Federation Commander

[Paul B]

How do mines work in SFB? And would they ever be translated to FC other than in the BoM rules? I've got some old SSD books and noticed some minesweepers or minehunters or whatever in there.

[Ravenhull]

Mines work in two ways, though they 'detonate' the same way. Overall, a mine explodes of a target (you can set it for size class or number of valid targets, but not for race or class) gets within 1 hex of it, for 10 points of damage to everything within 1 hex, 35 if it is a large mine.

A ship can carry a number of 'transporter bombs' which are 10 point mines that it can send out via a transporter action or rolling out the shuttle hatch. If it is transported, it can be seen by everyone, but it is hidden (you write down the info secretly) if out the hatch. There is a arming delay, so it isn't auto boom on top of somebody.

A minefield is an area of all hidden mines of both sizes (plus some special ones that act like defsats and such). Minesweepers specialize in being able to find and 'sweep' mines in minefields to allow other ships to pass. They are mostly useless unless there is a concentration of mines, but they can lay mines on their own (this function was meant for minefield maintnence and slipping your own mines in opposing border fields).

As for if and when they might be in FC, I don't know.
_________________
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Donovan Willett, USS Alabama

[Scoutdad]

[junior]

[Mike]

Easy.
Baseline speed = 0.
Acceleration of 1 per Impulse allowed. Therefore, speed during that Impulse is 1.
Roll a 1, hit a mine. Roll 2-6 and its a miss.
Simple.

[junior]

Except that if I accelerate 4 times during the turn, then the rolls would look something like this -

Impulse 1 - roll 1 to set off a mine
Impulse 3 - roll 1-2 to set off a mine
Impulse 4 - roll 1-3 to set off a mine
Impulse 7 - roll 1-4 to set off a mine

Whereas in SFB, during impulses 8, 16, 24, and 32, a ship moving at speed 4 (i.e. at the same practical speed as our hypothetical FedCom ship above) would set off a mine on a 1-4 during all four of the impulses. There's no gradual increase like there would presumeably be in FedCom.

There's also another issue in that mines would be MUCH less effective against someone moving 0+1 during the early portions of the turn (when they haven't accelerated as many times) than they would be during the later portions of the turn (when they would have accelerated multiple times during the turn already). Where you started the turn in relation to the mine would have more bearing on your ability to get past a mine than anything else would. Someone who started two hexes away from a mine and moved at 0+1 the entire turn would have a fair chance of not setting the mine off, whereas someone who started the turn five hexes away and moved 0+1 every impulse past it would be guaranteed to set it off.

So no, it isn't quite as simple as that.

[mjwest]

That is not what Mike said. He said that, assuming a base speed of zero, any impulse in which you accelerate you would have a flat 1 in 6 chance of triggering the mine. Regardless of what impulse, and how many impulses you accelerate. There is no increase in the odds to trigger a mine.

Quite frankly, that is how I would end up recommending to do it, too. It is simple, stays within the structure of FC, is consistent, and works well enough.
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Federation Commander Answer Guy

[Mike]

Thanks, MJ, for explaining that. You were correct in your interpretation of my comments.

[Dal Downing]

I have played with mines but we always used straight up plain jane vanillia mine rules. I suppose now you could add Def Sats to you mine fields and treat them like Captor Mines. But I am still trying to find a good fix to Mineweeping I may try the Speed Zero +1 with a straight 1 in 6 next time.
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-Dal

"Which one of you is the Biggest, Baddest, Bootlicker of the bunch?"
"I am."
"ARCHERS!!! THAT ONE!!!!"

[junior]

[sbartholome]

How about just increasing the chance to run in a mine the more times you move during the turn. So at 0+1, Impulse 1, 1 of 6. Impulse 2, 2 of 6, Impulse 3 3 of 6, etc. Of course this will only really work if its a big minefield area to cross, this won't work for any one single mine.

Of course the alternative is just to pick an arbutrary chance to run in to a mine if traveling at speed 0+1. 1-2 of 6, or even 1-3 of 6. Speeds 8, 16, 24 will automatically set off the mine.

[junior]

[mjwest]

[Mike]

I think the whole concept of mines in FC is moot. If an entire starship explodes with an matter-antimatter reaction and doesn't do any damage whatsoever to ships even in the same hex, what could a nuclear bomb do if it was several thousand kilometers away?

And the business of faster moving objects being more likely to trigger a sensing device than slower moving objects... that's another topic altogether. It isn't water these things are moving through...

I kind of liked the idea someone stated earlier about using DefSats instead of mines. The type of DefSats used now is the set of five that are in high orbit around a planet or perhaps a deep space base. How about another system of DefSats that would have less weaponry and that would be distributed in a network farther from an installation or planet?

New BoM suggestion: Networked Perimeter Satellites (NPSs). Each would have a pair of Ph-2s and a couple of drone launchers (use direct-fire drones from the BoM rules if you don't want to clutter the map with oodles of drones). A typical network would consist of 12 NPSs. If the base or installation was in hex 0807, the NetSats would be placed in hexes 0803, 0604, 0405, 0407, 0409, 0610, 0811, 1010, 1209, 1207, 1205, and 1004. They make a ring with each NPS 4 hexes from the installation and with a gap of 1 empty hex between any two NPSs.

A single ring like this still could be fairly easily penetrated in one location because the fire coming from the satellites would potentially hitting 3 different shields of an invading ship. Beefing this up with another ring of satellites two hexes even further out would help.

Or, just use mines with phasers instead of explosive strength.

Just some ideas to throw out there...

[djdood]