Experimental effects... what could possibly go wrong?
If I get caught in the blast radius, I may find out the hard way.
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Newcomer / Intro Asp Exp mine laying
- Thread starter Headless
- Start date
If I get caught in the blast radius, I may find out the hard way.
That raises an interesting question. Have anyone tried to fly through their own minefield. I know your own mines don't hurt you when they hit you after being laid. (Like when I tried to equip the launchers into upper C3s on an Anaconda and only thing I hit was my own cockpit) but that might be that they need a time or distance to arm themselves, like torpedoes do. After they are live, do they have any kind of IFF?
I kept my Freewinder as a "catastrophic" insurance policy - in case I had an incredible run of bad luck in my Cobra, I could park it and then fly the Sidey to build my cash back up. So far I haven't had to do that, and of course since I mention it here I just jinxed it. [noob]
(Starts pounding on wooden desk furiously).
You also have a loan which should cover several Cobras, if you have a REALLY LONG run of bad luck.
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Karma must have caught up with me. I had hit an opponent and waited too long for his drives to come back online. I must have been moving too slow when I fired a second volley, I think the NPC must have accidentally shot one of my mines as he had started shooting at me, suddenly my drives rebooted. Fortunately my shields are very resistant as I was a sitting duck for a while.
![[VR] Zakk](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/64/64104.jpg?1587234982){kind=avatar}
This thread seems to be a karma trap.
I redeemed myself last night, though. Decided to play it safe by downgrading my AspX, so that I have enough CR for another rebuy. Then saw that the salvage mission that killed me the night before was still active. So I felt brave and went back.
Had to scoop 4 canisters with rebel transmissions. It was one of these missions where the cargo you're supposed to scoop is moving, fast. As soon as I would get close to the first canister, 4 ships would jump in and attack me.
So I went for the strategy of scooping 1 canister and then run for it, throwing mines left, right and center. I had to fly to a nearby station for restocking and repairs 3 times, and had to approach the mission target 7 times, but in the end, I made it. Killed no less than 22 pirate NPCs along the way, which earned me a nice overall bounty. Overall, even with the 1 rebuy, the mission was not a big financial loss (rebuy was 1.2m, mission paid 800k plus another ~250k in bounties).
Right after that, I got 2 delivery missions to a system that was only 4 jumps away. Both missions even went to the same station, very convenient. Paid 1.5m CR overall. I got inderticted only once, by a rather weak NPC whom I killed in dogfight without getting so much as a scratch to my hull.
So I'm back on track.
BTT - the lesson I learned about laying mines: it works brilliant against 1 opponent, still okay against 2, mostly okay against 3, but with 4 or more, it gets tough. Also, if you have more than 1 or 2 opponents up your neck, don't bother dropping 2 mines at a time, but give it 4 (or more, if your ship allows that) and fire as fast as you can.
Also, when you encounter more than 2 opponents, don't even bother identifying them, or trying to harm them in dogfight. Instead, as soon as they show up, run as fast as you can, before they even start shooting. I even gave 4 pips to ENG / 2 pips to SYS for a short while, to put more distance between them and me, before switching back to my usual 4 SYS / 2 ENG.
Also, 2 lessons specifically for salvage missions:
If you don't manage to put distance between you and the attackers, your cargo scoop may still be open. [noob]
Also, I read in other threads that commanders are hesitating to flee from a debris field, fearing that they won't find it again later on. That is not an issue. After getting rid of your attackers, you can return to SC. Stay near the target planet, the mission target will reappear after a short while. Even with full amount of mission targets, even if you scooped some already. E.g., if you are to salvage 3 black boxes, scoop 1 on the first attempt, then flee from attackers to SC, there will be 3 fresh black boxes in the debris field when you return to the mission target.
So your strategy for salvage missions where enemy ships jump on you while you are scooping the mission target should be to scoop 1 mission target as fast as you can, and then flee if needed. Then wait in SC for the mission target to reappear, scoop another 1 target, flee again. Repeat until mission is completed. If you get damaged while fleeing, you can safely fly to a station for repairs, even if the nearest station is in another system. The mission target will always reappear when you return, so there is no rush.
Sorry for the off-topic, that's not really related to laying mines.
I redeemed myself last night, though. Decided to play it safe by downgrading my AspX, so that I have enough CR for another rebuy. Then saw that the salvage mission that killed me the night before was still active. So I felt brave and went back.
Had to scoop 4 canisters with rebel transmissions. It was one of these missions where the cargo you're supposed to scoop is moving, fast. As soon as I would get close to the first canister, 4 ships would jump in and attack me.
