Mines

I try to use them, because it is cool, here my feedback.

I sent an early combat engineer at the expansion metal spot of my opponent to place mine, quiet evil and fun

First feedback, combat enginner is bloody expensive. Actually i ruined my early expansion, then my eco, by making this early combat engineer.

The construction of the mine itself is quick and affordable, rather cool.

Then i realize that my opponent was able to shoot the mines if he had radar coverage...
What is the phoque !

As it is mandatory to have radar coverage (only a beginner would neglect the radar) what is the point of spending time and metal building uneffective mines ?

Then i suggest that mines cannot be detected. And make the combat engineer cheaper.

I feel like radar coverage has gotten a bit too large, and is currently making scouting a little less important then it should be.

In fact, I also think that's a bit silly to enable radars to spot mines.

Finding stuffs underground has always been work for a sonar. Even mines, not just oil and rocks composition.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2087389,00.asp

The whole mine mechanic would be more interesting if there would be one or very few units able to actually identify mines, close range (what so ever tech they will use, as an excuse - it's a game after all). And not necessarily T2: if we keep some key functions to T1, this will be used more creatively and widely for the entire duration of a match. Not just for surviving until one can level up to T2.

New unit - advanced scout. Like a normal scout (maybe slightly better) but is also a minesweeper. By sweeping I mean detecting.

That is really not balanced...Radar should not detect mines. I think what should be done is allow land scouts to reveal mines. This would give them use in the game no need to really create a new unit...

Ehh, radar is a good defensive tool but I find it's overkill in the current implementations.

You opponent should find it hard to get radar in range of your base when compared to proper scouting with units.

No idea why radar detects mines, it's unbalanced and makes them useless.

I keep thinking of ore mines. Too much Tropico... Detain me if I start referring to commanders as "El Presidente"s.

People are only just working out radar detects mines?

Then perhaps it should be a defensive tool. If they don't bring skitters or have good scout coverage they get punished.

What's a radar?

It's this thing they developed in the 1930s to measure reflections of radio waves to detect objects. Apparently even thousands of years later in wars between highly advanced machines it wasn't rendered obsolete.

Yeah, if this game was really in the far future, it'd be a very exciting battle of one factions nanobot cloud swarm vs. another; whoever deconstructs the most matter first wins! I'm happy with a future coat on modern fighting mechanics.

As for mines, I'd really like to see them be made useful, they open up some cool defensive options/punish unpreparedness. Ideally only ground scouts should be able to detect them.

I think combat fabbers should be the only one disarming and detecting enemy mines

I like this idea!!!
It would be like having a single unit as radar/recon in a huge army. This will not cost too much since you only need one or two and might look pretty cool and is awesome if people forget to build it and boom goodbye army

seriously speaking, nobody bothers.

I was right : "Currently noone cares to know what the other has because concretely, they don't know."

shouldn't this be an issue?

Best way to remove mine field, send cheap unit into.

What the point of defusing mines ? it is too much micro, just make the mines undetectable at all !

Yeah, any reduction in radar and even adjustments with vision, would be awesome. Make people work for every inch, but don't be overly stingy to drive away new players.

Still, too much ease in access to anything, metal or vision or radar coverage, is just plain unfun. No thrill of earning it, like you clutched it.

It has been dropped as it is highly balanced in comparison to the past, but orbital radars, could be nerfed more still. Just saying, they can pretty safely fly overhead why do they need to detect or visionize so far into the enemy territory from the safety of your own base.

Imagine a moment, radar satellite reduced to regular radar range, orbital advanced radar renamed spy satellite and is given basic ground unit vision which other satellites are given no ground vision, both are equal cost and fairly cheap at that. Why would you use them? Because you can fly them overhead anywhere there isn't an umbrella. If you establish an anchor, they would struggle ever removing it. It itself moves and is hard to kill. Even between planets perhaps. Why wouldn't you build one?

Also, deep space radar should only give some vision overhead in the orbital layer. That way, building several has a purpose. It should still see all of other planet's orbital layer like current. This means having 1 per planet acts as total coverage. Also, this would give a player in-planet early-game orbital-privacy instead of knowing exactly when they build a launcher until they physically fly overhead or interplanetary.

Ah crud wrong topic all of that. Err, mines need some form of detection, I don't feel radar is the right one, especially if as abundant as now. Maybe just vanguards can detect them? I mean, if nothing could detect them they would be OP but if almost nothing could detect them you could still use some sort of fodder as a "parakeet in a mineshaft", units are expendable and acceptable losses.

Please provide some argument.

Laying down mines on the battlfield is an important investment, it requires metal, time, and player focus. It deserves to kill some units.

Don't ring the OP alarma for nothing.

Yeah the only unit I would consider using mines on has a built in radar. Vanguards are beasts!!! If undetectable by radar they would have to cost more. I have never used mines in other games so not too familiar with their purpose.

Hey, if you are going to quote me, quote all of me. You aren't getting away with anything, I will quote myself:

So as I said, you would send lone dox or skitter to test the path. That is still technically a form of detection, and acceptable losses in a game you have a factory all game produce just scouts, and units are as expendable as toilet paper.

Just clarifying. The best short term solution? Make radar not detect mines. That alone, would not be a travesty, and I gurantee it would be interesting, give mines power, and make players actually consider such trivial testing of the path before sending an army. Sounds very tactical to me.

But, you would have to do something to limit mine density per units to set off a field of them. Possibly make them set off so many mines nearby, or make bomb bots explode on death as to both make them useful in combat and set off minefields in better proportion to other units.