Thread: Minefields

Minefields by their very nature are booby traps. Once you know its there you can avoid them or sweep them. In the 4th Imperium, the Scout Service would take a dim view of mining a planet, unless they did it themselves, say to protect a low-tech population from contamination, and would probably sweep it themselves. In the New Era if near Coalition space, the RCES would sweep the field, a good way to show the locals that the "Star Vikings" are not so bad after all.
First, sweeping the field may be a problem, low tech worlds couldn't do it, a TL-8 world could, but it wouldn't be easy, at Tl-9 advanced thrusters start appearing that would allow people better-easier access to space. Sending in a ship is self-defeating unless it has enough armor to defeat the mines laser bolts. A second way would be to shoot down the mine using a air to air like missile reconfigured for space to space use. A third way is to send someone in a EV suit to deactivate the mines. They would need space based personal transporter (rocket stake, jet pack) and a small craft to get them near the mine.
To avoid having your mine spotted easily it should have stealth or EM-Masking, a close in defence system, maybe a motion detector rigged to a laser rifle to keep anti-mine personal away.
You will also need both large and small mines. FF+S allows for interpolation and here I would use it! Nuclear Pumped X-Ray warheads range from 10 to 500 kilotons, but ordinary!!! warheads go as small as 0.1kt. These cheap mines would be sprinkled amongst the ship killers with orders to take out small craft, while the larger ship killers were ordered not to detonate against anything smaller than 100 D Tons.
How long do you plan to keep your mine field active? If you are targeting a single ship or say vampire fleet. You can skip this part. If you plan to keep the mine field up as a deterrent or road block you should leave replacement mines in the mine field. These mines would not be active, and would stay dormant until they picked up a mine detonating then after a short period, say two hours they would activate. The delay would let the ship that triggered the original mine to clear the field. This is not mercy just practical, you don't want ta 100 Ton scout triggering the whole field simply because the scout is to stupid to not blow up.
You might have to think about intelligent control for your mine field as well. Big ships are few and far between in the New Era but they do exist. A 500kt mine might not be able to penetrate the thick hide of a large ship so would be a useless to shoot at it unless you went for sensor/ antenna kills, but shooting at its support ships could make a difference. If you can't sink the aircraft carrier sink all its escorts and the carrier captain is going to feel very naked without them! Here a intelligent mine, maybe with a full sized ship's computer instead of warhead would work. A maned ground base, or defence platform (again there's one of these in BARD) could work and the defence platform could be of use in protecting the mine field. Also I agree with Tim nuclear power plants in my universe give off heat so I would also go with solar power and batteries. In case this isn't feasible there is a rule in Brilliant Lances that allows a ship to reduce its signature by one level if it reduces its power plant output to 1% so I see no reason that mines couldn't be designed to do this.
You might also think about placing your mines in the "junk belt" the area surrounding a planet that holds all the dead and living satellites and the other space junk that accumulates from a near-space faring society.
This is a good subject, its given me two ideas for adventures. First a Lancer crew is hired by the Coalition to lay a booby-trap mine field at a gas giant known to be a vampire refueling point in an effort to whittle down a vampire fleet. Second the Lancers are hired to remove a minefield that the Solee have set up to force a planet to join them.
Let me know what you think.
Roger

Thanks for the valuable input Roger. I am currently writing a document with design tips and game rules that will apear on my website this monday. Even a few sample designs will be posted. One has been posted already. An updated document on missiles. The mine is the last entry in the table.

I agree that some sort of control are needed or else everything will go kablooey. We can't have too many mines engaging the same target. There needs to be a way to shut down mines, even in enemy space. Some day peace will come and the former enemy won't react well with still active mines that can be dangerous to its interstellar commerce.

I wouldn't go for antipersonel systems on mines as when the mine is detected it has no real value. I would blow it up along with enything that is close by. To prevent a chain reaction mine must be by design placed far apart. I am thinking about a automated controller mine that flies higher than the rest with better sensor capability and logic to track, priorittize and assign targets to mines flying lower. Mines will due to design limitations be limited to short sensor ranges. This is actually a good thing as you don't want several mines detect the same target and go off. One or two extra mines may not hurt, but a dozen? A controller will, if neccessary, assign proper number of mines to a target.
A controller will also ensure that mines doesn't attack dummies or already killed targets wasting expensive mines.

Currently I am running a campaign in Classic Times, but with TNE rules.

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

From: roger
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 2:39 PM
To:
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields

Minefields by their very nature are booby traps. Once you know its there you can avoid them or sweep them. In the 4th Imperium, the Scout Service would take a dim view of mining a planet, unless they did it themselves, say to protect a low-tech population from contamination, and would probably sweep it themselves. In the New Era if near Coalition space, the RCES would sweep the field, a good way to show the locals that the "Star Vikings" are not so bad after all.
First, sweeping the field may be a problem, low tech worlds couldn't do it, a TL-8 world could, but it wouldn't be easy, at Tl-9 advanced thrusters start appearing that would allow people better-easier access to space. Sending in a ship is self-defeating unless it has enough armor to defeat the mines laser bolts. A second way would be to shoot down the mine using a air to air like missile reconfigured for space to space use. A third way is to send someone in a EV suit to deactivate the mines. They would need space based personal transporter (rocket stake, jet pack) and a small craft to get them near the mine.
To avoid having your mine spotted easily it should have stealth or EM-Masking, a close in defence system, maybe a motion detector rigged to a laser rifle to keep anti-mine personal away.
You will also need both large and small mines. FF+S allows for interpolation and here I would use it! Nuclear Pumped X-Ray warheads range from 10 to 500 kilotons, but ordinary!!! warheads go as small as 0.1kt. These cheap mines would be sprinkled amongst the ship killers with orders to take out small craft, while the larger ship killers were ordered not to detonate against anything smaller than 100 D Tons.
How long do you plan to keep your mine field active? If you are targeting a single ship or say vampire fleet. You can skip this part. If you plan to keep the mine field up as a deterrent or road block you should leave replacement mines in the mine field. These mines would not be active, and would stay dormant until they picked up a mine detonating then after a short period, say two hours they would activate. The delay would let the ship that triggered the original mine to clear the field. This is not mercy just practical, you don't want ta 100 Ton scout triggering the whole field simply because the scout is to stupid to not blow up.
You might have to think about intelligent control for your mine field as well. Big ships are few and far between in the New Era but they do exist. A 500kt mine might not be able to penetrate the thick hide of a large ship so would be a useless to shoot at it unless you went for sensor/ antenna kills, but shooting at its support ships could make a difference. If you can't sink the aircraft carrier sink all its escorts and the carrier captain is going to feel very naked without them! Here a intelligent mine, maybe with a full sized ship's computer instead of warhead would work. A maned ground base, or defence platform (again there's one of these in BARD) could work and the defence platform could be of use in protecting the mine field. Also I agree with Tim nuclear power plants in my universe give off heat so I would also go with solar power and batteries. In case this isn't feasible there is a rule in Brilliant Lances that allows a ship to reduce its signature by one level if it reduces its power plant output to 1% so I see no reason that mines couldn't be designed to do this.
You might also think about placing your mines in the "junk belt" the area surrounding a planet that holds all the dead and living satellites and the other space junk that accumulates from a near-space faring society.
This is a good subject, its given me two ideas for adventures. First a Lancer crew is hired by the Coalition to lay a booby-trap mine field at a gas giant known to be a vampire refueling point in an effort to whittle down a vampire fleet. Second the Lancers are hired to remove a minefield that the Solee have set up to force a planet to join them.
Let me know what you think.
Roger

interesting ideas, and the idea of the small craft minefield is a nasty twist ... I wonder about the antipersonnel defenses though ... mines are nasty by nature, that's why EOD tries to blow them in place instead of defusing them so often, the anti personnel measures similarly are nasty but circumventible by the owner ... case in point when land military put out a minefield, they are supposed to map it describing the location of each mine, the type (AP or AT) and any anti-tampering "mods" put in)  that way they know if they can just go out and pick the mine up or if its "much" safer to blow it in place themselves. 
 
Taking out a mine in space can also be done by nuke tipped missiles - going for 'soft' EMP kills.  Hardening against this is difficult and mines are supposed to be "cheap" so while the expenses may be done for a ship, it would rarely be done for a mine which is nothing more than a piece of expendable ammunition after all. 
 
The computer for targetting differentials on a fleet, would not necessarily have to be ship's grade, it can actually be rather simple running through a certain logic matrix:
Friend or Foe?  (Neutral = foe, sorry for you)
Emission type?
Large or small?  This may be done passively if your ships drive emmission is going to give some clue (also electronics - radar and such) but if not then it means that your stealthy minefield has to blow its cover and begin targetting using active systems at some point.  Once this happens the logic tree is going to identify targets by size and whatever then go after those that meet the targetting criteria. 
There are mines today that possibly meet this broad design criteria both naval and land.  On the land side, the Italians developped one that attacks people, not sure of the targeting criteria or how effective it is (does it ID diff between a cow and infantry?  "distant attack?" or whatever).  The US developed a set of anti-vehicle mines which can differentiate between tanks and trucks and diesel and turbine engines; these have an offset range of about 400m and can orient themselves to attack in 360 degrees from the mine.
Naval mines range from the traditional WWI/WWII types to relatively sophisticated ones that use a torpedo and can be set to delay their activation by time, or number of targets that pass nearby before they arm themselves and get ready to attack the next target.  Also like any number of land mines, these can be rigged for command operation -
T

--- On Wed, 8/4/10, roger <> wrote:

From: roger <>
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 7:39 AM

 

Minefields by their very nature are booby traps. Once you know its there you can avoid them or sweep them. In the 4th Imperium, the Scout Service would take a dim view of mining a planet, unless they did it themselves, say to protect a low-tech population from contamination, and would probably sweep it themselves. In the New Era if near Coalition space, the RCES would sweep the field, a good way to show the locals that the "Star Vikings" are not so bad after all.
First, sweeping the field may be a problem, low tech worlds couldn't do it, a TL-8 world could, but it wouldn't be easy, at Tl-9 advanced thrusters start appearing that would allow people better-easier access to space. Sending in a ship is self-defeating unless it has enough armor to defeat the mines laser bolts. A second way would be to shoot down the mine using a air to air like missile reconfigured for space to space use. A third way is to send someone in a EV suit to deactivate the mines. They would need space based personal transporter (rocket stake, jet pack) and a small craft to get them near the mine.
To avoid having your mine spotted easily it should have stealth or EM-Masking, a close in defence system, maybe a motion detector rigged to a laser rifle to keep anti-mine personal away.
You will also need both large and small mines. FF+S allows for interpolation and here I would use it! Nuclear Pumped X-Ray warheads range from 10 to 500 kilotons, but ordinary!!! warheads go as small as 0.1kt. These cheap mines would be sprinkled amongst the ship killers with orders to take out small craft, while the larger ship killers were ordered not to detonate against anything smaller than 100 D Tons.
How long do you plan to keep your mine field active? If you are targeting a single ship or say vampire fleet. You can skip this part. If you plan to keep the mine field up as a deterrent or road block you should leave replacement mines in the mine field. These mines would not be active, and would stay dormant until they picked up a mine detonating then after a short period, say two hours they would activate. The delay would let the ship that triggered the original mine to clear the field. This is not mercy just practical, you don't want ta 100 Ton scout triggering the whole field simply because the scout is to stupid to not blow up.
You might have to think about intelligent control for your mine field as well. Big ships are few and far between in the New Era but they do exist. A 500kt mine might not be able to penetrate the thick hide of a large ship so would be a useless to shoot at it unless you went for sensor/ antenna kills, but shooting at its support ships could make a difference. If you can't sink the aircraft carrier sink all its escorts and the carrier captain is going to feel very naked without them! Here a intelligent mine, maybe with a full sized ship's computer instead of warhead would work. A maned ground base, or defence platform (again there's one of these in BARD) could work and the defence platform could be of use in protecting the mine field. Also I agree with Tim nuclear power plants in my universe give off heat so I would also go with solar power and batteries. In case this isn't feasible there is a rule in Brilliant Lances that allows a ship to reduce its
signature by one level if it reduces its power plant output to 1% so I see no reason that mines couldn't be designed to do this.
You might also think about placing your mines in the "junk belt" the area surrounding a planet that holds all the dead and living satellites and the other space junk that accumulates from a near-space faring society.
This is a good subject, its given me two ideas for adventures. First a Lancer crew is hired by the Coalition to lay a booby-trap mine field at a gas giant known to be a vampire refueling point in an effort to whittle down a vampire fleet. Second the Lancers are hired to remove a minefield that the Solee have set up to force a planet to join them.
Let me know what you think.
Roger

To follow up on my own post here. Are there any artistic people here that would care to submit art to my article?
It should show a space mine in the foreground and maybe a exploding one in the background with laser beams. Image size should be no wider than 550 pixles due to width constraints on the site. Preferably jpg file. However, I can convert from any format.

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreeport.com

at the ***

--- On Wed, 8/4/10, Roger Malmstein <> wrote:

From: Roger Malmstein <>
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 8:42 AM

 

Thanks for the valuable input Roger. I am currently writing a document with design tips and game rules that will apear on my website this monday. Even a few sample designs will be posted. One has been posted already. An updated document on missiles. The mine is the last entry in the table.
 
I agree that some sort of control are needed or else everything will go kablooey. We can't have too many mines engaging the same target. There needs to be a way to shut down mines, even in enemy space. Some day peace will come and the former enemy won't react well with still active mines that can be dangerous to its interstellar commerce.
*** time duration is often used, then active sweeping operations, ability to receive coded commands hmmm, maybe-maybe not points would go both ways.
 
I wouldn't go for antipersonel systems on mines as when the mine is detected it has no real value. I would blow it up along with enything that is close by. To prevent a chain reaction mine must be by design placed far apart. I am thinking about a automated controller mine that flies higher than the rest with better sensor capability and logic to track, priorittize and assign targets to mines flying lower.
*** why would this be a 'mine' at all?  a dedicated control satellite with enough whatever onboard to self destruct beyond recovery of anything valuable is all that's needed (if you went nuke with the charge it wouldn't be a laser head, just an old standard nuke).
 
Mines will due to design limitations be limited to short sensor ranges. This is actually a good thing as you don't want several mines detect the same target and go off.
*** since you're using the comms from the control mine/satellite the 'short range' can be overcome by using a dispersed array similar to many different radio telescopes in use today.  Using whisker comm lasers the mine field then becomes 'very effective' to take on whatever blunders into range...including targetting by size, type and #s used for each.
 
One or two extra mines may not hurt, but a dozen? A controller will, if neccessary, assign proper number of mines to a target.
A controller will also ensure that mines doesn't attack dummies or already killed targets wasting expensive mines.
 *** maybe, maybe not in the fray of battle sensor quality will be degraded, along with the comms due to the plasma from the exploding mines on the one hand, and on the targets at the other.  Also relative velocities may mean that there isn't much time even for computerized systems to run through their logic trees ... (then again there might be, it just depends) and re: dummies, (decoys?) these if used would be designed to attract the hits and therefore would be expected to take a number of them (mines) off their intended targets.  Decoys would have a relatively short duration perhaps tens of minutes, perhaps more and would be fairly expensive so wouldn't be deployed willy-nilly, but only when the perceived need arises.
 
Currently I am running a campaign in Classic Times, but with TNE rules.
 
