance
the choice between the torp or mines.
So... uh... the solution to mines is to make them torps?
At the very least they should reduce the cooldown of DP's so they line up more with the cooldown of mines...like a CD of 20 seconds.
I think at the very least they shouldn't be targetable till armed...or instantly arm right after deployment...they sit far to long doing nothing before they spring into action.
They should have a much higher evasion rate...targetable torps should as well to be honest...I mean how is it harder for me with at the very least 10-20% bonus accuracy to hit the big giant plasma ball unimatrix ships spew out then for any random npc to hit tiny mines? (One of multiple double standards that bugs me)
Other mines are less fun. But Trics make a massive bang. Sure they're not necessarily an insta-kill for cubes now but they do a nice amount of damage.
My character Tsin'xing
An understandable thing, but even if that doesn't change for that reason, mines still don't do enough damage to justify their long CDs and shared CDs.
Even then, there's SO MANY more pets and other such things in the game since that change must've been made that how can that really be a good enough reason anymore?
Anyways...mines at the absolute least need a damage increase if nothing else. With their long CDs and shared CDs, the launch and arming sequence taking several seconds by itself, and how slow mines themselves are TO actually get to a target, by the time all that has gone through, you could've launched waves of torpedoes, including a torp ability or two before you can fire ONE mine launcher again. Sure you can combo mines and torps for a one-two punch of projectiles, like a TS 3 and DPB 3, but you can get a lot of mileage out of just torps alone as well, without worrying at all about mines.
Really, anymore than one mine launcher, unless it's some special one (like the Tractor Beam mines) , and/or part of a set (like the Tachyon mines), there's not much point.
They're also effected by the same skill that increases the disable time on viral matrix, not sure by how much to be honest but it effects them and gives trico mines a little added utility.
Every 6 seconds you have three plasma projectiles, can be buffed by THY and TS, launch time can be buffed by a doff. Mines, every 16 seconds you can launch 4 projectiles, they do nothing unless they get aggro.
Do not take me wrong, I like mines and use them. They are great on a science ship aimed at shield stripping, but as soon as you have access to the Romulan torpedo, it is by far the better option to have as a rear launcher.
My character Tsin'xing
Which you don't have to do with their torpedo counterparts, for essentially the same damage, but lower overall damage due to a much higher CD and BOff requirement.
I think the BESTEST buff would just be moving them back to engineering.
Was that in Beta? I don't remember mines as anything other than tactical.
Not sure it would help. I mean, it would give Cruisers / Engineering heavy ship a few more offense minded options, but I am not convinced mines are good enough to matter. I guess a Cmdr Level Mine Pattern might compare more favourably to Aceton Beam or Eject Warp Plasma then it does to Attack Pattern Omega, but that is not saying much.
My character Tsin'xing
1. Dont de-spawn them... I hate this one thing the most. I use DPB3... leave mines.... next time I try to launch more mines... the first ones go away.... This is just pure TRIBBLE. I want to see ships coming and set up a mine field between them and me. But no... 1 DPA3 or DPB3 is all you get. If you put more out the others de-spawn. If leaving all the mines is not possible for some reason, give mines a 2 minute lifespan, and allow us to make a "field" of mines. Mines should be the only thing that does not go away until the hit something or something hits them.
2. Allow cloaking mines with a boff ability. AOE like FAW will remove every mine in seconds. Let me use a low level boff ability to cloak a mine release. I dont even care if they decloak when they get a target and start moving or if the cloak only lasts 10 seconds. I just hate throwing out 16 mines to see them do NOTHING because FAW=counter to anything.
3. Drop the shared cooldown... this is just stupid and I am sure its due to the same reasons for #1. They do not want 500 mines sitting around the map.... and yet they have no issues whatsoever with 8 beam FAW cruiser, or a insta kill TS3 with 20 torps. The torp boats do not have a shared cooldown... so they can spam. I can not spam mines... and if i do they de-spawn my older ones.