Mines [land,sea,other] & How To Make Them Work

As in land mines & sea mines.

In Total Annihilation which only had land mines they looked good on paper on a strategic level however their implementation meant that they and their builder units were hardly ever used. You could build multiple mines in a straight line but since explosions damage units this was not really an option and trying to put each one individually away from others so they wouldn't damage one another was tiresome even with the shift key.

Generally they were a waste of time and effort and resources when they might not even be run over [especially if the enemy used air/sea mainly] and if they were there was no gurantee that they would be hit and the minefields themselves wouldn't have enough mines [unless you had nothing better to do] to take out everything. Even the nuclear mine was useless [cost too much to produce] and there were probably far too many types of mine for basically the same thing.

So how would mines be deployed usefully and with a degree of success?

How about instead of being deployed via a land vehicle, they could be deployed via cannon [that shoot them from far away where they then dig into the ground], they could be dropped via aircraft and also act a improptu bombs [any that fail to hit a structure would be waiting for an enemy to run over them], be used as a special ability by a unit [so drop one mine when you press a button] or be built as a spaced out mine field as default with no need for individual clicking each one and also spaced out so that they wouldn't destroy each other [though that could an option with a button click]. Buildable mines shouldn't need to have a specialist mine builder. Sea Mines could also be added in this way. Space Mines?

Apart from explosive mines, you could have parasite mines that attach themselves to an enemy unit to see what they are doing with a short sight range, paralysis mines to enable capture and maybe aa mines that turn into missiles and launch themselves at any aircraft that pass over. Any comments?

You've covered all the basics of mines, my personal favourites being air drop although i am unsure of the logistical implications of putting explosions outside a factory. The simplest way is just to build them but they also run into the logistical problems you raised.

So with mild inspiration from Dawn of War, as near as i could tell you placed the mine field and it sent off random explosions within a radius for moving units, each one costing health of the minefield. this doesn't really fit the simulation aspect most of us seem to love but it does raise another solution. Placing a mine field core type structure that automaticaly builds and replenishes the minefield around it.

I think mines just add way too much to slowing the game down and making defensive/turtling strategies viable. I would rather see fast, hard hitting offensive action than an army being worn down just by walking through a field.

I've heard lots of bad talk about turtling strategies and while i can understand not encouraging them (bye bye my shields, i will miss you) they shuold still be at least viable. people should have an option other than all out attack all the time.

And mines are not so different from turrets (instead of the counter being artillery the counter is detection), allowing a player to stall their opponent and buy an extra bit of time.

I think mines either dropped from a vehicle (be it land, sea, or air) could work as well as ones launched with a gun or rocket could also work. Hopefully if there is implantation of such in the game, it would be possible to make them with mods.

To counter it there could be some fort of low damage, large area effect that could be used to clear the midfield (some sort of artillery or carpet bombing perhaps) and/or specialized detection units (that could also be useful for detecting other hard to detect things like stealth or cloaking robots).

I do not think that mines would add to turtling too much, and turtling should be a viable strategy, particularly early. With planets colliding I do not think it would be the best late game option no mater what defenses you have.

The only good implementation I've ever seen of land mines was in CNC Generals. In that game, one of the factions (china) could build mines for a significant price (600, almost as much as a tank at 800) around any of its structures. The mines would kill units that go too close, and auto-regen. The mines couldn't stop a structure from being destroyed by units, but it greatly limited the effectiveness of units that had to get up close, and from attempts to rush past defenses.

If it's not something like that, don't put mines in, period.

I do not think that defense mines deployed around your own buildings is a good implementation. If mines are implemented they should be more flexible. For instance you should be able to place mines on/near useful resources to deny them to your enemy. You could place mines in strategic routes destroying/disabling units before they can reach your base, slowing or blocking that route.

As for deployment of mines, I think that real life uses, such as multiple rocket launchers which can deploy mines over a wide area, from a distance, would be a useful way of implementing mines.

Also space/orbital mines, maybe something like Brilliant Pebbles, are another area mines could be used. (To destroy enemy satellites, spaceships, and long range missiles)

I worked out a pretty nifty mine concept in the units thread. I mixed it with the idea of a walking suicide bomb, making it a very versatile unit. Here's an illustration.



In Starcraft mines work better than in most RTS since they jump out and run to nearby enemies. In this concept you could set them to do that, or wait until someone steps right on them, or turn them off and manually self-destruct whenever you want. If nobody runs into your minefield you can just unburrow them and walk over to where you want them. You could give them flippers as well, turning them into sea mines. A generic unit launching structure/unit is probably the best option for long range deployment. And of course there should be a nuclear version for the ultimate invader's surprise party.

Why can't we select multiple options? Several of them look good

you just wanted to post that picture again didn't you?

Mines are cool. I like the idea of a factory that deploys and maintains a minefield around its perimeter. Something kind of like this:

If were to include mines, we might as well have more than one way to deploy them.
I think an artillery and air drop would be nice to secure choke points, after you scout the enemy army attacking.

A minefield directly around your base structures would be interesting as well.

also, C&C Gen's China could also deploy mines via a special ability, which were finite.

There's a mobile artillery unit in ZK that launches cloaking mines with a lifespan of about 30 seconds. Force firing a bunch of them at a patch of ground creates a mine field, or you can directly fire them at units.

Just mentioning as another possible approach.

I like the idea of a burrowing mine factory that replenishes a mine field in a radius around it. To counter I suppose the opponent would need to guess where the centre of the field is and use bombers/artillery to destroy the hidden factory. Adds micro though.

Could maybe have different mine field types too e.g. napalm, emp, disruptor (temporarily slows movement and fire rate), concussion etc. I would say that direct damage from a mine field shouldn't be massive, maybe just enough to take out some light units, but emp/disruptor type effects would be nice to inconvenience heavier armies.

Poll amended for you, just a shame the previous results were wiped out :|

A minefield building sounds a decent idea, some kind of outpost [cloakable?] that spits out a certain amount of mines in the near vicinity.

Thanks

Also, what unit is in your profile pic? Looks nice

Crawling bombs just need to become cloaked when standing still turning them into mines. Maybe ad some funny animation to them

Those of you who own SupCom:FA should take a look at the BlackOps:Unleashed Mod, we added a Mine laying Structure to the Seraphim Faction. It worked in a similar Fashion to the game's Tactical Missile Launchers(TMLs) in that you had to build the ammo for it, then give it a target, it would then lunch a missile that traveled to the target and spawn several mines within a certain area, off hand I don't recall anymore if they have a limited lifespan or not.

Mike

I'm partial to keeping this one pretty simple. Go with the spider mines from TA but with one change. Allow them to hide in some way.

This is the only real reason they were worthless in TA, they could never get into range to actually do anything.

Don't let them move while hiding. Keep the build cost reasonable for the amount of damage they inflict keeping in mind that they are a one shot weapon unlike other units. Keep their movement speed fairly limited so they can't sprint at and murder the enemy.

And include a specialized unit that can detect and remove the mines without triggering them. Other units of course will have to stay away or they will activate the mines. This makes them strategically viable even if your enemy has the means to detect them because you can't really effectively detect and clear mines when you're being shot at.

Do it like they did it in Starcraft Brood War: have a minelayer that has a role OUTSIDE of its minelaying ability. In the case of SC:BW the vulture could lay spider mines to protect tank lines or block passages but it was also a swift raider unit.

My gut says: 'no mines'; but this implementation sounds promising: