Mine drop pods

[poesel]

I have to say I don't like that too. If only because if mines can only be dropped during deployment phase then everyone will feel obliged to use them all because you can't use them later. So the area will be littered with mines everywhere and that would simply be annoying.

So mines are visible ground area denying devices like AA is a visible airspace denying device. Why not treat them the same?

Show them on the tacmap as small red circles. Their signature can be jammed as (nearly) everything. Mines can only be attacked by artillery and HE. Mines already have a hit probabilty when you enter their area. Each hit reduces this probability and if <0% the minefield is gone.

It would be nice if mines would look different from debris.

As long as mines do not have a friend or foe detecting ability they should show as red for both sides.

Maybe mines placed during deployment have that friend or foe ability but mines dropped later not?

[ClaytoniousRex]

The idea isn't to permanently remove the ability to deploy mines after the Deployment Phase, but only to disallow it for the moment until proper artillery-deployed mines (along with the improved detection and marking features) are added later.

Would you rather leave them as-is until that later work is done?

[Dark_au]

NO

[Mace]

Originally posted by poesel71:

Mines can only be attacked by artillery and HE.

You forgot that mines should also be able to be cleared by engineers/Cutters.

[poesel]

Yup, Mace. Didn't want to exclude the cutter of course.

In the picture of my proposal the cutter wouldn't attack but reduce the mine hit probabilty very fast by driving through the minefield.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Show them on the tacmap as small red circles. Their signature can be jammed as (nearly) everything. Mines can only be attacked by artillery and HE.

Truth is, I'm thinking the marking and field would reduce a lot of the complaints about minefields as they are, currently, with no other changes. (Well, OK, not Dark's issues, but I'm dealing with reasoned objections.) I actually had not even thought for a moment about mines having pipers, which I'm kind of ambivilent on.

On the one hand, mines aren't AM-powered, so they shouldn't really have a "signature" as such. On the other, the tac is a kind of sensor synesthesia, combining lots of data flows into one coherent feed, so it makes sense that they'd be at least somewhat visible on the combat interface with some kind of marker.

Perhaps a square or x instead of a triangle to mark static threats; an unjammed turret would then have the same kind of pipper over it. Just a little aide to distinguishing threats with a glance; threat differentiation is the main reason you want markers like that, after all. (In that sense, I might one day suggest the different size classes of vehicle get different sized triangle pippers. But not today. )

Mind you, I'm open about not finding the threat of drop pod mines as great as others in this thread. If the attacker has that kind of local air superiority (assuming the pods dropping mines when killed bug is squashed and the addition of the Bacchus), then they're already pretty much in control of the map and you have bigger problems as the defender. If on a map with no organic air defense towers, then the Hermes and Bacchus are going to be vastly important for both sides to have deployed in areas they want to remain free of the threat of drop mining. And perhaps the real threat from drop pods, drop infy.

Damned ATGMs.

In the picture of my proposal the cutter wouldn't attack but reduce the mine hit probabilty very fast by driving through the minefield.

I think this is a perfectly acceptible idea. It should have the visible effect of reducing the minefield intensity on the tac display, which'll give instant feedback to both sides on the progress of events. (If you see your minefields suddenly fading for no discernable reason, someone's either got good range with HE, or has a jammed Cutter in the area.)

The idea isn't to permanently remove the ability to deploy mines after the Deployment Phase, but only to disallow it for the moment until proper artillery-deployed mines (along with the improved detection and marking features) are added later.

The issue I see forming on the horizon here is multi-fold:

</font>

• If the arty-delivered mines are as swiftly droppable ...
  ... we have some of the same objections as now, save that artillery is non-interceptible, so there'll be even less counters than there are now to having mines dropped on your vehicles.</font>
• If the arty-delivered mines take longer to drop, either because of initial wait or recharge time ...
  ... the area an arty-called minefield covers will have to be much wider to actually be usable to change the axis of attack of a mobile force, on the size of the current fire mission beaten zone. And that's a lot of minefield.</font>
• If the arty mines take longer to deliver and don't cover a significantly broader area ...
  ... then they'll become a purely defensive measure that won't really pay off much even in that sense. It'll be a soley "when not dropping something useful, like a turret" kind of thing. And tactical richness will actually decrease because of it.</font>

I find it interesting that there's not as much verbiage over the fact I can drop a 76mm turret directly behind your vehicle on short notice and have it kill anything within 500m, where 76mm cannon are pretty deadly. Not only can it hit the target within 500m and kill it, but it has a good chance of killing out to 1500m in good conditions, which is more deadly than a minefield. A turret is persistant until destroyed like a minefield, so that can't be the difference.

