Make spitters take out more landmines before suiciding

[blazespinnaker]

Landmines are kinda OP. Once you have landmines + conbots, landmines alone seem to stop everything and nothing else is required, expect maybe when dealing with artillery inspired biter rushes with behemoths. They don't have the downside of electrical consumption of laser tech and are very cheap relative to damage dealt in vanilla. But if you're doing that, than artillery on islands with logistics is probably the way to go - so no rushes.

This obviates all sorts of otherwise interesting defense techs in the game.

Notably, spitters will pause when encountering landmines, take out a small amount, and then strangely suicide on the mines

At the very least, I recommend wube increase the amount of landmines they take out before suiciding. It would definitely balance things.

[Koub]

Well ... the main "advantage" of a landmine is its ability to lay unseen. If landmines were detectable by those they are supposed to kill, they would become instantly useless, wouldn't they ?

[foamy]

@Kroub: As long as the game lets me carry a tank and thirty trains in my hip pocket, arguments founded on a 'realism' basis aren't going to go far

[coppercoil]

@Kroub: As long as the game lets me carry a tank and thirty trains in my hip pocket, arguments founded on a 'realism' basis aren't going to go far

The fact that the game is not 100% realistic, does not mean it should be 0% realistic. We need a balance

[ssilk]

moved from suggestions to balancing

See also viewtopic.php?p=532670#p532670

[bormand]

amount of landmines they take out before suiciding

There are no such amount, as far as I understand. They simply see that you planting the mine and try to destroy it. They don't see mines that are already burrowed into the ground.

Now, what we can do to make mines less offensive? We can increase that timeout!

P.S. Or even forbid them from arming when there are enemies nearby.

[Koub]

@Kroub: As long as the game lets me carry a tank and thirty trains in my hip pocket, arguments founded on a 'realism' basis aren't going to go far

Actually, it's not a question of realism. The principle of a mine is to lay undetected until it's too late. A detectable mine would not be a mine any more, just a bunch of explosives and shrapnel.

[jodokus31]

amount of landmines they take out before suiciding

There are no such amount, as far as I understand. They simply see that you planting the mine and try to destroy it. They don't see mines that are already burrowed into the ground.

Now, what we can do to make mines less offensive? We can increase that timeout!

P.S. Or even forbid them from arming when there are enemies nearby.

I agree. I don't know if and how spitters take out armed landmines.
The proposal with the greater timeout is good and should be easily mod-able, i guess
Forbidding the arming is also nice idea, however not mod-able, is it?

[bormand]

The proposal with the greater timeout is good and should be easily mod-able, i guess

Extremely easy, it's just a "timeout" parameter of LandMine prototype.

Forbidding the arming is also nice idea, however not mod-able, is it?

It's moddable, you can reimplement arming timer and check for enemies with count_entities_filtered(). But I dunno how efficient that function is. Mine fields are large, after all.

[jodokus31]

Forbidding the arming is also nice idea, however not mod-able, is it?

It's moddable, you can reimplement arming timer and check for enemies with count_entities_filtered(). But I dunno how efficient that function is. Mine fields are large, after all.

Interesting. But sounds heavy on performance. On the other side, its only the short phase, when enemies are around.

EDIT: Do you mean the on_land_mine_armed event? I don't find anything else...

[bormand]

on_land_mine_armed event

Maybe. We can check whether biters are nearby in that handler and recreate the mine to start arming sequence again.

Or, if it doesn't work or looks bad, just make a prototype with infinite timeout, do the check in usual timer handler. And set timeout of the mine to 0 to arm it.

[blazespinnaker]

Create a certain type of spitter that detects landmines, though make them vulnerable to something else - say gun turrets.

The nice thing about having a mix of biters is it requires a more complex and interesting defense. Things could be done by having a certain type of biter immune to laser fire.

Maybe these are all mods, I don't know. I find it hard to get motivated by mods like this though, as there is something about having a baseline shared experience with the community to discuss / solve.

[jodokus31]

Create a certain type of spitter that detects landmines, though make them vulnerable to something else - say gun turrets.

The nice thing about having a mix of biters is it requires a more complex and interesting defense. Things could be done by having a certain type of biter immune to laser fire.

Maybe these are all mods, I don't know. I find it hard to get motivated by mods like this though, as there is something about having a baseline shared experience with the community to discuss / solve.

Increasing landmine timeout would be more possible for vanilla, i think.

[Rubypoker]

o no, spitters taking out landmines might be a nightmare and a horrible game mechanic. They do attack them when they are visible/just getting plased. When they are borrowed they are invisible to enemies. What could be tweaked is their visibility, like make them unborrow shortly when biters are close. I am not sure if I would like it.
Another possibility for a nerf is if some biters would be to light to trigger landmines.

It seems like landmines are to good now, yet people don't seem to use them enough, they still prefer to build a traditional wall. Landmines only started to gain popularity because speed-runners used them.

[blazespinnaker]

I think allowing for a mix of biters, each strong/weak against different weapons would be an interesting mechanic. It would definitely require a better and more interesting mix of defense.

Probably wise to only make that an issue in DW though, or at least dial down default in terms of biter offense as a part of the rebalancing.