SUBTERFUGE Forums

When travelling between outposts, the Minelayer will drop a mine (symbolized by a dot with little spikes) every three hours in its path. Anyone who travels that path will lose 10% drillers (or should it be a fixed amount of 10 drillers?) for each dot crossed (mines disappear after detonation). One way to prevent losing drillers is to have a Minelayer on the sub, which will then deactivate any mines it passes (the dot disappears), but will still place its own mines. The only time when Minelayers do not drop mines is when they are gifts, or having been released and returning to a friendly outpost. Mines are visible to all players, even when outside their sonar range. Mines can damage the player who dropped them, but at reduced damage (5% instead of 10%, or 5 instead of 10). Mines have no explosion radius, and only damage the sub which it contacts.
The other way to avoid hitting mines is having an Intelligence Officer. All mines in his sonar range will not affect the team to which the Intelligence Officer belongs to, but will still be present to damage other teams' subs.

Other info:
Symbol: A black circle with 6 spikes protruding from it
Flavor text: Sometimes the path to the enemy is more dangerous than the enemy itself.

Feedback please! Also, should the damage be percentage based or a fixed amount?

I have a feeling percentage based is better, because this way, considerable damage can be done to big groups, yet small groups can act as mine destroyers.
A possible strategy could be a path of mines to an outpost with war hero (or general), groups would have to be bigger than 10 or 20, yet bring plenty extra for the mines.

Actually I like this idea though I think it needs some changes.
I disagree that % would be better since then I could clear a path simply by sending a 10 driller sub along it.
Also 10 driller kills would be too much I believe. Let’s say the distance is 12h so there will be 5 mines on the path? That would be 50 drillers killed!
The other question is where I would want to plant the mines…certainly not between my outposts if they hit my own subs.
Maybe they only affect enemy subs?
Maybe he should place mine fields at my outposts that can be viewed as shields instead?
Or maybe he can be stopped in midflight to place a mine field and then retreat back to my outpost?
These are just some ideas to play around with.

Yeah every 3 hours seems a bit much, I think it would be better to lay a mine either every 6 hours; or two mines each 1/3 the total distance. But the concept is neat, but may be easily avoided by sending two subs of 1 driller. Unless the mines stay in the water until a sent amount of drillers are destroyed

I really like the idea, especially that it would hurt your drillers just as much. That would keep people from setting them all over the place.

Instead of mines, they could be spikes or something.

So instead of blowing up if 1 sub hit, they would just have a set number of hit points. Once 10 drillers (or whatever) hits the spike it goes away. Kind of like shields that don't replenish. And are between outposts.

Bigredsk10 wrote:I really like the idea, especially that it would hurt your drillers just as much. That would keep people from setting them all over the place.

Instead of mines, they could be spikes or something.

So instead of blowing up if 1 sub hit, they would just have a set number of hit points. Once 10 drillers (or whatever) hits the spike it goes away. Kind of like shields that don't replenish. And are between outposts.

This seems like a good idea. Now looking at the time distance again, I think that the time should be increased to 4hrs/mine and each mine can deal up to 4 drillers. (So your standard 16hr sub travel would only take 16 driller worth damage.

I do see a possible exploit though with a navigator & minelayer combo: One can navigate into enemy territory and then drop mines all over their territory! What could possible solutions for this one be?

Also, to clarify, if sent as a gift, the minelayer won't drop mines, so you don't have to drop mines in your own territory!