T 
 
--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreepo rt.com

From: roger
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 2:39 PM
To:
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields

 

Minefields by their very nature are booby traps. Once you know its there you can avoid them or sweep them. In the 4th Imperium, the Scout Service would take a dim view of mining a planet, unless they did it themselves, say to protect a low-tech population from contamination, and would probably sweep it themselves. In the New Era if near Coalition space, the RCES would sweep the field, a good way to show the locals that the "Star Vikings" are not so bad after all.
First, sweeping the field may be a problem, low tech worlds couldn't do it, a TL-8 world could, but it wouldn't be easy, at Tl-9 advanced thrusters start appearing that would allow people better-easier access to space. Sending in a ship is self-defeating unless it has enough armor to defeat the mines laser bolts. A second way would be to shoot down the mine using a air to air like missile reconfigured for space to space use. A third way is to send someone in a EV suit to deactivate the mines. They would need space based personal transporter (rocket stake, jet pack) and a small craft to get them near the mine.
To avoid having your mine spotted easily it should have stealth or EM-Masking, a close in defence system, maybe a motion detector rigged to a laser rifle to keep anti-mine personal away.
You will also need both large and small mines. FF+S allows for interpolation and here I would use it! Nuclear Pumped X-Ray warheads range from 10 to 500 kilotons, but ordinary!!! warheads go as small as 0.1kt. These cheap mines would be sprinkled amongst the ship killers with orders to take out small craft, while the larger ship killers were ordered not to detonate against anything smaller than 100 D Tons.
How long do you plan to keep your mine field active? If you are targeting a single ship or say vampire fleet. You can skip this part. If you plan to keep the mine field up as a deterrent or road block you should leave replacement mines in the mine field. These mines would not be active, and would stay dormant until they picked up a mine detonating then after a short period, say two hours they would activate. The delay would let the ship that triggered the original mine to clear the field. This is not mercy just practical, you don't want ta 100 Ton scout triggering the whole field simply because the scout is to stupid to not blow up.
You might have to think about intelligent control for your mine field as well. Big ships are few and far between in the New Era but they do exist. A 500kt mine might not be able to penetrate the thick hide of a large ship so would be a useless to shoot at it unless you went for sensor/ antenna kills, but shooting at its support ships could make a difference. If you can't sink the aircraft carrier sink all its escorts and the carrier captain is going to feel very naked without them! Here a intelligent mine, maybe with a full sized ship's computer instead of warhead would work. A maned ground base, or defence platform (again there's one of these in BARD) could work and the defence platform could be of use in protecting the mine field. Also I agree with Tim nuclear power plants in my universe give off heat so I would also go with solar power and batteries. In case this isn't feasible there is a rule in Brilliant Lances that allows a ship to reduce its
signature by one level if it reduces its power plant output to 1% so I see no reason that mines couldn't be designed to do this.
You might also think about placing your mines in the "junk belt" the area surrounding a planet that holds all the dead and living satellites and the other space junk that accumulates from a near-space faring society.
This is a good subject, its given me two ideas for adventures. First a Lancer crew is hired by the Coalition to lay a booby-trap mine field at a gas giant known to be a vampire refueling point in an effort to whittle down a vampire fleet. Second the Lancers are hired to remove a minefield that the Solee have set up to force a planet to join them.
Let me know what you think.
Roger

One small problem, if you are running TNE, then the Virus from a vampire fleet could infiltrate your mine control system (either ground based or a control mine) and then it could get interesting with the your own minefield interdicting your planet or even turning its fire on planetside facilities.

Given that most TNE worlds have low tech levels and may be up against vampire fleets equipped with higher tech relic imperial systems, I would be worried by a remote control mine system.

It might just be easier to go for a simple mine that detected and target and went boom all on its own. You could plant some decoy dummy mines as well and plot an entry passage that just passed the decoys (to allow your ships to enter and leave).

Cheers
Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim O'Reilly
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields

at the ***

--- On Wed, 8/4/10, Roger Malmstein <> wrote:

From: Roger Malmstein <>
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 8:42 AM

Thanks for the valuable input Roger. I am currently writing a document with design tips and game rules that will apear on my website this monday. Even a few sample designs will be posted. One has been posted already. An updated document on missiles. The mine is the last entry in the table.

