An largely underused yet enticing mechanic that needs work to be exploitable.

[GeoRmr]

When you pop a mine Balloon the mine falls and explodes on contact with the terrain or ship bellow it. In all of my 4000+ games I have only thrice managed to successfully use this mechanic to damage another ship, yet have attempted multiple times. I think to make this amazing mechanic a more common occurrence a few tweaks could be made:

Mine balloons need a significant reduction in health.

Mine balloons should be able to accumulate fire stacks albeit with a low % multiplier.

Mine balloons should have a slightly larger hit-box.

EDIT: Heavy clip mines are heavier and therefore should sink like depth charges. (Ty Richard)

[Richard LeMoon]

Did not see this here when I posted this about heavy clip and mines sinking.

[GeoRmr]

Did not see this here when I posted this about heavy clip and mines sinking.

hive mind

[macmacnick]

*Hive mined.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Takes a heavy carronade to successfully minesweep but mines can be replaced quickly enough to make doing that ineffective. If you increase the hit box, that would become easier, sure, but you also make it so shield mining is more possible. I've done it before in matches and usually it is inadvertently done where you place a mine that happens to block an enemy shot. Plus if the hit box affects the proximity detector of the mine then you'd make evading minefields even more difficult.

[Captain Smollett]

Do mine balloons take flechette damage?  I can't recall, but either the mine itself or the balloon are unaffected by flechette.

[Dementio]

Mine balloons behave like normal balloons. They have as much health and the damage multiplier is the same. Some sandbox testing a while ago. Took 1 full light carronade clip to destroy it, 1 full heavy carronade clip as well. Gatling has close to no effect. Similar to shooting a gatling against a ship's balloon.

Fire on mine behaves weirdly and if it hasn't changed you have to hit the top right (some weird and small hitbox) to actually damage them. It takes forever to actually destroy the balloon with fire though. Mine balloons do not catch on fire. Neither does the actual mine.

Lumberjack flies through the balloon. I don't think artemis does and I can't remember about the harpoon...
And no, the haproon of course does not connect on mines. It might create some interesting scenarios though.

I believe it goes without saying that the balloon of the mine has to be fixed at some point.
Increasing the mine balloon hitbox should not effect the radius in which the mine itself explodes on whatever is close by.

[Dutch Vanya]

Mine balloons behave like normal balloons. They have as much health and the damage multiplier is the same. Some sandbox testing a while ago. Took 1 full light carronade clip to destroy it, 1 full heavy carronade clip as well. Gatling has close to no effect. Similar to shooting a gatling against a ship's balloon.

Fire on mine behaves weirdly and if it hasn't changed you have to hit the top right (some weird and small hitbox) to actually damage them. It takes forever to actually destroy the balloon with fire though. Mine balloons do not catch on fire. Neither does the actual mine.

Lumberjack flies through the balloon. I don't think artemis does and I can't remember about the harpoon...
And no, the haproon of course does not connect on mines. It might create some interesting scenarios though.

I believe it goes without saying that the balloon of the mine has to be fixed at some point.
Increasing the mine balloon hitbox should not effect the radius in which the mine itself explodes on whatever is close by.

Last time i checked it took two light carronade shots to pop a mine balloon.

[Crafeksterty]

A reduction to the mine baloon would be nice. Ive always tought about the tactic of dropping mines but its too much of a hassle atm.

[GeoRmr]

Takes a heavy carronade to successfully minesweep but mines can be replaced quickly enough to make doing that ineffective. If you increase the hit box, that would become easier, sure, but you also make it so shield mining is more possible. I've done it before in matches and usually it is inadvertently done where you place a mine that happens to block an enemy shot. Plus if the hit box affects the proximity detector of the mine then you'd make evading minefields even more difficult.

I see no problem with 'shield mining' becoming more possible; as far as I'm aware the proximity hit-box for mines is independent of the balloon hit-box.

[Milevan Faent]

I love how we've moved on to tweaking the mines now as the topic of discussion in the feedback section. So many varied topics in here. I fully support these changes btw. Mine Bombs ftw. Also, mine shields is something I would totally abuse.

[Battle Toads]

Maybe I have been doing too much chute vent ramming but I really wish this game was more vertical, I thought the way to fix this was make a special ship where the guns point up/down rather than forward, behind or to the side of the ship. However minebombing does sound really interesting as it can work very well with a mine mobula that can climb quickly

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Its a nice idea but unfortunately executing it in combat is another problem. You'd have to have perfect timing and 2 people handling the mine and a carronade. Just isn't going to happen. It would be better for Muse to design a gun that is made for bombing. Say, depth charge gun where all the things do is get flung out at short range then drop to the floor. That or gunners on Minelaunchers have the ability to disable the balloons. Then you have an entirely new gameplay style where ships can fly over at high speed dropping bombs on enemies then circle around and mop up.

[Richard LeMoon]

It only takes two heavy clip shots on barking dog to drop a mine balloon. You can pop mines about as fast as they are launched. The thread linked in my other post talks about using heavy clip in mine launchers to make sinking mines (depth charges) and there is another thread that addresses floating barriers.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

It only takes two heavy clip shots on barking dog to drop a mine balloon. You can pop mines about as fast as they are launched. The thread linked in my other post talks about using heavy clip in mine launchers to make sinking mines (depth charges) and there is another thread that addresses floating barriers.

You try to pull that off in competitive play with disablers taking out guns left n right, your hull in even worse shape, and another enemy exploiting your flank. All of which, in range of a carronade with Heavy Clip...Yeah, you best test your theory before you go thinking its the greatest thing since gat/flak.

I've taken munkers into those situations. Literally what is happening is you have 1 gunner focusing on constant mine placement to keep enemies at bay and 2 engineers running around like horny squirrels because they know if they stop to shoot for very long, the ship is going down. All the while you are switching between throttle and balloon repair.

You can talk about how neat it would be, and I agree it would be neat to disable a balloon and drop mines on some sucker trying to duck under a field...but I don't want to be in carronade range when I'm doing that. Specially not heavy clip carronade range. Now you say you can drop mines just as fast as they are being put up...in controlled situation that may be true. But live fire combat...no, you aren't going to pull that off. You might get the first 2 but munker pilots are constantly changing positioning and ranges. Plus gunners on munkers are running lesmok, charged, and incendiary...that is 3 different distances and the good ones will mix up the ranges. So you can approach in carronade range to do that, but those gunners are placing mines in front and behind your vessel which forces the pilot to make a move one way or another.

Ultimately the goal of a good munker pilot and gunner is to trap their attacker. Force them into a situation where they have no control over their vessel. Lock it down, prevent it from moving while the ally exploits it. Predict, plan ahead, and strike based on those variables. You are constantly looking ahead 10+ seconds and hoping your gunner is in sync. An opposing carronade gunner cannot do that and when they get into carronade range, it is too late. You are in the munker's kill zone and those mines will be random and they will not be sweepable.