Category:Minefield

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[edit] Overview

Minefields are stationary circular Space Objects covering a certain area. They can be used to help defend your territory.
There are four types of minefields: Barbitic (Nova Barbitic Minefield), Gravitonic, Laser, and Web. They are created by their respective devices: Barbitic Mine Dropper, Gravitonic Mine Dropper, Laser Mine Dropper, Web Mine Dropper. These devices convert ordnance into minefields. The amount of ordnance that you select to convert will result in different size minefields; small minefields from little ordnance and large minefields from more ordnance.

When reading this page, the initial text under a heading will explain the rules governing minefields. Following this are the races that break those rules in a certain way. Keep in mind that it is possible for an exception to be in place for a particular race.

[edit] Minefields in the Client

When looking at minefields in the Space Command, they are shown like 

Minefield #xxxx (type)(status)(action)
  • #xxxx is the id of the minefield
  • Types are (B)arbitic, (G)ravitonic, (L)aser, and (W)eb
  • Statuses are (A)ctive, (I)nactive, or (C)loaked
  • Actions are (D)etonate or (SD)=Soft Destruct (only displayed if one of these is chosen)

[edit] Example

If you look at minefield 1234 that is an (A)ctive (G)ravitonic, which you have set to (D)etonate, it will look like this: 

Minefield #1234 (G)(A)(D)

[edit] Laying Minefields

You can select 500 to 5000 ordnance in steps of 500 (500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, etc.).
The size of the minefield is determined by the number of light-years (LY) radius that it has. Thus a radius 21 minefield would have a diameter of 42 (diameter = radius * 2).
The radius of the resulting minefield can be predicted from the following formulas: 
Radius = Ordnance ^ 0.4  (for Barbitic, Gravitonic and Laser Minefields)
Radius = Ordnance ^ 0.45 (for Web Minefields)
The following table shows all selectable amounts of ordnance and the corresponding radius:
Ordnance Non-Web Radius Web Radius
500 12 16
1,000 16 22
1,500 19 27
2,000 21 31
2,500 23 34
3,000 25 37
3,500 26 39
4,000 28 42
4,500 29 44
5,000 30 46
The size can also be limited via a HConfig setting. If the minefield dropped is larger than this setting then there will be two minefields dropped. The first minefield will use the maximum amount of ordnance that it needs to meet the maximum size then a second minefield will be dropped with the remaining ordnance. You cannot increase the size of a minefield.
By default all minefields have a power supply of 20 turns (this can be changed by the Host using HConfig). When the power reaches 0, it will be removed from the map. In addition, each time an enemy object (ship, wing, pod) passes through and is affected by a minefield, its power will be reduced by 1 for each object affected. This makes Recharging Minefields necessary and possibly stacking minefields to make them more effective.
You configure your minefield droppers from the Ship Command - Mines tab. You can select any ordnance level that your ship is able to hold. However ord amounts that are higher than your current ord load are shown red in order to reflect the fact that you have to load that much ordnance onto the ship before the end of the turn in order to really be able to lay a minefield of the selected size.
You can also use the Groups window to form a group of ships and set the minefield commands for the whole group.
After laying one minefield the minefield dropper device turns off unless you have the Repeat option enabled. If the Repeat option is enabled, then a minefield of the selected type will be dropped every turn while it has ordnance.
To see what amount of ordnance is selected on your ships, you can either look in the Data Grid under Starships / Misc in the Mine Drop column or use Options / Make CSV File and look at the Ships.csv file.
You can configure a minefield dropper to drop the minefield cloaked, which in most cases will not be immediately visible to your enemies, but you will need to set it as active to be able to have it effective when the enemy is moving through it. Cloaked Barbitic Minefields are more difficult to sweep. If you set your minelayers to drop minefields cloaked, then you can turn them all on the following turn using the Ministers.
A minefield dropper functions at the end of the turn after movement.
Minefields consume resource points.

[edit] Racial Adjustments

[edit] Detecting Minefields

Minefields produce sensor noise, like almost all other objects, so they have a chance of being detected.

