Walt Or maybe a combination of range+time makes it detonate? (So the timer counts down faster when the ship is closer.) Right it's just binary, either an enemy ship is within range or it's not, and the countdown speed doesn't change.
Walt I'll be curious to see how much mines get used in direct combat. They do fly through shields, which may or may not be a significant advantage.
Maybe, though I think there should probably be a minimum range at which flak immediately detonates (or they should detonate on impact).
This would prevent mines from bypassing shields, which I think would be better for balance (since it's currently ~RNG whether they detonate inside or outside shields) and also better for lore (if we have technology that can make an ordinary explosive bypass shields, why not put that on everything?).
Walt Mine shrapnel will now penetrate friendly ships.
I think I would suggest undoing this change. I don't think that mine ramming is going to be a very serious issue (most other weapons will be more effective at this role), and shrapnel can be surprisingly dangerous to friendly ships even when not ramming because of it's range. It's also inconsistent with other weapons - aside from mines, all explosions damage friendly players but no projectiles damage friendly players.
One alternative might be to give mines an explosion in addition to their shrapnel. The explosion would be close-range enough that it wouldn't affect an enemy ship most of the time, but if mines are launched from a ramming launcher the launcher would take self-damage from the explosion. And after all, wouldn't it take a big explosion to launch all that shrapnel?
nop The missile tests are a bit distressing because so many things are being changed based on theories with no direct link to what problem they solve.
Yeah, I agree that there's a LOT of theory, especially around PD vs missiles. And a lot of the theory is also meta-dependent, which is especially worrying because it's really hard to predict what the meta will look like after 4 new weapons are introduced.
But I also think that we can't rely too much on 0.14.0 feedback for the same reason. New missile types are probably going to have a significant impact on how battles play out (personally I'm really hoping mines and EMPs will be a viable counter to thrusters), which means that completely different strategies might be strong for completely different reasons. And player complaints will almost certainly be different.
nop - Side-firing missile ships require a higher skill level to fight than other designs.
I disagree. Anybody can beat a missile ship with 0 skill for half the cost - just build a huge wall of PD with a few shields and guns. The part that's hard to do is managing to beat a side-firing missile ship and still be competitive vs non-missile designs. Players using moderate amounts of PD for a middle ground of survivability are trying to achieve this - have just enough PD to beat a missile barge, but not so much that you're weak vs other designs. But it's difficult to do because every $ spent on PD is a $ wasted vs enemies that don't use missiles.