Landmine Balance

[mngrif]

It came up earlier this morning in the IRC channel about balancing landmines. The current ones are already underpowered by the time you get them, and really only serve as a resource dump. The 20 damage they do is effectively pointless.

So here's some ideas that we came up with!

Shaped charges - explodes in one direction so as to not damage your walls. The idea is to reduce the 7 tile 'no-mans-land' between the mine field and your walls.
Landmine research - Just like bullet damage research. I'm not a fan of the idea as it doesn't make much sense (how do you get more boom without adding more explosives?).
"Mk2" landmines - Bigger more powerful landmines. They should have the same radius for gameplay reasons, but do much more damage. Bonus points if the sprite is bigger so they take up a full tile or more.
Claymores - Explosive traps that are triggered remotely somehow. No idea how fun or useful it would be, but it was suggested. Perhaps a wire condition if a turret is engaging an enemy? Could be fun if used in the style of the Discharge Defense.

I have searched the suggestions boards for other ideas, but came up empty. I encourage other ideas to be added to this thread. Thank you.


#blameOxyd

[ChucklesTheBeard]

Add a short delay to the explosion, so it might hit more than the first biter to walk across it. Maybe configurable?

[mngrif]

Add a short delay to the explosion, so it might hit more than the first biter to walk across it. Maybe configurable?

I like this idea.

Also, can it be clarified if landmines damage other landmines when they explode?

[Oxyd]

Also, can it be clarified if landmines damage other landmines when they explode?

Yes, they do. When a landmine is caught in the explosion of another mine, it explodes as well, leading to this chain reaction where possibly all of your mines in one location go off in one big boom.

Which leads me to my own idea: Blast-resistant landmines. Blast-resistant landmines would not be triggered by other explosions, preventing this sort of chain reactions. This could make minefields more useful as you wouldn't waste all of your mines once a single enemy enters the zone.

#blameOxyd

You misspelled HanziQ there.

[mngrif]

Yes, they do. When a landmine is caught in the explosion of another mine, it explodes as well, leading to this chain reaction where possibly all of your mines in one location go off in one big boom.

Well that explains why I have 1000's of landmines destroyed. At least they still put out damage so the biters are still eating it (all 20 of it). Thank you.

#blameRseding91

[bobucles]

Since land mines are buried, they wouldn't have much ability to set off other mines. Improving their resistance against chain reactions would help a lot.

AP mines are designed to scatter shrapnel, dealing AP damage in a wide radius. They launch up and out of the ground, and the shower of shrapnel doesn't really affect buried mines. Useful against low level biters. In terms of design they would shower the area like an AoE shotgun and have a low explosive damage core to discourage packing them too tight. If the AP damage is done as pure AoE, the mines would need immunity to that damage type so as to not chain react.

Anti tank mines are designed to blast through thick armor. They have a small focused explosion that could seriously wound behemoths, and still allow other mines in the area. Anti tank mines are designed to not trigger unless something big runs over them, such as a vehicle or very large creature. In terms of design they have the same small explosive that keeps mines from packing too tight, and deal a single devastating attack.

Explosives are still fairly cost prohibitive against other combat options. EVERYTHING is cost prohibitive against the all mighty shotgun. There will need to be some balance tweaks to make sure that the value of items has a decent connection to their cost/ease of use.

Those are by no means the only types of mines that could happen. For example there might be a shock mine that connects to the grid and lets out a renewable AoE blast. There might be a slowdown capsule mine that splats biters who get too close. Nothing wrong with getting creative.

[Adil]

Something along the knockback effect on biters or silencing on spitters might make them something more than just expensive nerfed version of rockets.
Because while rockets simply suck, mines are so crappy that people forget that those exist.

[bobingabout]

I modded in some fancy mines.

I added one that detonates a poison capsule, and another that releases a destractor drone. And I think a slowdown landmine too. They actually work quite well as front line suppliments.

but this has nothing to do with your sugestions.

[Oxyd]

I added one that detonates a poison capsule, and another that releases a destractor drone.

They're no longer landmines, but rather very grumpy mechanical djinns.

[lancar]

Landmine research - Just like bullet damage research. I'm not a fan of the idea as it doesn't make much sense (how do you get more boom without adding more explosives?).

Purer or different boompowder mix? More tightly packed explosive package?

Hell.. you can improve the boomification of your rockets at no extra expense of resources. Why not mines?

[bobucles]

It is pretty upsetting what with how important weapon upgrades are, that so many weapon types can't be upgraded.

[Ranakastrasz]

Aside from flamethrower, all mundane weapons and turrets can be upgraded.

Grenade and capsules cannot be upgraded, and landmines cannot be upgraded. I don't know how I would go about upgrading them if I wanted to, lacking an example for such.



That said, one thing in my local mod I did was remove explosion resistance from biters and spitters, and made the larger onces significantly more vulnerable, with behemiths taking 10x damage (-900% resistance)

That had some interesting effects, mainly on rockets, but landmines were also effected.

[mngrif]

I modded in some fancy mines.

I added one that detonates a poison capsule, and another that releases a destractor drone. And I think a slowdown landmine too. They actually work quite well as front line suppliments.

but this has nothing to do with your sugestions.

Sure it does. Landmines that inflict a status effect would be great. However, I'd like to see landmine specific effects that aren't capsule effects. I'd like to try the idea of a "stun landmine" that interrupts everything in it's AoE for a few seconds. I'd also like to try the AP and anti-tank landmines mentioned in this thread, though I don't know if that would have to be a new status effect or can already be modded. Same with having a configurable delay landmines.

Explosives are still fairly cost prohibitive against other combat options.

One steel and two explosives to get four landmines is a pretty good deal I think. The infrastructure to use them effectively is pretty expensive though. You must have a loginet covering where they get deployed, and they do not get stored in the roboport like repair packs do. There are lots of hidden costs with landmines, so the reward for using them should be rewarded with diversity.

Hell.. you can improve the boomification of your rockets at no extra expense of resources. Why not mines?

I'll gladly shovel thousands of purple science at the problem!

Aside from flamethrower, all mundane weapons and turrets can be upgraded.

Oh I'm sure it'll get some love. Maybe a proper flame turret one day <3 <3 <3

[The Phoenixian]

Also, can it be clarified if landmines damage other landmines when they explode?

Yes, they do. When a landmine is caught in the explosion of another mine, it explodes as well, leading to this chain reaction where possibly all of your mines in one location go off in one big boom.

Which leads me to my own idea: Blast-resistant landmines. Blast-resistant landmines would not be triggered by other explosions, preventing this sort of chain reactions. This could make minefields more useful as you wouldn't waste all of your mines once a single enemy enters the zone.

#blameOxyd

You misspelled HanziQ there.

Okay it's a little late but I have to chime in here: Are you sure of this? Because I've use massed landmines a fair bit and that's not something I've seen. Indeed the biggest rule I've seen that landmines never do damage to anything you can walk on so they don't damage other mines and belts and rail lines can be laid right through to them without worry. Instead I see stuff like the below picture where just enough landmines go off to kill the enemy: (one for a small, two for a medium, five for a big spitter and ten for a big biter, not including splash damage reaching other enemies.)

So the only times when vast numbers of landmines are going off is during large waves and, even then, only really once is when blue biters have started to mass up.

[Oxyd]

Okay it's a little late but I have to chime in here: Are you sure of this? Because I've use massed landmines a fair bit and that's not something I've seen. Indeed the biggest rule I've seen that landmines never do damage to anything you can walk on so they don't damage other mines and belts and rail lines can be laid right through to them without worry. Instead I see stuff like the below picture where just enough landmines go off to kill the enemy: (one for a small, two for a medium, five for a big spitter and ten for a big biter, not including splash damage reaching other enemies.)

Hm, you're right. There's no chain reaction there. I must've been thinking of something else, then.

[mngrif]

I guess I'm just going to have to build a test for this.

[mngrif]

There it is. Scienced. 0.12.20. They hurt anything that isn't a landmine.

[The Phoenixian]

There it is. Scienced. 0.12.20. They hurt anything that isn't a landmine.

What exactly did you test them on? I see the wall certainly and I imagine that you had those bullets in a full ring, but the other landmines appear unharmed and I don't see conveyor belts or anything else there.

[The Phoenixian]

Alright, I'd just been talking before but here's the counter-science, I've done this before somewhere around 10.something but now it's current to 0.12.20. The walls to the north are not part of this test.



Shortly after kiting a pack of spitters into my minefield we end up like this. As you can see, the test pipes have been destroyed by the blast but the paving tiles, belts, rails, items, and rail signals are all unaffected.