  • Switching a minefield's status to cloak lowers its sensor profile.
  • The Exotic Tech Stealth Mines that can reduce the noise generated by your minefields.
  • The Long Range Mine Detector can be used to detect minefields within 500 LY of the ship.
  • The Tachyon Emitter can increase the sensor profile of mines.

[edit] Racial Adjustments

[edit] Recharging Minefields

Instead of having to run around laying new minefields when the old minefields run out of power, you can set a ship to the task of recharging minefields by setting the Command Code REC or alternatively by ordering the ship to lay any amount of ordnance and activating the Recharge Button on the Ship Command - Mines screen.

A ship set to recharge will recharge a minefield within 200 LY with less than 10 power. However minefields must have some power left in them to be able to be recharged. That means you cannot recharge a minefield that was "swept" by hits reducing its power to 0 in the same turn.

To recharge a minefield of a given type a ship must be able to lay that type of mines. However recharging a minefield doesn't require a minefield type to be selected. It will choose the appropriate type for you. So ships with multiple dropper types can recharge any apropriate target. You can also set a Kill Target to specify the minefield to recharge. It must still be within a 200 ly grid.

Your ship cannot lay a new minefield and recharge a minefield in the same turn. Recharging a minefield will take precedence. Recharging minefields consumes a fraction of the original amount of ordnance that it took to drop the minefield initially. The amount of ordnance required to recharge a minefield is: 

Web                         : Radius ^ 2.222
Barbitic, Gravitonic, Laser : Radius ^ 2.5

A minefield will not be recharged if you don't have the ordnance required to recharge it.

Example: If you set your ordnance level to 500, select Laser as the minefield type and enabled the Recharge button, any Laser Minefield within 200 LY of the ship at the end of the turn that had less than 10 power remaining would be recharged up to 20 power if your ship had adequate ordnance to perform this action.

Note: The ordnance level that is set is not important (not only mine fields with a size of 500 in the example are recharged), but it must be set to some value to work the recharge.

Research: I noticed that minefields are not always recharged to energy 20, the recharge just might add 10 to the energy level.
Host 203: Minefield recharging is based on the minefield lifetime in HConfig. <- How does that work in detail?

[edit] Sweeping Minefields

  • Every hit reduces the minefield's energy by 1. Once the energy reaches 0, the minefields is removed immediately (Host 212a).
  • The Mine Sweeper Array ship device is controlled on the Ship Command - Mines tab. When turned on and the ship is in an enemy's minefield, it will attempt to sweep it. This will only affect one minefield per turn.
    When sweeping a minefield, you can set a Kill Target to specify the minefield you want to sweep. You must still be within the radius of the minefield. Minefield sweeping occurs after movement. It will be performed in the order of least ship skill, experience and high guard rangers to the ship with the most. This allows the more skilled, experienced, and talented ships to sweep new minefields and lay new minefields without worrying about them being swept. Turning on the Mine Sweeper Array increases the ship's sensor image by 50 points and reduces the ship's sensor power by half.
    Cloaked Laser, Gravitonic, and Web Minefields are not more difficult to sweep than uncloaked minefields. A cloaked Barbitic Minefields has a 25% chance of being swept unless you have a scan of it. If you have a scan of it, then there is a 100% chance (Host 212e).
  • The Minefield Destabilizer ship device has an 80% chance of destroying a single minefield within 150 LY that is not a Web or cloaked Barbitic Minefield. If it fails to destroy the first targeted minefield then any others in the area of effect will be attempted against until one is destroyed or all minefields within range have been attempted. It can affect your own minefields. You will receive a message in the ship log describing the type of minefield and its coordinates that was destroyed. This device makes no additional sensor noise.
  • Detonating a Barbitic Minefield will immediatly sweep all minefields that are have their center inside of the barbitic minefield. This works before movement.
  • You can set any of your ships with minefield dropper to recover your own mines. This can be active at the same time as dropping a minefield. This will take effect before it drops a minefield. You must be inside the radius of the minefield that you want to recover. A portion of the minefield's ordnance will be put into your ship's ordnance hold.
  • Being on the 'border' of the minefield is considered to be in the minefield and you can sweep it without taking damage. Tested: Host 4.00.0088 & Client 4.66.3.