I agree that some sort of control are needed or else everything will go kablooey. We can't have too many mines engaging the same target. There needs to be a way to shut down mines, even in enemy space. Some day peace will come and the former enemy won't react well with still active mines that can be dangerous to its interstellar commerce.
*** time duration is often used, then active sweeping operations, ability to receive coded commands hmmm, maybe-maybe not points would go both ways.

I wouldn't go for antipersonel systems on mines as when the mine is detected it has no real value. I would blow it up along with enything that is close by. To prevent a chain reaction mine must be by design placed far apart. I am thinking about a automated controller mine that flies higher than the rest with better sensor capability and logic to track, priorittize and assign targets to mines flying lower.
*** why would this be a 'mine' at all? a dedicated control satellite with enough whatever onboard to self destruct beyond recovery of anything valuable is all that's needed (if you went nuke with the charge it wouldn't be a laser head, just an old standard nuke).

Mines will due to design limitations be limited to short sensor ranges. This is actually a good thing as you don't want several mines detect the same target and go off.
*** since you're using the comms from the control mine/satellite the 'short range' can be overcome by using a dispersed array similar to many different radio telescopes in use today. Using whisker comm lasers the mine field then becomes 'very effective' to take on whatever blunders into range...including targetting by size, type and #s used for each.

One or two extra mines may not hurt, but a dozen? A controller will, if neccessary, assign proper number of mines to a target.
A controller will also ensure that mines doesn't attack dummies or already killed targets wasting expensive mines.
*** maybe, maybe not in the fray of battle sensor quality will be degraded, along with the comms due to the plasma from the exploding mines on the one hand, and on the targets at the other. Also relative velocities may mean that there isn't much time even for computerized systems to run through their logic trees ... (then again there might be, it just depends) and re: dummies, (decoys?) these if used would be designed to attract the hits and therefore would be expected to take a number of them (mines) off their intended targets. Decoys would have a relatively short duration perhaps tens of minutes, perhaps more and would be fairly expensive so wouldn't be deployed willy-nilly, but only when the perceived need arises.

Currently I am running a campaign in Classic Times, but with TNE rules.

T

--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreepo rt.com

From: roger
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 2:39 PM
To:
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields

Minefields by their very nature are booby traps. Once you know its there you can avoid them or sweep them. In the 4th Imperium, the Scout Service would take a dim view of mining a planet, unless they did it themselves, say to protect a low-tech population from contamination, and would probably sweep it themselves. In the New Era if near Coalition space, the RCES would sweep the field, a good way to show the locals that the "Star Vikings" are not so bad after all.
First, sweeping the field may be a problem, low tech worlds couldn't do it, a TL-8 world could, but it wouldn't be easy, at Tl-9 advanced thrusters start appearing that would allow people better-easier access to space. Sending in a ship is self-defeating unless it has enough armor to defeat the mines laser bolts. A second way would be to shoot down the mine using a air to air like missile reconfigured for space to space use. A third way is to send someone in a EV suit to deactivate the mines. They would need space based personal transporter (rocket stake, jet pack) and a small craft to get them near the mine.
To avoid having your mine spotted easily it should have stealth or EM-Masking, a close in defence system, maybe a motion detector rigged to a laser rifle to keep anti-mine personal away.
You will also need both large and small mines. FF+S allows for interpolation and here I would use it! Nuclear Pumped X-Ray warheads range from 10 to 500 kilotons, but ordinary!!! warheads go as small as 0.1kt. These cheap mines would be sprinkled amongst the ship killers with orders to take out small craft, while the larger ship killers were ordered not to detonate against anything smaller than 100 D Tons.
How long do you plan to keep your mine field active? If you are targeting a single ship or say vampire fleet. You can skip this part. If you plan to keep the mine field up as a deterrent or road block you should leave replacement mines in the mine field. These mines would not be active, and would stay dormant until they picked up a mine detonating then after a short period, say two hours they would activate. The delay would let the ship that triggered the original mine to clear the field. This is not mercy just practical, you don't want ta 100 Ton scout triggering the whole field simply because the scout is to stupid to not blow up.
You might have to think about intelligent control for your mine field as well. Big ships are few and far between in the New Era but they do exist. A 500kt mine might not be able to penetrate the thick hide of a large ship so would be a useless to shoot at it unless you went for sensor/ antenna kills, but shooting at its support ships could make a difference. If you can't sink the aircraft carrier sink all its escorts and the carrier captain is going to feel very naked without them! Here a intelligent mine, maybe with a full sized ship's computer instead of warhead would work. A maned ground base, or defence platform (again there's one of these in BARD) could work and the defence platform could be of use in protecting the mine field. Also I agree with Tim nuclear power plants in my universe give off heat so I would also go with solar power and batteries. In case this isn't feasible there is a rule in Brilliant Lances that allows a ship to reduce its signature by one level if it reduces its power plant output to 1% so I see no reason that mines couldn't be designed to do this.
You might also think about placing your mines in the "junk belt" the area surrounding a planet that holds all the dead and living satellites and the other space junk that accumulates from a near-space faring society.
This is a good subject, its given me two ideas for adventures. First a Lancer crew is hired by the Coalition to lay a booby-trap mine field at a gas giant known to be a vampire refueling point in an effort to whittle down a vampire fleet. Second the Lancers are hired to remove a minefield that the Solee have set up to force a planet to join them.
Let me know what you think.
Roger

