Topic: OT : What should a Federation Mine Layer look like ?

[FoaS_XC]

ROFL

Nice!

[ModelsPlease]

Any ship can be a minesweeper............ once

  Very true

[FPF-Wanderer]

Ok so far we're down to CL or DD or Aux  for Hull. BTW did I mention I'm trying to stay as true as I can to an SFB style ship.

Well, if you want to go SFB...the original Fed minesweeper was the F-MS, based off the old workhorse Texas-Class CL.  I'm sure you know what those look like.  During the General War they also produced the F-NMS, based off of the new war cruiser (NCL) design.  They also produced a frigate minehunter, the FFM, but it was an unpopular ship.

Anywhos, my two cents.

[Pestalence_XC]

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

MP,

The only problem I forsee with your line of thought is that in Orion Pirates, you can not target a mine, you either have to target something on the other side of a mine and use a missle or shuttle to detonate the mine, or ram the mine with your ship..

My suggestion of a mine sweeper is a ship with tremendous Forward shield power for taking out mines, the rest of the shields remain normal power for the ship... maybe boost engine power for shield reinforcement of the #1, and keep weapon count on the ship low.. maybe arm it with 1 photon or 1 plas F or 1 Hellbore or 1 disruptor (only 1 of the heavy weapons, leaving out ESG and Fusion and PPD)and 4 PH 1's and a couple of 3's just for defensive purposes and forget the drones (Otherwise people will use it as a tactical ship for combat instead of the intended purpose of the ship). Lyrans should not have ESG on Mine Sweepers as it is also a formitable weapon on it's own.. they should use shields like everyone else.. Gorn should only have 1 Plas F, same as Roms and ISC.. Klinks, Lyr and Mirak should have 1 Disruptor on their ships.. Feds should have only 1 Photon, Hydran should have only 1 hellbore.. Etc.... this keeps the ship only useful forthe purpose intended.. to ram mines like crazy, but not be able to offer much of a fight otherwise..

Think the forward shield having 120 points, the rest have about 18-24 points power.. this makes the ship vulnerable from the sides and the rear.. This is due to the basically overloaded forward shield that is taking the 10 Pts damage from each mine.. 120 mines / 10 pts damage each = 12 mines rammed before shield drops (without reinforcement or time for shield to regenerate)... [ Not counting the 40 Pts damage when hitting a Nuclear Space Mine (Rom mine.. only 1 per ship per mission if it is available for the NSM, most ships do not have NSM in the Rom list by default)].

The ship would also have a lot of labs to help shield regeneration.. the more labs the faster shields regenerate.. as such, a Mine Sweeper would have about 10 to 15 labs for shield regen.

A ship like this would require escorts to defend it.

This makes the ship designed to take out mines and not mix it up in combat.

[ModelsPlease]

   I'm starting not to like this game LOL J/K. Thanks for that heads up. I do like your concept of the sweeeper. Basically any ship will do as long as I boost the forward shielding and adjust the power accordingly. Dang I was looking forward to the chaos of a screen filled with mines and another ship trying to eradicate them. Oh well back to shipedit LOL. Oh one other question.

When I do create the mine layer, will the AI recognize it as such and start pumping out mines?

[Pestalence_XC]

Unfortunately, no.. AI usually Tbombs the heck out of the nearest enemy and drops mines out the shuttle bay if enemy is coming directly at it within range 10... other than that, AI ignores the usage of mines..

Also Mine Layers would have many Transporters, but few marines... (T Bomb shower)

I also edited my above post, so you may want to check for context changes.

[Rod ONeal]

There are two opposite trains of thought on mine layers/sweepers. One, old school, is that mining is dirty work and generally you take old obsolete designs. The other is that mine work is best accomlpished by a highly sophisticated specialised design. Thus, the early minelayers in SFB were refitted old designs and auxiliaries. during the General War though, the brand new NCL-class was fitted specially for the job.

None of the mine rules, as mentioned, are incorperated into SFC though. Except for some of the T-bomb rules. That said, the one real prerequisite for your minelayer is space. Space for mines as well as the drones.

There are specs for CWs with mine racks and their heavy weapons. They're designated NMZ. It'll take me a while to remember where I saw them though. 

[ModelsPlease]

Thanks Pestalance, I'm getting a much better understanding of how this game works.And taking your thought process one step further, perhaps we can get someone to build a starship with a saucer protrusion similar to todays military mine sweeping tanks  . Just a thought.

There are specs for CWs with mine racks and their heavy weapons. They're designated NMZ. It'll take me a while to remember where I saw them though

Thanks Rod, got them already  . There's a few SFB/NCL's over at Battleclinic, mabye I'll grab one of them and experiment (though personally i don't dig the design) I'll make several types and put 'em in a ZIP and let everyone choose which they want to use.

[Magnum357]

I still like the idea of a Modified Oberth as a Light Minesweeper/layer.  And it wouldn't be completely like an Oberth, extensive modifications would probably be in order for a Minelayer.  Not sure if an Oberth would be an ideal minesweeper though.