[edit] Racial Adjustments

[edit] Movement Effects

Any ship or wing traveling through a minefield is possibly subjected to its affects. If the ship or wing is traveling fast enough and is unlucky enough, it will cause the effects of the minefield to occur to that object (see here for effects on wings). Triggering a minefield in this way does not affect all units in a minefield; rather, it only affects the triggering unit. Minefield detonations affect all units within the radius of the minefield. An active Cloaking Device does not help protect the cloaked unit from a minefield in any way. See the Overview section above for the effects that the different minefields have on units while traveling through them. The player that owns a minefield is not subject to its effects with the exception of Gravitonic Minefields and hyperjumping units.

Any ship or wing can move safely through a Barbitic, Laser, or Gravitonic Minefield at speed 13 or less (no math calculation need be applied here). To pass through a Web Minefield unaffected, the object must travel at speed 6 or less. Ships or wings with a speed of 25 or less have 1/3 the normal chance of hitting a Barbitic, Laser, or Gravitonic Minefield. If you follow the logic that there are 200 movement ticks per turn and the calculation to determine whether or not a unit has fallen under the effect of a minefield, then it would probably be best to get out of the minefield as soon as possible. Thus if you could move fast enough to accomplish this and minimize the chance to trigger the minefield, then that would be optimal. Well, Gabor Törö did some number crunching a while back and determined that if you move around speed 90 then you would achieve this goal. This would allow you to move at much higher speeds than speed 13 or 6 to avoid minefield effects. You may want to review this and come to your own conclusions.

The chance of hitting a minefield depends of the type. Assuming default settings the chances of hitting a Gravitonic Minefield are 2.67 times the chances of hitting a Barbitic Minefield, 5.33 times for a Laser Minefield or 10.67 times for a Web Minefield (details here).

The minefield owner will receive a message when another player hits one of the owner's minefields. It will describe the ship's name, hull type, and current damage level.

A ship or wing will not stop its movement when it hits a minefield (except for Web Minefields). It will continue through the minefield as ordered until it is destroyed. A ship will attempt to repair itself up to the repair limits for the turn after it hits a minefield.

If you turn off the Attack! setting for a player on the Races screen, then that player will not be affected by your minefields with the exception of not being able to hyperjump through Gravitonic Minefields. The attack setting of the player does not matter (Host 212e).

A ship or wing can set its Friendly Code to the Universal Friendly Code of another player and become immune to the effects of passing through their minefields. I'm assuming that this applies to wings also. However, hyperjumping ships cannot pass through Gravitonic Minefields even with friendly code set. The Birdman Republic and The Privateer Bands have ways of getting a player's UFC.

[edit] Racial Adjustments

[edit] Setting Basic Minefield Hit Odds

 MineHitOdds = Hull.Stealth + 200

 ' Maelstorm Class Light Cruiser is immune to mine hits
 If Ship = Maelstorm Class Light Cruiser
   MineHitOdds = 0

 ' Warrior Shuttle with HG on board is immune to mine hits
 If Ship = Warrior Shuttle
   If Ship_HG > 0
     MineHitOdds = 0

 ' A Virgo Class with HG on board and docked fighters is immune to mine hits    
 If Ship = Virgo Class
   If Ship_HG > 0
     If Ship_Fighters > 0
       MineHitOdds = 0
       ' All ships that are less then 10 lys away (both in x and y direction) are immune to mine hits
       For all ships
         MineHitOdds = 0

[edit] Calculation for Hitting a Barbitic Minefield

 ' Basic Odds that a Barbitic Minefield will be hit (HConfig setting)
 BasicBarbMineOdds = 15

 BarbMineOdds = (VectorLength + 1) ^ 3  * (MineHitOdds / 100) * (BasicBarbMineOdds / 10,000)
 If VectorLength < .13 
   BarbMineOdds = BarbMineOdds / 3
 If VectorLength < .066 
   BarbMineOdds = 0
  
 ' Sparrow Class Scout is immune to barbitic mine hits
 If ship = Sparrow Class Scout
   BarbMineOdds = 0

 ' Scav owned ships of Scav design are immune to barbitic mine hits
 If ship = Hull ID: 442-460
   BarbMineOdds = 0

 If RND < rOdds2
   // *** MINE HIT! *** //

[edit] Detonating Minefields

Minefields can be configured to detonate at the beginning of the next turn. Minefield detonations occur at the beginning of the turn before the movement phases, By ID order (lowest first) (host 197).

