Re: Mobile mines

You wrote: 

>Duh, but excuse me for asking, but just what are the mine clearers 
doing >when this dinner plate thing just digs itself out of the ground 
and >wanders across the trail and then digs itself back into the 
ground? A >couple of sharp shooters could take those babies out with 
one or two >bursts of their AR's. I think a mobile mine field is a good 
idea but it >needs a little more work on just what that would 
constitute. Mobile could >mean that the mine field deploys itself, or 
that it reconfigures itself >on command or something, but move around 
on its own? If it could do that >I would have to ask for the rules on 
my "assault mine field" it would be >perfect for assaulting a fixed 
position. Could you imagine the fun you >would have when a mine crawled 
into your foxhole? No troopers, just the >attack of the dinner plates 
that go Boom!

Here's why I didn't even want to get started on these lines.  Let me 
quote from the Dirtside II book.

"Basically, this is a game about armored warfare - that is, battles 
using tanks and mechanzied infantry.  As such, it is really an 
extrapolation of present-day warfare in a future setting. . . Thus 
Dirstside II reflects the 'popular' view of SF combat - troopers in 
powered armor suits, huge hovertanks, lasers and railgun. . . Perhaps 
tanks and infantry will survive in some form, perhaps they won't; here 
we assume they will, becaue a game terrain full of nicely painted 
figures and AFVs is much more fun than an empty battlefield with a 
couple of robot drones flying over it!"

Yes, I am trying to keep things 'modern'.  Because if you assume too 
much development on autonomous combat drones (be they 'mobile mines' or 
robot infantrymen) or Artificial Intelligence, it becomes "I send my 
robots at your robots.	Opposed die roll--I bought Superior robots, of 
course.  Oh, I loose.  Damn!  See you next week, Ted."	And that isn't 
my vision of Dirtside.	If you disagree, feel free to.	But please 
consider the implications of this track.  I, for one, would insist you 
paint up a couple thousand teeny-tiny robots.  And then still wouldn't 
play you, because whatever you're doing, it's _not_ Dirtside.

Yes, this is personal opinion publicly expressed.  Yes, I expect people 
to disagree.  Yes, I welcome a philisophical, polite, and rational 
debate on the subject.	No, I have no interest in being slammed for 
having an opinion on what is and isn't Dirtside.  I know I didn't come 
up with it.  If that's all you have to say, save the electrons.

John M. Atkinson