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What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#1
Just thought of this whilst watching a "dogfight" example from Elite:dangerous on KS.

What if, when your'e in a dogfight and you've got someone behind you (that you just can't shake), you had the possibility to drop a mine?
Kinda like in "mario cart" =). Or maybe a timed bomb or something. Of course any enemy should also have the possibility to own and drop mines if the roles where reversed. That way you'd have to be on your guard if you saw a mine in the enemy cargo hold (if you scaned him prior to combat).

Another way to make dogfights more interesting could maybe be the assignment of an NPC to manage your tailgun (a gun mounted on the back of your ship). Which could also be usefull in capitol-ship fights (ordering half of your ship's canons to fire at one target, whilst you controll the other half).
But maybe I should make a different suggestion-thread for that?

So what do you think?
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#2
mines are basically useless unless they have a large blast radius or move like drones to targets, space is quite vast. Plus i particularly disagree with the idea of accuracte cargo scanning, i want their to be surprises and tactics, i dont want the npcs to scan me every 5 mins and know everything about me, and the same for me.

I have to vote no on this mainly for the reason that dropping mines that move on their on and/or have a large blast radius would eat system resources, as they all would essentially be their own little npc entities. furthermore, since items may be procedural, each individual mine has to have more data to allow it to work based off its procedural stats. so if your fleet tries to create a blockade with a minefield (which of course would be awesome) it would quickly eat system resources when each mine has its own data set to deal with.
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#3
I have experimented with minefields in an X3 script where one minefield was one entity.
Only the volume would grow / shrink as mines were added or removed.

Since most of the action happened OOS, the accuracy of mine hits was standardised and "real" mines were only added into the sector for the actual detonation.

Without that you would need millions of mines to mine a 3D space with any sort of useful density.
See Douglas Adams. Space is big.

I discontinued the script because the X3 ships were way too dumb to deal with mines. Mines that worked were way overpowered. No fun.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#4
Mines, as Gazz and Neo already stated, are pretty useless. Freelancer's mines were guided and tracking, and acted more like missiles than mines.

I'd suggest implementing missile launchers that can also fire to the rear, either because they're rear-facing, turret mounted or the missiles track well enough to engage a pursuing craft. Other than that, a tailgunner style turret for smaller craft would also be feasible - that's one of the few good things that came out of the X series.

Larger craft usually have a pretty good turret coverage or dedicated point-defense, so a tailgun emplacement is rarely necessary.
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#5
Unless someone comes up with a very good design / gameplay for minefields, I'd suggest to can the whole idea.

Building static defenses in space is ridiculous on a grand scale.

Early warning satellites, automated missile launchers - anything with very long range - could possibly be used for static defenses.
Mines? Nope. Not in manageable numbers.


Even "dropping" a mine is a crap shot in a dogfight. We don't know any scales but in X3, doing that in a dogfight could have you miss easily by a kilometer.
The automated detection range of a SQUASH mine is some 700m.
A missile would almost always get you better bang for the buck and wouldn't create a navigational hazard that you would eventually be blamed for...
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#6
Hardenberg wrote:Mines, as Gazz and Neo already stated, are pretty useless. Freelancer's mines were guided and tracking, and acted more like missiles than mines.

I'd suggest implementing missile launchers that can also fire to the rear, either because they're rear-facing, turret mounted or the missiles track well enough to engage a pursuing craft. Other than that, a tailgunner style turret for smaller craft would also be feasible - that's one of the few good things that came out of the X series.

Larger craft usually have a pretty good turret coverage or dedicated point-defense, so a tailgun emplacement is rarely necessary.
now that you mention it, why hasn't this been done before? a rear facing turrent with a ship-to-ship missile hardpoint would simply need to get a radar lock on the pursuing craft and unless a stream of death quite accurately. the missiles wouldn't even need explosive charges, their relative speed against a pursuing craft would prove enough for a kinetic kill.

for game play reasons, these missiles would need to be slightly week and have a short range, but imagine a dogfight where a pilot suddenly faces a missile array blasting missiles into his cockpit. just having his computer warn him of a missile lock should force him to disengage!! and their could be dumb fire variants with a faster rate of fire, which would explode near high IR sources, essentially turning your six into an on demand flak field.

for visualization, i WANT one of these watching my six:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzPBAHwFDeo
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#7
@neo160 and @gazz

I'm sorry if I was unspecific in my original post. But I really think you are missunderstanding my idea!

I'm not talking about minefields, honestly that would probably suck. and you are right, It would probably eat resources. I'm talking about droping one iduvidual mine during a dogfight
in order to try and hit the guy following you.

I thought of this as a sollution to a frequent problem in any simulator game. Namly if someone got your tail, the only thing your'e able to do about it is to try and outmanuver the enemy and get on his tail.
But if the hunted guy can drop a "trap" or "charge" or mine that might crash into the hunter, you open up a new "realm" in dogfighting.
But the bomb would have to cost lots of money, otherwise it would be too easy to get out of a dogfight.

Maybe it would be better with a "timed-charge".
That way we wouldn't accidentaly get mines left all over our battleground.

I came up with the idea whilst watching this clip :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 5JYRyhxYhI
Imagine if the hunted guy would try to drop mines or charges on the hunter in that scenario.

edit: @neo160, yeah a rear facing misslile turret would be pretty aweome. imgaine hunting a npc and having to dodge incoming missles at the same time as you're trying to hit him with your plasma cannons and avoiding beeing hit by astereoids. =)
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#8
rickisen wrote:@neo160 and @gazz

I'm sorry if I was unspecific in my original post. But I really think you are missunderstanding my idea!