The main difference is a turret is pretty highly visible in almost all conditions. The mines definitely are not.

Ergo, my analysis suggests the problem is nearly completely solved just by just making minefields have a visible tac radius like an unjammed AA. Its not a perfect solution, the other things you want to do with regards to minefields are also important, but this one change should make them far more useful to pre-deploy, leaving fewer for drop-deployment, and reducing the use thereby. With the deploy-bug squashed and the added Bacchus, I think the problem pretty much just goes away.

[Dark_au]

Oh so I don't have reasoned objections. Idiot... you have the IQ of a lemon and wouldn't know tactics if they came up and bit you. I notice in SB TS you are the rank outside newbie yet you are gonna try and tell me I have no reasoned arguments. I was working on tank sims before you even knew what a tank was.

[Dark_au]

oh btw THAT was an insult in case I was bieng to subtle.

[Random Generic]

Eh, I'm thinking that isn't really a solution. I need to put mines on the road because the deployment phase field was destroyed; there's trees on either side so I'm pretty sure you'll prefer the road to the forrest, which'll slow you down enough flanking gets easier. I hit the pod, and it slaps down over in the trees to the side. That's no good. I hit it again, and it goes into the bush on the other side. Grrrr. I whack it a third time, and its taken so long to get out there, it lands on the road behind your force ... useless.

Basically, if the deviation is significant enough and frequent enough to make using mines as an offensive drop useful even half the time, it'll make them utterly useless as a drop item. They might as well be only deployed during the prep phase, because that's the only way you get to control where they go.

Why should the mines be a total percision item? They are an area weapon, especially when dropped by pod. Perhaps you're trying to garnish too much from them in an offensive role. I LIKE the 30 meter idea.

Random Gamer

[Random Generic]

I was working on tank sims before you even knew what a tank was.

Just out of curiosity, Dark Au...did you realize that this is a DISCUSSION forum, not your personal preaching pulpit?

I personally started playing wargames, reading military history, and observing tactics in 1955 when I got hold of a copy of Tactics from the Stackpole Co, which launched Avalon Hill. Long before they cut YOU off the tit, young man.

I certainly read what you have to say, but I'll be damned if I'm beholden to it. I might even occasionally disagree with part of it.

I'd like to be the first to inform you that when someone disagrees with you it is not cardinal sin or anathema unto God. Nor is your self-appointed mastery of all you survey the final arbiter. Has the rain there in WA gone to your freakin head, boy?

Since your amazing intellect is always the first to make a personal attack, I'd just thought I'd return the favor.

Random Gamer

[CrimsonDestiny]

Originally posted by Random Generic:

I LIKE the 30 meter idea.

The only problem with that is that the spread of the mines is already greater than 30 meters. The only way to get lucky and avoid the "Minefield-on-your-head" drops is if it randomly got dropped on the very edge of the random 30 meters.

I'm up for just leaving things how they are going to be in 1.1.4.

If they start showing up on the tac map and if other caliber rounds can take the things out, most of the problems would be solved.

You guys need to chill. We should all just go put on some Grateful Dead, drop some acid, and love eachother. Immature arguing is rather counter-productive.

[cool breeze]

Your right about us needing to cool it. But I think when Squidlord called dark Au's complaints unreasoned he meant unexplained. Dark has generally made the most extreme comments about this game, expressing views apprerently not widely held, while doing very little explaining. It seems he thinks most people on this forum think along his lines than I certainly tdo. I usually cant guess where he is comming from and he makes no effort to explain. Dark, because you make very cool good suggestions pretty often I do think you are probably prettty smart. But until you start explaining yourself more explicitly I wont know what you are hoping your complaint posts might do. I have no idea what you want and little idea what you dont like , other than the game in general or the way people play. If you try and include at least one suggestion in your complaints Ill start... not being baffled and maybe start voting for your suggestions (once I am back on a dropteam capable comp and can see for myself).

[ August 27, 2006, 05:22 PM: Message edited by: cool breeze ]

[adzling]

ooh i love it when darky gets all jerry springer on people....yaay darky!

it's really kewl when he mentions his superior intellect, great depth of tactical knowledge and then in the same breath screams at the "noobs" for beating him unfairly....i love that.

In fact he's the cause of some of my favourite moments in the game.

we're playing some map the other day which is going totally one-sided (i.e. not in darky's favor) due in no small part to some glitch in map-making when he begins to spam the chat channel with complaints about people using loopholes to kill him.

which is kewl 'cause i was getting a little bored with it myself...drive in kill darky drive away kill him some more...it was fun to have him whining again.