A minefield that is set to be activated and detonated will detonate properly.

  • Newly built wings appear on the map before minefield detonations, so a well-placed Laser Minefield will destroy them all. This is because wings are formed after movement of the previous turn by the Air Attack Base, Replenish Fighters option on ships, or the Mobile Fighter Factory on ships.
  • Newly built ships will appear after minefields are detonated, so they cannot be caught in detonations.
  • Friendly units (minefield owner and allies) will be affected the same as any other units (see Racial Adjustments below for exceptions).
  • See the individual minefield documents for the different types of minefields listed in the Overview section above for the effects that they have when detonated.
  • When looking at a minefield that is set to detonate in the client, it will be marked as "(D)"

[edit] Chain Reaction

Detonating a Barbitic Minefield will destroy all pods and minefields that have their center within the radius of the detonated minefield. In the case that a Nova Barbitic Minefield is within this detonation, it will cause a chain reaction and that minefield will detonate. This will continue until all Nova Barbitic Minefields have detonated and destroyed any other minefields within them. Regular Barbitic Minefields will not cause a chain reaction when destroyed in this manner; they soft detonate instead, and will do no additional damage to ships, pods or other minefields inside their radius. This chain reaction will only happen to the minefields within the initial detonation. Any Nova Barbitic minefields that are part of the chain reaction will only affect ships. They will not affect other minefields or pods. This may be a bug. Wings are unaffected by Barbitic Minefield, Nova Barbitic Minefield, Gravitonic Minefields, and Web Minefields detonations.

[edit] Soft Destruct

Setting a minefield to "soft destruct" will cause the minefield to self-destruct without doing any damage or effects to the ships, wings, pods, or minefields inside. This is also the effect that is forced upon all minefields (except Nova Barbitic Minefields) within the radius of a Barbitic Minefield when it is detonated. This is useful to keep from recharging minefields that you don't want to keep around, removing minefields that you no longer need (especially Gravitonic), and reducing your Resource Point usage.

  • When looking at a minefield that is set to soft destruct in the client, it will be marked as "(SD)"

[edit] Racial Adjustments

[edit] Getting Caught Inside an Exploding Barbitic Minefield

IF (CBAT.@flavorPTR[vID - 1] > 1000) AND (CBAT.@flavorPTR[vID - 1] <= %lasthull) THEN

  ' v is basically the percentage of hull damage inflicted by hitting a mine
  v = (2000 / (HullMass + 1)) + 2

  ' Robot ships only get a nominal 1% damage from detonating barbitic minefields
  If RaceA(ship.pNum).RaceNum = %raceRobot 
    v = 1

  ' Meteor Class Blockade Runner gets double damage
  If ship = Meteor Class Blockade Runner
    v = v * 2

  ' Warrior Shuttle only gets a nominal 1% damage from detonating barbitic minefields
  If ship = Warrior Shuttle
    v = 1

  ' Inflict damage to the hull and control systems of the ship
  HullDamage    = HullDamage     + v
  ControlDamage = ControlDamage  + v * 2

  ' Nova Barbitic Minefields deal double damage
  If Minefield = Nova Barbitic Minefield
    HullDamage    = HullDamage    + v
    ControlDamage = Controldamage + v * 2

[edit] See Also

  • Effects of minefields on Wings.
  • History of Changes
  • [1] Official Minefield Page
  • [2] Minefield Guide by Paul Honigmann
  • [3] Online calculation of Minefield sizes at GRGZone
  • [4] Online calculation of Damage caused by detonating Minefields at GRGZone
  • [5] Utility to know how to place overlapping minefields (updated 12/01/2006)

Articles in category "Minefield"

There are 6 articles in this category.

B

G

L

M

N

W

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