Nordwolf You know what I think..... why not make ammo storages supply things directly next to them, in a similar way that ERs supply power to things adjacent to them? This would make them a very powerful and useful part for longer distance delivery and you can then increase their cost to compensate. Although this might seem like a easy/cheap solution in general.
Something like this was proposed awhile back (along with ER room power distro) and was rejected at that time, though since @Walt's reconsidered ER power distribution it might be possible to get some more automation in.
This change would greatly reward centralization and make it more enjoyable/intuitive to build. I'm still scratching my head and trying to figure out how one is supposed to optimize missile ships with centralized factories.
Bonus: Letting energy storage directly power PD clusters would give @SpaceCat the smuggest of Cheshire Cat grins.
Walt I'm not opposed to decreasing door cost, 200 definitely feels way too high. (50 is probably about right) My only concern is that if doors are cheaper, people would build doors everywhere, I'm not sure fire is a strong enough disincentive.
No matter what you do, new players are going to door everything, while competitive players scrimp even on structure triangles and will not spam doors, even if you made them $25.
"If you layout the structure webbing like this, the opponent still has to cut through your armor in 4 places to get a big chunk to slough off and you can afford a whole extra armor brick!"
"Wow! Sasuga EQ sempai!"
Perhaps a scaling door cost (per room) could encourage noobies to learn Zen dooring sooner? I.E. First door on a room 50, second door 100, third door 200, etc. Though this does punish centralized reactor designs, many of my MR/LR setups come with 8+ doors.
Walt The most important thing is for mines to fulfill the fantasy of being a "mine". An important part of that is indeed area denial (and I'm very open to buffing mine HP, though I worry that, at least in SP, that will simply make dealing with mines more tedious), but I think it also includes feelings of surprise and suspense.
In modern competitive play, mines have a very important niche; to counter hyperfast Orbiter type ships.
Mines are currently the only reliable way to beat an expert pilot in a well designed Orbiter (other than being an top tier pilot and having your own Orbiter). They fulfill this role adequately well, Orbiters travel so fast fitting that Flak/PD is pointless (as the Orbiter wouldn't engage the mines in time) and due to sheer speed the orbiter collides with most of the mine fragments, greatly increasing effective damage compared to a slow ship eating 1-4 frags from a mine detonation.
I hope any changes to mines would keep this role in mind.
Addendum: Mines also have other auxilliary uses;
1) keeping a slow missile ship from being so easily swarmed by smallbois,
2) considerable depth of play/tactical decision making for agile platforms locked in a circling duel.
I've won quite a few duels against agile Turret/Flak and Missile/Flak ships by forcing the opponent to take mine strikes in aspects they did not have Flak/PD/thick armor in.