I'm not talking about minefields, honestly that would probably suck. and you are right, It would probably eat resources. I'm talking about droping one iduvidual mine during a dogfight
in order to try and hit the guy following you.

I thought of this as a sollution to a frequent problem in any simulator game. Namly if someone got your tail, the only thing your'e able to do about it is to try and outmanuver the enemy and get on his tail.
But if the hunted guy can drop a "trap" or "charge" or mine that might crash into the hunter, you open up a new "realm" in dogfighting.
But the bomb would have to cost lots of money, otherwise it would be too easy to get out of a dogfight.

Maybe it would be better with a "timed-charge".
That way we wouldn't accidentaly get mines left all over our battleground.

I came up with the idea whilst watching this clip :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 5JYRyhxYhI
Imagine if the hunted guy would try to drop mines or charges on the hunter in that scenario.

edit: @neo160, yeah a rear facing misslile turret would be pretty aweome. imgaine hunting a npc and having to dodge incoming missles at the same time as you're trying to hit him with your plasma cannons and avoiding beeing hit by astereoids. =)
ah, i think i get your idea now, but still, mines, even short lived ones have fundamental limitation. they are finite in size, while space is not, so they need to be homing in at least somewhat to get near a target, if they are alwasy droppe in a straightline, even with a decent blast radius and decent trigger area, digfights are never in straight lines, they are often curved noodles of motion, so mines would have to be mobile.

that's basically the definition of a missile, to be blatantly honest. a rear facing turret can fire a mine/rocket, which then hones in near to its target and explodes, causing damage. dumb fire missile launchers will have a high volume of missiles to scare of pesky individuals, while IR tracking missiles would be harbingers of death, as couter measures would be less effective if the range between the target and the hardpoint is only within 100 meters.

the archetype of this combat mine idea would probably only reduce the amount of options, as they are often seen in scifi as moving bombs, missiles are, creativily speaking, seem much more flexible, and if you tried to match a mine to a missiles gameplay it would just feel awkward.

also, flak guns. i want them as an option for hard points, good for missile defense and rear turret defense. basically a minigun filled with explosive ammo, that detonates near its target. not good for direct dps, but it can save your life from smaller ships or missiles, and deter pirates.

another reference for flak gun and ammo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2yRhVXKEXU
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#9
Yeah, mines can be interesting, but that npc gunner for mid sized craft sounds awesome! Obviously capital ships should already have the ability for automated turrets to try and deal with fighters, I feel that a capital ship should be able to target as many ships as it has turrets. But if you have a mid size ship, adding in npc controlled guns would be super cool. (I vote you start a new thread with that as the title)
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#10
small 1 man scout/fighters might need something in the way of 'hey get off my back' weaponry in that smaller ships wouldent be able to support a full rear cannon for defence. and in my case id power down all weapons and boost my shields and engens and bug out. but for those wanting the options i dont see why you should limit yourself to droping a sack of calttrop mines and hoping for the best. instead drop a emp device small large area and sure to ruin most peopls day. or scatter a few AI controlled decoy drones. or if your slick enough break LOS and kick on that cloaking device you had to trade your cargo hold and most of your weapons for to install and wait for them to leave.
If I've rambled and gone off topic im sorry but i tend to be long winded as you might notice if you stumble across my other post XD. thanks for reading.
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#12
Gazz wrote: Early warning satellites, automated missile launchers - anything with very long range - could possibly be used for static defenses.
Mines? Nope. Not in manageable numbers.


Even "dropping" a mine is a crap shot in a dogfight. We don't know any scales but in X3, doing that in a dogfight could have you miss easily by a kilometer.
The automated detection range of a SQUASH mine is some 700m.

A missile would almost always get you better bang for the buck and wouldn't create a navigational hazard that you would eventually be blamed for...
I'm not understanding the problem here.
I can see mine's as being very effective. They're a small, difficult to spot object in space with a certain 'target' radius. Any ship that passing inside the radius and the mine pursues the vessel and *boom* (like the old magnetic mines). Ok, dropping mines all over the universe is silly, but a simple restriction of forcing the deployer of the mine to be within a certain range (lets say 10 kms) of their mines (kinda like a fishing net or remotely controlled bomb). (I can just imagine the fun/frustration one could have with mines in a asteroid field)

Give any mine-sweeper vessel the ability to 'see' mines on their radar and then they'll know the enemy mine-laying vehicle is somewhere nearby...
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Re: What about dropping Mines or Bombs during "dogfights"

#13
Deej wrote:I'm not understanding the problem here.
I can see mine's as being very effective. They're a small, difficult to spot object in space with a certain 'target' radius. Any ship that passing inside the radius and the mine pursues the vessel and *boom* (like the old magnetic mines). Ok, dropping mines all over the universe is silly, but a simple restriction of forcing the deployer of the mine to be within a certain range (lets say 10 kms) of their mines (kinda like a fishing net or remotely controlled bomb). (I can just imagine the fun/frustration one could have with mines in a asteroid field)

Give any mine-sweeper vessel the ability to 'see' mines on their radar and then they'll know the enemy mine-laying vehicle is somewhere nearby...
Let's do some math here. Let's assume you want to mine a 10 Km long cube (the maximum range you specified above). Let's say the mines have an activation range of 500m. You'd need no less than 1000(!) mines (10³) to fill that small volume of space. And it gets even sillier when you try to cover larger volumes.

I'd rather invest in missiles to get rid of the pesky invaders than trying to mine the place. Much cheaper, and easier on the cargo space.
Hardenberg was my name
And Terra was my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination

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