Varied questions: mines, sats, experience

[Mephisto]

Originally posted by Taera:
So the question finaly formed in my brain:
What is the practical use of mines in large-scale games against human players?

Don't just count the combat losses you inflict with a weapon. By having mines over some planets and warp points you force your enemy to have sufficient minesweepers in every of his fleets costing him resources while your mines are free. The same holds true for carriers/fighters and missiles. It forces your enemy to have PDC on his ships (or build some Aegis ships). This reduces the combat value of his ships against other ships and is expensive. Remember, large empires win or lose a war by their economy.

[ June 04, 2002, 12:03: Message edited by: [K126]Mephisto ]

[Taera]

Hmm. Good points. Agree.

[mac5732]

Mines and sats are both still worth using even in the later parts of a game. Besides what has already been said on their use, if you use the combined arms technique they can still be deadly expecially on wormhole defense. Imagine, Starbases, with 100 sats and 100 mines on a wormhole, you come thru, the sats are going to gave at least several good shots at you, depending what you use, before they are wasted, but those shots might mean the difference in winning or losing the battle.
Mines and sats can be put anywhere, this does force one to build sweepers, which like Mephisto and the others said uses resources. If you don't then the mines take out your ships. Plus Sats can be cloaked, put several of these in each system with scanners and you can see what's going on. In closing, if your enemy builds them, you must defend against them, if you use them your enemy must defend against them, therefore there is an action and a reaction. If he builds mines and you don't use sweepers......or vica versa, so you might not actually see any big use later in the game but they still cause players to react.

training facilities, I don't use them in Sp play only in hot seat when other human players are in game. Until Ai uses them it seem unfair in sp play. (in my opinion)

just some ideas mac

[ June 04, 2002, 20:43: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

[Batman]

One thing that I've always thought would make satellites a lot more useful would be to increase their size slightly, or decrease the size of the robo-miner components. That way remote mining could be started at the beginning (or close to the beginning) of the game, and profitably.

Having to wait to research large satellites (something I generally don't get a chance to do until later on) to me greatly lessens the effectiveness of remote mining. RM has always seemed underused to me; I expect that if humanity ever makes it to the stars then that form of mining will be a significant portion of all mining done.

Actually, this makes me think of something interesting; I'm going to start a new post to discuss it. (See Mining makes me sad)

[mac5732]

I know its been discussed before, but it would be nice if you could place your sats in Groups in any of the 4 cornors of your planet instead of always lumped together in l location that you don't have a choice over.. same with bases, in my opinion only..

just some ideas mac

[mottlee]

Originally posted by Gandalph:
I am designing a Psychic race now that uses sat's with allegiance subverters at warp points. Imagine coming through a warp point and staring 30 allegiance subverters in the face at point blank range!

That would be scarry! unless they use MC's then WM-3 will kick butt too!

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by mac5732:
I know its been discussed before, but it would be nice if you could place your sats in Groups in any of the 4 cornors of your planet instead of always lumped together in l location that you don't have a choice over.. same with bases, in my opinion only..

just some ideas mac

Yep, there's a "Combat Satellite Group Amount" control in settings.txt and it does nothing. Why? If sats were grouped into smaller bunches and scattered around they'd be far more effective than all being bunched in one place.

[Lupusman]

"So, someone please explain me why should one bother to build 20 sats when he can build 3 battlestations of much greater stopping power?"

Well, if you are playing against a psychic race, it only takes one shot (maybe two if you include a virus) by the subverter, and your base has just become your enemy.