Mine Revamp

[David Trest]

So I've noticed that mines suck. They're essentially a slow, dumbfire weapon with a lot of potential destruction, but because they rely upon inertia of the player to launch, they hardly get used. I see far more players arm themselves with missiles or MAGs. In an effort to give them new life (and to make them fulfill a more intended purpose in my eyes) I'm opting to change them around a bit. I'm looking to make them function like mines from Freelancer. Most (if not all) ships in Freelancer come with a 'mine' slot, and mines are dropped aft, serving as a 'get the f*ck off my tail' weapon to discourage NPCs and other players from chasing directly behind someone. They're rather insidious, and come in a wide variety of flavors (especially in the Discovery mod). They have NO IFF system -- they will attack anyone, including the player who dropped them (if they move too slow), and will move to engage the target of it's choosing until it's lifetime expires, it strikes the craft, or is destroyed (they can be shot down, hard as hell, but I've done it).

That being said, I'm trying to take a step in that direction. I'd like to first look at the seeking abilities of missiles. I know that omni weapons can passively target any enemies within a certain radius, and once you get the targeting module you can target enemies even outside the weapon's range and it will still swivel to fire in that direction. So that said, will any seeking projectiles (missiles, smartcannon rounds, etc.) seek an enemy passively, or are they hardcoded to seek only an actively targeted enemy? And is it possible to define behavior for them -- enabling them to attack any target within range, regardless of the target's IFF setting as far as the player is concerned? This would make it a definite balancer -- making you think very carefully about where to deploy it.

On the subject of deployment, I've thought of 3 methods, each with their pros and cons. Which deployment method is used will be up to consensus and ease of implementation, mostly.
A. On an automated turret device, vis a vis ICX Missile Defense or Longreach. This would naturally have a limited fire arc (probably 30deg or less) at the rear, and any enemy target that entered it would trigger it. Naturally this would also have a range limitation to avoid mines being shot over long distances, but not too short that there'd be concern about the mine attacking the player or an explosion hitting the player in turn. This would be difficult to balance, I think, and I haven't the slightest idea how to start doing this one, as I've not even looked at the ICX or Longreach code. I imagine it's a simple 'scan for object matching x near ship' style deal, but that's pure speculation.
B. As a device, with a hotkey use. This would be a worthwhile path to take, and I have some familiarity with the hotkey code, so implementing it shouldn't be a problem. However the real downside comes from triggering it. Opening the use menu locks you out of your controls until you close it, which is Very Bad(TM) during a combat scenario. A hotkey helps to eliminate some of this risk, but it's still a serious concern in my eyes. This could be solved by reducing the number of mines you'd need to drop by increasing blast range/damage, but that seems like a tacky solution to me.
C. As a weapon or launcher. This is the simplest solution, but has some serious drawbacks, mainly being the use of already-cramped device slots, including ships that have a cap on weapons, or taking up a launcher spot (as I've found you can only have one weapon there, period). It would also mean you'd need to switch to the mine dropper (if weapon) to use it, keeping you from trying a fighting retreat, or sacrifice the ability to deploy missiles or grenades (if launcher). Again, simplest solution, just need to overwrite the items in a custom mod and define a better launchspeed and launch position (aft).

[Bobby]

Missiles can be set to choose their own targets, see the IM90 or Medusa missile for an example. I can't remember the exact line right now.

[LordSutekh]

autoAcquireTarget= "true"

[Periculi]

I agree, mines are a little boring.

I made a chaff style weapon a long time ago that fired off a bunch of small mines - worked really well, in fact it was devastating if the shots did more than a few hp damage each. I toned the mine damage down to 1 hp, and that made it a little more balanced, then tried with just an emp effect - that was actually really effective in getting ships off my tail when I played as a freighter and had too much cargo.

You can tinker with the effects quite handily to duplicate a chaff or other spread weapon effect for small mine bombs - by setting the amount fired, adjust the spread and what not. Good luck.