I asked him what was up and why don't ya' vote for a map change cause i was sure bored killing him over and over again but he didn't do that he just wanted to moan some more so who am i to deny someone their true calling?

but then he abruptly quit the game completely spoiling any fun i was getting listening to him whinge and so i had to quit as well ;-(

[Dark_au]

seeing as i didn't bother dropping i don't see how that happened. It was just another example of how stupid the average DT player is that they can't even see the problem.

[cool breeze]

what are you talking about? I have not idea, you give no clues. Only a insult at the forum which sticks to no one, since no one know what you are talking about.

ok, this is too curious, I want to guess. Are you saying you Adzling must be lieing by saying he kicked your whining funny butt because you didnt even drop a vehicle that game? You sat on one teams side, removing one of your teams bots from play, so you could complain about "loopholes" or...

What was an example of how stupid the average DT player is? What problem? The person doing the ass kicking probably doesnt see a problem only a bad opponent. So explan what was wrong or... we dont know what you are whining about other than not being good enough. It sound like you are simply being a sore losser until you say what s bothering you. What are these loopholes and exploits and gamey tactics which bother you so;. maybe if you tell every one what really bugs you they will kindly not do it when playing against you? maybe when we know what you are complaing about we can figure out how to change the game so it is better and you like it. If you have told us what these problems are in another thread that I didnt read or dont remember please quote your self. If you offered some possible solutions or partial solutions to these problems in another thread, please quote because I dont remember or missed them. If you cant quote either then I hope you see that so far you have not helped this forum adress your grievances. If you cant quote please fix the problem and write a post where you say what these loop holes and other problems are and hopefuly offer some suggestions. please try to avoid generalities because I dont know what the generality means to you. I think most players of this game arnt students of war history so historical analogies wont help very much. I (and many others)havent played SB so references to it wont help me. Thanks if you help clear this up.

[ August 27, 2006, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: cool breeze ]

[Dark_au]

what I complained about in the mission Adzling talks about is the fact that they dropped infantry into the building at the center of the Hide n Seek map before the deployment time was over. Its a loophole in the Mission which is well known yet instead of behaving like disciplined players they utilized the loophole. Thereby avoiding any tactical planning or even a sensible game. This is the repeated problem that people who play this do not have the decency to play in the spirit of a mission. Given a loophole of any description and it will be used by someone rather than actually having to use a tactical approach. This is demonstrated repeatedly with things like Mine pods, Herpes backstabbing bots, dropping galaxies rather than displacing etc etc etc.

[adzling]

there he goes again, that's the Darky i love.....aah darky

actually i think you're right Dorky (oops silly me i made a typo) i got that game confused with another one on the same map i played against you and yurch.....THAT was the one where i was kicking your ass as your inf sat around scratching their heads while you whined about hermes rushing (which made sense because that's what i was killing you with at the time, if it had been a tank under aad you would have complained about that).

sorry for the confusion there....hopefully it won't put you off your insulting behaviour and constant whining....oh wait what am i saying it's Darky!

Cool Breeze don't worry about good ol' Dorky, he's what in common parlance is called a troll.

Pretty soon he'll be teamkilling folks online while screaming epithets about his great skilz and superior good looks.

Darky how we love thee......

[Jalinth]

Originally posted by Dark_au:

what I complained about in the mission Adzling talks about is the fact that they dropped infantry into the building at the center of the Hide n Seek map before the deployment time was over. Its a loophole in the Mission which is well known yet instead of behaving like disciplined players they utilized the loophole. Thereby avoiding any tactical planning or even a sensible game.

How in the name of God is putting troops in a building a loophole? It's not bloody hard to dig them out of there!

How to counter:

Shoot the building with HE rounds from outside of the Circle o' Death! If you pound 15-20 20mm HE rounds into it, you will normally get a kill. Stand back a bit farther, and send in some 76mm HE. The building isn't dodging, so pretty much anyone should be able to hit the bloody thing.

Then there is the fact the attackers get a Light Mortar, and the defenders have only 1 Hermes.

I'll see if your keen tactical mind can figure out where I am going with that last idea.

[Hub]

The scenario in question is mine ("Hide and Seek"). My intent was to allow the defenders time to deploy and set up a defensive perimeter. I made a mistake in the .scenario file and it came out the way it did. It has since been fixed, and will be upgraded when v1.1.4 is released. My apologies for all the confusion and hard feelings that have come from this.

