What do Mines need in order to be Useful?

autumnturning

The state of the game has left Mines behind. As has been pointed out, the only Trait specifically dedicated to improving Mines is ... Hot Pursuit ... and that's it.

So ... basic question ... if you had to redo Mines (somehow), what traits, properties, mechanics would they need in order to not be at such a terrible disadvantage from inception?

Suggestions range from folding the +Torpedo and +Mines Tactical Consoles into a unified +Projectiles Tactical Console, so you don't have to divide up your buffing between Torpedoes and Mines ... all the way up to allowing (your own) Mines to proc Attack Patterns again (including the all important Attack Pattern: Beta). Also, actually having a Dispersal Pattern Alpha III in the game would make a real difference in the effectiveness of Cloaking Tractor Mines as an Area Denial strategy.

Anyone else have thoughts and ideas on what needs to be done to Mines to bring them back up to snuff?

welcome2earf

I would somehow have your +stealth value trickle down to them so they have a chance of avoiding shots from B:FaW spam. Also, throw them some more HP so they can withstand 1 more hit. Have the dispersal patterns deploy more, and have the mines activate quicker.

Unknown

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neomodious

with hot pursuit, they can function as a psuedo auto turret. great for CE as mines take out shards quite well.​​

pottsey5g

I am not sure mines need bringing up to snuff as they are high damage and great in the right hands. What they need is more options and the useless ones fixing.

First of all fix the next to useless mine doffs. Fix the useless mines like the lobi tethered quantum mines that do half the damage of basic quantum mines. Fix the cooldown on Tricobalt mines that are broken again. Add in more types of mine cluster torpedoes. +Torpedo and +Mines Tactical Consoles into a unified is a great idea.

autumnturning

Here's an oddball thought.

Currently, Mines ... like every other Projectile in the game ... have a maximum top flight speed. When they acquire their targets, they just "insta-shift" into top speed and fly towards their target at whatever their flight speed is.

What I'm getting at is that the game assigns a VELOCITY to Mines (or at least it looks like it), but there's no real ACCELERATION value assigned to them. In other words, they don't increase their flight speed while flying towards a target like a rocket (or other constant acceleration propulsion source) would in space.

Which makes me wonder what Mines would be like if they were capable of applying a constant acceleration pointing towards their selected target(s), which resulted in a variable velocity in flight speed, with no theoretical max limit to flight speed (although with a max aggro radius limit still). You then take that game mechanical adjustment and apply some different modifiers for different Mine Types. Just for giggles, maybe something like this:

• Photon Mines could be granted a version of the Pilot Specialization Impulse Drafting, such that they'll accelerate faster to their target when an allied ship is close to them (2km range?). Note that other Photon Mines, Fighters and Ships (allied only) would count for the purposes of this buff (so that a group of Photon Mines fly faster than singles) with no maximum limit, so bring on the Dispersal Pattern Beta III.
• Quantum Mines could have a very high base acceleration, but then apply a stacking self-debuff to that acceleration which makes them lose some acceleration (up to a max stack) as they continue to pursue. This would make them a sort of "quick dash" behavior, making them surprisingly fast at first, but their acceleration drops off rapidly and gives them a relatively "low and flat" acceleration rate after the initial burst of dash speed, making them better at short range than at long range in terms of flight times to target.
• Plasma Mines could have a "middling" acceleration value (nothing fancy) assigned to them, and activate a derivative version of Pilot BOff ability Coolant Ignition when they aggro onto a target. But rather than releasing full sized "ship clouds" behind them, the Plasma Mines trail thin streaks of impulse coolant (think shuttle scale vs ship scale) as they fly towards their target. That way, it's not *just* the Mines you have to worry about, but the area denial factor of the streamers along the flight path(s) of the Mines as well (which would look really cool).
• Chroniton Mines can proc a temporary 1 second acceleration boost meaning that they intermittently start "flying faster" to their targets than other Mine types, making them less predictable, which gets checked every 1 second while chasing a target.
• Transphasic Mines could have a lower base acceleration value, but can add a self-buff to acceleration every second (up to a max stack) such that they improve their acceleration while in pursuit (basically the inverse of Quantum Mines).
• Tricobalt Mines have the lowest base acceleration, but they also have an increased "seek" range to aggro onto targets, which means they'll attack farther targets and be flying about as fast as other types on impact at max range but take longer to "get going fast" on the way (for that Hit Like A Freight Train feel).

Mind you, that's just a matter of looking around at what the game might be able to support now and thinking "well that would be cool..." since it would help differentiate all the Mine types a bit more than just relying on Damage and Shield Penetration. It would make Mines behave differently in actual gameplay, which in turn would add diversity of performance and the creation of a variety of strategies and tactics for how to best employ these different types of weapons.

Wouldn't do everything to get around the fact that Mines are essentially "Delayed Damage" that *might* happen eventually, as opposed to "Instant Damage" (ala Beam Weapons). Also doesn't do anything in particular for "specialty" Mines, like the Nukara Web Mines or the Cloaking Tractor Mines, but those are all special cases anyway that could make use of other options (I like the idea of Nukara Web Mines randomly "interphase jumping" 1 km closer to their target, check once per second, while in flight as a sort of short range teleport proc behavior to make them "slippery" to deal with).

I know I'd appreciate seeing Mines "arm" themselves faster than they do after being deployed, since it seems like they wait about 3 seconds before "blinking" and seeking targets. Additionally, reducing the Shared Cooldown between all Mine Launchers would seem to be something of a no brainer to making the installation of multiple Mine Launchers per ship a more viable option.

And what if the Terran Reputation Tier 4 Traits added Mine Dispersal Patterns to the already existing Torpedo Skills that they affect? That might help boost the value of Mines above their current (sad and forgotten) state.