Here are a few of my thoughts. 

I am just getting back into SOASE after a long absence and have only been playing the Entrenchment beta since the start of the weekend.

So: (first off, Thanks Stardock! you guys rock)

1) Vasari mines are.. wow.  well... lets just say it take TEK 1000 credits a pop to lay a minefield and as far as i can tell, i can only do it in my system. The Vasari can jump into one of my systems, run in for an attack, and run out laying mines behind them.  I lose massive amounts of fleet to this. I accept it is a legitimate tactic, but i think this in unbalanced in the Vasari's favor.  If I am managing more than one battle at a time, I may come back to find a fleet wiped out because i wasn't there to put the breaks on.

2) I totally agree there needs to be a minesweeper tactic.  Again, in this example, Playing on a small map against 1 AI, by the time I am starting to lay down minimal mine fields, the Vasari have laid down the equivalent of 20K worth of Trade Coalition mines.  I didn't want to mess w/ clearing it so i researched up rapidly and started pounding them w/ a novalith cannon.  I'm thinking that would be a cool ability for the Marza (at least for TEK, obviously something else for others).  why not make it so it can shoot it's Radiation bomb into a minefield and cause a chain reaction.  Or make it a Fighter Role, that would make me want to take more carriers. (in fact, i allready am taking more carriers.)

3) If Arcova Scouts are the method i have for detecting mines and using them to sweep w/ my fleet - then they need a new position in the fleets formation - like a shell. 

4) Why is it the auto cannons on a Kodiak can take out a mine w/ a quick burst, but a level 6 KOL battle cruiser w/ the max amount of laser research applied to it, takes the entire blast of it's main beam and only blows up when the beam has run it's course? 

5) At one point i figured it would be cute to leave the shell of mines the Vasari left around the fringes of my system because I wasn't bothering to pay of pirates, and thus was being raided heavily. (no problem for me, just XP for my ships.) but i figured it might as well be useful since i didn't want to risk using ANOTHER fleet to mine sweeping activities.  Imagine my suprise when the Pirates moved right through the mines w/ no issue what so ever. not a single one went off.

I really like what i am seeing guys. If you can get past the minidump errors i think what you have left is simply polish and balance. Right now, i think mines are just to powerful.  there needs to be a more effective counter, something that forces me to devote resources to mine sweeping. 

How about starbases get a construction frigatte? It would be neat to be able to build a Jump inhibitor so that a starbase could actually work as a block for enemy fleets moving through an area, like say a magnetic storm or asteroid field, uncolonizable areas, instead of just a minor nuisance. Either that, or a jump inhibitor ability Just a thought from my initial experience with Starbases.

Waiting for minidump fixes and slowdowns to be fixed, but overall a good improvement.

Hi All,

I am thoroughly enjoying Entrenchment. I am glad to get the beta.

Like everyone else, I think the implementation of mines needs to be re-worked for a couple of reasons.

1. Clearing the mines is an excersize in tedium. There needs to be a mine sweeping unit or specific function for all races. BTW - I have only played TEC so far and Vasari mines are driving me nuts even though they are not causing much damage.

2. As more mines are laid, my systems' performance drops. I have a pretty nice system (Quad core, Nvidia 9800GT with 512mb) and the game slows down quite a bit. This problem is serious enough that if it weren't solved by the time of the final release that you consider removing mines from the game.

Otherwise, this is great. I am sure balance issues still need to be worked out, but right now I am having fun!

Engirush1

With minefields, i just did this neat trick:

i zoomed in real close to the system, turned the camera so it was lined up on the planets equator, and told my fleet to move to the south pole.

then i told it to move to phase jump range and jump to a system FULL of mines

the fleet jumped in UNDER the mines, and proceded to clear everything (i ordered the fleet not to move so the enemy came to me and the mines werent a problem)

only works sometimes though, sometimes there are a few mines north or south of the equator or sometimes the fleet jumps in and arrives at the equator line, in which case this tactic doesnt work.

just adding my $0.02, but in the meantime, before we have a minesweeper, that works alright

because honestly, im playing against a vasari opponent now, and i cant wipe him out because he has TOTALLY mined the doorway system to the rest of his planets...

oh, one other thing, i have advent allies (im TEC) and they are stuck in another system, im playing agamemnons bounty, and they are stuck on Cancello behind the wall of mines i put there (to control traffic and everything u know)

but if they are my allies... why do my mines make them stop? they arent detonating...

i posted this somewhere else but ill post here as well just because

i noticed alot of people were struggling with a balanced minesweeper because it either:

1) has heaps of armor and, being a minesweeper, is super effective against mines, making mines useless, or,

2) has very little armor and,  being a minesweeper, is super effective against mines, making mines useless, but also means that you would have to spam 10s upon 10s or even hundreds upon hundreds to clear a sufficient space.

as such, i thought of 2 ideas:

1) the minsweeper is highly armored (as a minesweeper would be) but slow-ish. however, instead of detonating the mines, it fires an EMP at the mines (either directional blasts or omni-directional bursts) decloaking them and enabling the fleet to target them, while also disabling the mines from detonating. this, couple with the Scout idea i will describe later, could be very effective.

2) the second idea is that instead of just spamming mines everywhere in your gravity well, that there be a special band of space in your GW to place mines. this space would be bout a 5th the total space of the GW and would be set back far enough to enable either a small number of ships or a whole fleet (depening, its a detail SD will work out) to enter the system, and would not extend all the way back to the planet.

that way, a small fleet of minsweepers jumps in, clears a corridor, and then the fleet comes in and does its job.

now, for the scout idea, some other posters here recommended that as soon as a scout enters the system, all mines should be visable and de-cloak.

i think this nerfs mines, (given they are too powerful already, but still) that is, if 1 little scout enters the system, then proceeds to fly away from the planet, putting it out of range of planetary defenses, then your fleet jumps in, bam, mines become useless.

my suggestion is that:

1) Naturally, scouts should be reprogrammed to fly a picket around the fleet (perhaps with some inbetween the fleet as well) and

2 that depending on the type of fplanetary system you are in, the more scouts in your fleet, the more mines you can see and target. for instance, 1 scout gives localised sight data on mines, but not the ability to target. 5 gives same range dispersed around fleet, and ability to target visible mines, 10 gives sight data on a larger radius, but not targeting data, 15 gives targeting data, 20 gives sight range of whole GW, but not targeting etc etc

the idea is that each scout would concentrate on scanning an area, and collate all the data which is then organised and distributed to the fleet. the practical upshoot of which is that a fleet can now effectively see, avoid and destroy mines, without/before crashing stupidly into the minefield.

these are my $0.02, i think they are good ideas

Some very good points and suggestions have been raised on this post, you folks should perhaps send these on to IronClad, as they are the Develeopers of the game. support@ironcladgames.com