We are a small community, and I hope we can stick together and promote this game so that it can grow

even better than it already is.

Note - apparently there was a fellow playing online by the name of Sam, who claimed to be a close friend of mine, and said that I had intentionally designed this scenario as it was being played. I don't know anyone named Sam, and what happened is as mentioned above.

[Dark_au]

The ATTACKER dropped troops into the building before the end of deployment.

Adzling Go **** yourself and suck your boyfriend Owankyamericans cock some more.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Why should the mines be a total percision item? They are an area weapon, especially when dropped by pod. Perhaps you're trying to garnish too much from them in an offensive role. I LIKE the 30 meter idea.

Mainly because drop pods in general are pretty much johnny-on-the-spot accuracy and there's little in-game reason for mine dispersal to be less accurate than an infantry drop. The dropships have a reasonable need to balance their entry profile with finding a smooth place to drop, so that deviation makes sense, but drop pods come screaming down pretty straight with only slight attitude adjustmen, probably from small attitude thrusters. They need very little space to deploy their stuff, and turrets are the only thing they actually have to set down for; infanry can jump cushion and it doesn't matter if mines end up dropped above the ground, they're getting scattered over a 500m area from a 4m pod, anyway. They're getting flung, regardless.

So, in that sense, they're being deployed by a pretty accurate delivery agent in the first place. Is that an argument for adding deviation to drop pod deployments? Possibly. Applied to infy, mines and turrets, it might be reasonable to throw off the target area by some amount, though that'll keep anyone from deployed in a prepared position not dropped during the deployment phase. That might be a worthwhile trade-off; I'm not sure it is, but opinions differ.

As adzling suggested, a 30m deployment deviance in a minefield deployment really doesn't matter in dropping them on folks' heads. Its a 500m diameter (corrected from a previous phrasing of 500m radius; we know its not a klik in diameter). That's under a 10% chance of a targeted area not being covered, which doesn't go to the issue.

Your right about us needing to cool it. But I think when Squidlord called dark Au's complaints unreasoned he meant unexplained.

Its probably worth noting that in effective communication, a reason you don't share with the audience is one that might as well not exist. If you can't communicate your ideas, persuasively, clearly, and with coherence, unless the audience is composed of mind-readers, you've murdered electrons to produce your message needlessly. That applies to all of us, myself included, and in the main reasons for dissent and the process of debate have been great around here. That's the way to sway people, that's the way to engage others productively, and that's the way to, if you don't get your way, at least get recognized as a luminary voice in the crowd so you might get the next thing you want.

I'm very honoured to bat around ideas with the likes of adzling, yurch, and the great majority of others on this forum. The quality of discussion is extremely refined, and its a pleasure to be part of it.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

The scenario in question is mine ("Hide and Seek"). My intent was to allow the defenders time to deploy and set up a defensive perimeter. I made a mistake in the .scenario file and it came out the way it did. It has since been fixed, and will be upgraded when v1.1.4 is released. My apologies for all the confusion and hard feelings that have come from this.

Thank you, Hub, for being forthright and professional about things.

I actually find the fact the attacker can deploy in the same area in that scenario kind of interesting, but its not what you intended. Nicely designed map, nicely conceived scenario in general, and you deserve kudos for getting it out there.

[Jalinth]

Originally posted by Dark_au:

The ATTACKER dropped troops into the building before the end of deployment.

See, if you had of said THAT, then I would have known what you were talking about.

I just did a search of the forums, and do you know what? Other then your comment in the post I was responding to; "Its a loophole in the Mission which is well known yet instead of behaving like disciplined players they utilized the loophole"; I did not find one mention of the Deployment zone problem.

If you want us to know what you are talking about, then please try to be more clear in providing information about your problems.

[ClaytoniousRex]

Yes, Squid, I think the answer with artillery delivered mines will, in fact, be "a lot of mines" along with the requisite wait for the fire mission to execute.

Poesel's reduction of minefields along with Squid's proper HUD feedback on their status is the right approach, so that will be the eventual goal.

So as not to delay 1.1.4 any longer, it will still go out with mines only being deployed in the Deployment Phase and only being cleared by Cutters. There are so many other important fixes that it's just not worth waiting for any more delay due to this. After 1.1.4, work on minefields along the lines described above will continue.

[Jalinth]

This sounds fine to me as an interim solution.

From the Conclave Bible:

Lo! and there said the Lord "Let there be 1.1.4" and there was the patch, and he saw that it was good.