Minefields

Minefields

minefields can be created via lay mines or lay web mines mission on any ship with torpedo tubes by converting the torpedos onboard into spacemines and laying them in space as a hazard to enemy shipping activities. hitting a spacemine within a mineifeld can damage and or destroy any vessels that pass within them. minefields can be swept away via the sweep mines mission and eliminated by any ship armed with beam weapons. colonials can sweep mines using their onboard fighters on board at a greater range than beam weapons, with greater effects.

Laying minefields

A minefield is a small area of space that is peppered with warheads that track and launch themselves at passing enemy ships that are unlucky enough to trigger one of them.
Minefields are formed when a starship with torpedoes chooses the mission "Lay Mines." All the ships torpedoes are taken apart by the ships chief engineer and reprogrammed to serve as deep space mines. Higher tech torpedoes are divided into several smaller units that can cover a greater area of space.

Normal Space Mines

• Mines Laid = # torps * (torp position)^2

Crystaline Web Mines

• Mines Laid = # torps * (torp position)^2

Minefield Size Formula

• Mine Field Radius = sqrt(# mines)

sweeping minefields

Standard Minefield Sweeping

all starships with beam weapons can sweep minefields. the amount swept will depend on the number of and the power of your starships beamweapons. to perform this mission select minesweep from your starships mission menu. your ship must be within the minefields radius to effectively sweep with beam weapons.

Colonial Fighter Minefield Sweeping

The Colonials can use fighters to sweep for mines. Each fighter can destroy 20 mines per turn from a range of 100 lyrs away. If the ship doing the mine sweeping has beam weapons and is within the minefield radius then the ship will also use the beam weapons to destroy mines simultaneously.
The mine sweeping fighters can travel 100 light years from the carrier when on a mine sweeping mission. to perform colonial fighter minesweep missions simply select minesweep from the starships mission menu.

sweeping with beam formulas

• Mines Swept = # beams * (beam position)^2 * minesweeprate

sweeping with colonial fighters formula

20spacemines*Fighterson carrier=mineswept

damage from hitting minefields

If a ship lays mines inside an established minefield, the new mines will become part of the existing minefield if the minefield belongs to the ship's race. An enemy ship has a 1% chance of hitting a mine for every light year traveled. It is very likely that a ship that travels through the above example minefield (all 120 light years of it) will hit a mine, but there is still a slim chance that the ship won't. The amount of damage done to a ship depends on the mass of the ship's hull. The cargo and fuel masses will not help to save the ship.

Damage% = 10000 / ( the hull mass )]

A ship with a hull mass under 100 KT will be destroyed by a single mine. Most battle ships are over 500 KT so they can take 5 or more mine hits before being destroyed. A ship that is under tow (being towed) cannot be hit by a mine.