So I went for the strategy of scooping 1 canister and then run for it, throwing mines left, right and center. I had to fly to a nearby station for restocking and repairs 3 times, and had to approach the mission target 7 times, but in the end, I made it. Killed no less than 22 pirate NPCs along the way, which earned me a nice overall bounty. Overall, even with the 1 rebuy, the mission was not a big financial loss (rebuy was 1.2m, mission paid 800k plus another ~250k in bounties).
Right after that, I got 2 delivery missions to a system that was only 4 jumps away. Both missions even went to the same station, very convenient. Paid 1.5m CR overall. I got inderticted only once, by a rather weak NPC whom I killed in dogfight without getting so much as a scratch to my hull.
So I'm back on track.
BTT - the lesson I learned about laying mines: it works brilliant against 1 opponent, still okay against 2, mostly okay against 3, but with 4 or more, it gets tough. Also, if you have more than 1 or 2 opponents up your neck, don't bother dropping 2 mines at a time, but give it 4 (or more, if your ship allows that) and fire as fast as you can.
Also, when you encounter more than 2 opponents, don't even bother identifying them, or trying to harm them in dogfight. Instead, as soon as they show up, run as fast as you can, before they even start shooting. I even gave 4 pips to ENG / 2 pips to SYS for a short while, to put more distance between them and me, before switching back to my usual 4 SYS / 2 ENG.
Also, 2 lessons specifically for salvage missions:
If you don't manage to put distance between you and the attackers, your cargo scoop may still be open. [noob]
Also, I read in other threads that commanders are hesitating to flee from a debris field, fearing that they won't find it again later on. That is not an issue. After getting rid of your attackers, you can return to SC. Stay near the target planet, the mission target will reappear after a short while. Even with full amount of mission targets, even if you scooped some already. E.g., if you are to salvage 3 black boxes, scoop 1 on the first attempt, then flee from attackers to SC, there will be 3 fresh black boxes in the debris field when you return to the mission target.
So your strategy for salvage missions where enemy ships jump on you while you are scooping the mission target should be to scoop 1 mission target as fast as you can, and then flee if needed. Then wait in SC for the mission target to reappear, scoop another 1 target, flee again. Repeat until mission is completed. If you get damaged while fleeing, you can safely fly to a station for repairs, even if the nearest station is in another system. The mission target will always reappear when you return, so there is no rush.
Sorry for the off-topic, that's not really related to laying mines.
My approach to mine laying has two stages the first stage is to put launchers on every hard point then fly off to somewhere with no other ships setup fire groups so that I can launch 1 mine at a time with each trigger with a different pair of hard points in each fire group, then with the ship flying straight at max throttle launch a mine and check it does clear the ship I keep swapping triggers and fire groups until I have fired them all then I head back to dock and sell the launches that didn't clear the ship (mediums on an Asp Exp) and put all the remaining mines into one fire group on the same trigger.
The second stage is operational use and here I don't vary the number of mines per salvo, if it is a potentially weak opponent I will fire a salvo at a time and observe the effects so as to not squander to many mines, if it is something serious after me I will fire in bursts of three mines each time the launchers reload dropping back to single when I have hurt the attacker a lot.
For player interdictions I want to write a script that alternates mines and cargo drops.
The second stage is operational use and here I don't vary the number of mines per salvo, if it is a potentially weak opponent I will fire a salvo at a time and observe the effects so as to not squander to many mines, if it is something serious after me I will fire in bursts of three mines each time the launchers reload dropping back to single when I have hurt the attacker a lot.
For player interdictions I want to write a script that alternates mines and cargo drops.
It will only work ONCE per intelligent enemy.
I lack the coordination and speed mentally to do it off the cuff, against an intelligent enemy it might work as they would ask for cargo and allow time for one to recover from the surprise and drop the cargo. I was thinking more of the ones that demand 50 tonnes then start shooting before you have finished reading the message.
I guarantee you were totally enjoying yourself doing this, especially since you succeeded.
You also have a loan which should cover several Cobras, if you have a REALLY LONG run of bad luck.
So far I've managed to evade that run of bad luck - I'm up to 12 M credits in the bank milking a nice rare goods route.
A couple-three more evenings and I'll hit 15 M, and then I'm going to take a break from trading and finish gearing up the Cobra for an exploration trip. But I might just shake the dust off the Sidey, fit a few more modules and spend a bit of time in it chasing bounties at nav beacons first. [cool]