Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:38 pm
Mines, and how you may not have thought about using them...
Ah, mines. The single most overlooked weapon in FL. A powerful, yet often overlooked tool which can save your life in more ways than one.
My favorite use for these little bundles of love is to drop them into tradelanes. Not to stop transports for piracy, mind you, but to discourage pursuit by tradelane. Imagine this scenario: You have a load of valuble cargo which another player wants to remove from your posession. You see a tradelane; he sees it too. You make a break for it, but know that your would-be pirate will be right on your heels. But you have your mines, your ace in the hole. As you are about to go through the ring and into the lane, you drop a ripper on it. You pass through and escape as your mine disrupts the lane, forcing the opponent to either cruise up to the next ring or wait for it to come back up, a vital time window in which you can get through a jumpgate, dock, or flee safely into another lane. You haven't killed the bastard, but you've sure slowed him down some.
The second would be as bombs, in conjunction with shield-busters. Few things are more effective than an LF armed with a loadout of shieldkillers and a high-level mine dropper.
Ah! But there's more! And this is one of the least obvious uses imaginable. YOu don't need a powerful mine for this one; it can even be a lowly drone mine. It must be done in MP; it won't do a thing to an AI player. Can you guess what it is? Visual Lag. Mine explosions, more than anything else, slow down framerates, and a drone mine in the face can cause a player to lose their shot momentarily while you duck out of the way. Think of this as a sort of explosive countermeasure for guns, if you will. And even if they have god's own graphics card and get no slowdown, the blast will flash and blind them momentarily, obscuring your ship from view as you do...well, whatever it is you do when you let someone get on your tail.
Since they seek on their own with a wide blast radius, they can be a great help when you need a speedy escape(as when raiding transports or supply depots in an area with powerful enemies), allowing you to drop the mine, hit tractor, and run like hell all at once(using thruster and engine kill to breeze right on by). Especially useful when using a freighter for your piracy, since their armor and maneuverability tend not to be the finest around.
I think of mines as the duct tape of FL- they can do just about anything you can think of.
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"Although I do not consider myself a member of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, I find that their goals and mine often follow the same path. I will aid them when I can...if they give me a percentage of the salvage from whatever they frag along the way. But god help them if someone puts a bounty on THEIR heads, for I don't care who I hunt for, as long as their live capture(or untimely death) can get me enough credits to buy a decent sized mug of my favorite drink."- A Freelance Bounty Hunter.
My favorite use for these little bundles of love is to drop them into tradelanes. Not to stop transports for piracy, mind you, but to discourage pursuit by tradelane. Imagine this scenario: You have a load of valuble cargo which another player wants to remove from your posession. You see a tradelane; he sees it too. You make a break for it, but know that your would-be pirate will be right on your heels. But you have your mines, your ace in the hole. As you are about to go through the ring and into the lane, you drop a ripper on it. You pass through and escape as your mine disrupts the lane, forcing the opponent to either cruise up to the next ring or wait for it to come back up, a vital time window in which you can get through a jumpgate, dock, or flee safely into another lane. You haven't killed the bastard, but you've sure slowed him down some.
The second would be as bombs, in conjunction with shield-busters. Few things are more effective than an LF armed with a loadout of shieldkillers and a high-level mine dropper.
Ah! But there's more! And this is one of the least obvious uses imaginable. YOu don't need a powerful mine for this one; it can even be a lowly drone mine. It must be done in MP; it won't do a thing to an AI player. Can you guess what it is? Visual Lag. Mine explosions, more than anything else, slow down framerates, and a drone mine in the face can cause a player to lose their shot momentarily while you duck out of the way. Think of this as a sort of explosive countermeasure for guns, if you will. And even if they have god's own graphics card and get no slowdown, the blast will flash and blind them momentarily, obscuring your ship from view as you do...well, whatever it is you do when you let someone get on your tail.
Since they seek on their own with a wide blast radius, they can be a great help when you need a speedy escape(as when raiding transports or supply depots in an area with powerful enemies), allowing you to drop the mine, hit tractor, and run like hell all at once(using thruster and engine kill to breeze right on by). Especially useful when using a freighter for your piracy, since their armor and maneuverability tend not to be the finest around.
I think of mines as the duct tape of FL- they can do just about anything you can think of.
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"Although I do not consider myself a member of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, I find that their goals and mine often follow the same path. I will aid them when I can...if they give me a percentage of the salvage from whatever they frag along the way. But god help them if someone puts a bounty on THEIR heads, for I don't care who I hunt for, as long as their live capture(or untimely death) can get me enough credits to buy a decent sized mug of my favorite drink."- A Freelance Bounty Hunter.