And I'm not sure that any era would need a dedicated minesweeper; the average phaser bank seems like a pretty good anti-mine weapon to me...
They are but.......the mine layer I'm designing can dump 120 mines on the field of battle. No phaser ships gonna be able to deal with that, and fight other ships at the same time. Hence the choice for drones instead of photons.
Here's an example of the Fed TOS/TMP sweeper weapons.As everyone knows there are 6 ball turrets on the saucer grouped in pairs so........
3 sets 2X Ph2
1) 2X Ph2 FH arc
2) 2X Ph2 LS arc
3) 2X Ph2 RS arc
2 sets 1X Ph3 (point defense)
1) 1XPh3 LS
2) 1XPh3 RS
5 missile racks (haven't decided what type of drone yet)
*Obviously the key to using them will be how the mines are layed out. In clusters you want to use FIRE ALL MODE if the mines are spaced out FIRE ONE mode will work better. SO you'll have anywhere from 5 to 30 missiles firing at one time.
TOS will have 2 reloads
TMP and later ships will have 3 reloads.
Power is not a problem since the minesweeper must be nearly at a dead stop to sweep mines anyway.
For the Gorn I'm going with the Heavy Destroyer Hull for both sweeper/layer.
For the Roms I'm going withthe N8 (layer) and MR's Merlin for the sweeper so far.
*Both utilizing the Plasma F in a shotgun mode to distribute 6 mini plasma burst (ala drone missiles) to destroy mines. You can read how this works in the OP manual
Kzinti And Hydran....same as the Gorn, some medium sized ship.
That's what's swimming around in my head so far if that helps everyone see where I'm heading with this.
-MP