[Atarlost]

Mines, as is, are effective anti-pursuit weapons. The standard mines decelerate to rest relative to the game's reference frame. The only real problem is that they use the launcher slot. I did, in cooperation with digdug a system where the mine launcher deploys pods which fire NAMI missiles on command, but targeting is bad because of inadequacies of the scripting language.

[David Trest]

Thanks for the words everyone. Yeah, I know that bit about the auto-lock, some guys on IRC helped me out. That also requires a targeting system ROM, but that's such a low-level item and easily found that it's not a huge concern by me. I may even beef it up by only offering mine systems in packages that contain the launcher, the ROM and a few mines to start you off.

However, the part that's still keeping me at the drawing board is working out different ammo types. With either of the first two ideas for mine deployment, you essentially have a launcher and ammo type tied together. Granted, that is more like Freelancer, but I think it ruins the spirit of the mine launcher and other launchers in general (one launcher being able to handle a wide variety of munitions). The only way I could see around this is to utilize the DockScreen framework, but I am not at all comfortable with my modding skills at this point to try that. Would other players be comfortable with a launcher that only uses one kind of ammo?

[Aury]

Hey periculi! Mind if I use the chaff system thing?

[Periculi]

Do you have one? I don't think I have that weapon mod anymore. It's really easy to make though. Just set up a mine with an ammo graphic so it's tiny (like a cannon ammo) and then make the weapon shoot 250 or so times.. (For trivia purposes, I think there were 2 chaff systems in Random Weapons 0.1 when I first set that one up - the predecessor/prototype to Digdug's fabulous Weapons Extended - you may want to look up some of the earliest versions of that mod... )

[Aury]

I was planning on making my own version (I'll probably toy around with the settings to see if I can get it balanced... making various versions along the way... hmmm... if I made an antimissile flak cannon that made bursts of this dealing kinetic damage... >:D No more missiles!)

[Prophet]

I made a few flak cannons, they work great.

One word of advice from experience, don't give them WMD!!

[Song]

I made a few flak cannons, they work great.

One word of advice from experience, don't give them WMD!!

"Yay, a frigate, lovely lovely missiles to loot! "

*boom*

"NNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Particle-type weapons and WMD generally don't work well together, except in the case of the M2/5

[digdug]

I did, in cooperation with digdug a system where the mine launcher deploys pods which fire NAMI missiles on command

It's included in the latest Weapons Extended, please have a look, I will appreciate any comment/modification/adjustment.

I find that the pods revamp quite nicely the mine launcher, by launching 4 NAMI missiles at the same time.
And you know 4 XM900 missiles make quite a large blast ! 8)

[alterecco]

I think making it a usable item gives it the largest flexibilty. And pressing 'u' 'l' (or something) can quickly become a reflex if it can save your life. I think that it goes fine with the idea that mines should not be spammed overly much. As to what could be shot, there are a ton of things. You could lay small turrets that shoot at anything for a short while, and then implode; you could write some code that aquired a target and set a course for collision; you could launch micro ships that ran a short intercept with your enemies, or kamikaze... there are many posibilities...

What I would do would be create a generic mine deployer that had a usekey 'l' or similar, and had a dockscreen interface to conifigure it's armament. Along the way in the game the player could pick up various mines that this deployer could utilize. Which mine to use would be controlled by the dockscreen. I think that would make it rather simple to deploy and still allow for a large range of different mines (without conflicting usekeys)

[Atarlost]

With 1.01 the command detonated mine and pod launcher is up and working as a standalone download.

[David Trest]

alterecco, I'm thinking that sounds good. I've been running a few tests and experimenting, and I think I may have over-exaggerated the downside to the use menu. And it does negate the issue of having mines deploy when enemy NPCs do suicide runs within a safe area (Starton Eridani, St. K's near the torus, etc.).

However I have no idea where to start in using the DockScreen framework as I stated before, and that I would need some help with. A lot of help, to be honest. Weapon design and balance is easy enough for me to do, but serious coding with that is a tad intimidating for me.