I thought  recalled that in SFB, Phasers could be used to destroy mines.  I might have to look that up in the manual.

[Rod ONeal]

Yes, you have to:

1, Mines in SFB are hidden. You must find the mine with special systems that the minesweeper has. (In a pinch you can use a scout for this, but fleet scouts are too valuable to use to groupe around for mines.) 2, Get in close without setting it off. 3, Stop and grab it with your tractor. 4, destroy it with a phaser.

Generally the base (or whatever installation that the mines are protecting) and it's support ships are targeting as much bad karma as possible at the minesweeper while it's doing this.

[ModelsPlease]

Is there anyway to get the ships in SFC to be able to target mines with any weapons ?

[Pestalence_XC]

Is there anyway to get the ships in SFC to be able to target mines with any weapons ?

Unfortunately no.. If there was a way, people would do it all the time.. you can not target mines in SFC.. You can in SFB, It is a system never put into the real time enviroment of SFC... basically a mine in SFC is a drop and forget weapon, or actually used best as T-Bombs within range 5 of your target using F1 view to ensure accuracy.. Holding Shift and press B.. keep holding shift will keep your cursor locked in T-Bomb mode until you release it.. this way you can rapidly drop mines up to the numbet of transporters your ship has.. so if 7 Transporters.. 7 mines on target within 3 to 4 seconds.. then do it again after transporters are ready.. + 1 mine every 1.5 min out the shuttle bay (game speed 8).

[Magnum357]

I guess the only type of "weapon" in SFC that could be used for Minesweeiping is the Heavy Forward Sheild method.  But I do agree with others, you got to make the Minesweeper have heavy weaknesses in other areas otherwise everyone would pick that ship as its forward sheild would be almost unpeneratable to standard warships.  And if the Minesweeper has Lots of T-bombs and Transporters as Pestelance has suggested... ouch!

[Kana]

So far the ideas sound great...I like the idea of the heavy shield sweeper...agreed it would need weaknesses so it doesn't become and offensive juggernaut.   In SFB...Minelayers, Sweepers, and mines in general...other than T-bombs...are usually only used in a defensive enviornment...IE Base/Planet Defense.   100 BPV will buy 15 Nuclear Space Mines (large t-bomb), 40 small (t-bomb), 3 large captor, 7 small captor, 4 sensor mines.  Of course captor mines aren't covered in SFC...Minesweeping is a very important and annoying part of base assaults in SFB...

As for mine layers...the Fed CL minesweeper has 6 mine racks, which hold 4 large, or 8 small mines each.  The Fed NCL has only 4 mine racks...also the mine sweeper is also usually the mine layer but this isn't always true...Only phasers and seeking weapons can be used to destroy mines...if they can achieve a lock on.  Non-Minesweeper ships recieve a 6 point ECM penalty when shooting at mines with phasers or seeking weapons.  BPV of the minesweeper/layer does not include the cost of its mines.  There are twoshuttles that can lay mines MRS and MLS.   There is also a MSS (Mine Sweeping Shuttle), think remote control robot mine probe.  There is also usually a Mine sweeper/layer version of PF's

Well there is my 2 cents,

Kana

[ModelsPlease]

Is it possible to have shuttles lay mines in SFC II/OP ?

[Kana]

Nope...at least not that I'm aware of...I do believe that some fighters have drones?   Maybe a mine could be a zero movement drone launch...I don't know much about the SFC2 code.  SFC2/OP like many other great games always have some limitations when trying to emulate another game system....

Kana

[Magnum357]

Man, I forgot that PF's in SFB where converted to Minelayers.  I wonder if its possible to add this to SFC OP?  Is it even in the 4.0 shiplist of OP?

[ModelsPlease]

Ok decided on the Fed ship and got permissions. Now mt only question for everyone is............

Would you rather have the ship basically look normal ?

or

Should I redo the saucer textures to give it a more amored appearance ?


-MP

[Chrystoff]

Man, I forgot that PF's in SFB where converted to Minelayers.  I wonder if its possible to add this to SFC OP?  Is it even in the 4.0 shiplist of OP?

That's not a bad idea. Beef up the power a bit, remove all of the weapons, and just have all of it's power going to the sweeper-sheilds and propulsion...

[Lord Schtupp]

Ok decided on the Fed ship and got permissions. Now mt only question for everyone is............

Would you rather have the ship basically look normal ?

or

Should I redo the saucer textures to give it a more amored appearance ?


-MP

I would think that you would want the model to look unique so definitely #2, especially if your going to combine the function of minelayer and sweeper in one ship, since in SFC the only sweeping method is the "runoverthemine" method. In fact if your willing to do a little meshwork, it would be fairly simple to add Choabam or reactive type armor in the form of tightly conforming boxes to the front of the hull.  Anyway only an idea.

Some examples of this: