[GZG] Re: Mines

When you talk about minefields are you talking about the mines as
something 
like the mines from Galaxy Quest? Or something else?

For the mines to be effective they would have to have a reasonably large

engagement range to attack the enemy ship otherwise you would need
millions 
of the things to cover any decent kind of area with any density.

I could imagine a planetary defence grid of something like the Centauri 
blockade mines from B5. Those looked like they could move to engage the 
targets and had a reasonable engagement range.

I could also imagine a stealthy hunter killer robotic vessel that sits 
plugged into a widespread sensor net, possibly even in hyper space and
when 
an intruder is detected it powers up and attacks. This kind of thing
would 
be much more cost effective than millions of mines.

If the enemy can detect the sensor net emissions then you could use this
to 
your advantage steering the prey further into the field before
attacking. 
This would depend on how smart the defence grid programming would be.

The effectiveness of static defences depends on things that are not 
described in the FT universe. For example if the hyperspace emergence
points 
are restricted to specific points, say above or below the poles of the
star 
then those points could be defended by mines. If you could emerge from 
hyperspace anywhere then how do you try and defend and area the size of
the 
Solar system with mines.

For battery power why would you not look to make the mines able to
absorb 
solar radiation or cosmic rays or tap into hyperspace or something so
that 
they don't need large batteries?

John

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au>
To: <gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 11:21 AM
Subject: RE: [GZG] Stuart Murray's Games at GZG ECC IX

> G'day,
>
>> Unfortunately networking doesn't change the main problem with space
>> minefields at all: unless you can emplace them in a position
>> the enemy....
>
> Given its a game with FTL and large-scale biological material that can

> withstand vacuum I'm quite happy to brush that one under the rug ;)
>
> Beth
>
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