While you have a point, the threat is to higher computer functions, many seemingly complex systems do not require computing power greater than an old 8086 processor the PLC's do not have to be made with flash writing capability, etc etc.  Even for the control satellite &/or ground station.  Frankly puting a high end computer into a mine is a waste of time, effort, and money ... the vampire fleet could possibly gain control of a minefield but would run into the same hassles that a human ship or fleet would have which lies in the fact that they can be (emphasis on can be) just too darned dumb to be turned around effectively.
More likely would be that after conducting extensive EW, the opposing force becomes able to gain access to the mines and is able to shut them down.  Then after considerably more work they are able to redeploy them with new hard/firm coded parameters.
T

--- On Wed, 8/4/10, Richard Perks <> wrote:

From: Richard Perks <>
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 11:17 AM

 


One small problem, if you are running TNE, then the Virus from a vampire fleet could infiltrate your mine control system (either ground based or a control mine) and then it could get interesting with the your own minefield interdicting your planet or even turning its fire on planetside facilities.
 
Given that most TNE worlds have low tech levels and may be up against vampire fleets equipped with higher tech relic imperial systems, I would be worried by a remote control mine system.
 
It might just be easier to go for a simple mine that detected and target and went boom all on its own. You could plant some decoy dummy mines as well and plot an entry passage that just passed the decoys (to allow your ships to enter and leave).
 
Cheers
Richard

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim O'Reilly
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields

 

at the ***

--- On Wed, 8/4/10, Roger Malmstein <starwolf@travellerf reeport.com> wrote:

From: Roger Malmstein <starwolf@travellerf reeport.com>
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields
To:
Date: Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 8:42 AM

 

Thanks for the valuable input Roger. I am currently writing a document with design tips and game rules that will apear on my website this monday. Even a few sample designs will be posted. One has been posted already. An updated document on missiles. The mine is the last entry in the table.
 
I agree that some sort of control are needed or else everything will go kablooey. We can't have too many mines engaging the same target. There needs to be a way to shut down mines, even in enemy space. Some day peace will come and the former enemy won't react well with still active mines that can be dangerous to its interstellar commerce.
*** time duration is often used, then active sweeping operations, ability to receive coded commands hmmm, maybe-maybe not points would go both ways.
 
I wouldn't go for antipersonel systems on mines as when the mine is detected it has no real value. I would blow it up along with enything that is close by. To prevent a chain reaction mine must be by design placed far apart. I am thinking about a automated controller mine that flies higher than the rest with better sensor capability and logic to track, priorittize and assign targets to mines flying lower.
*** why would this be a 'mine' at all?  a dedicated control satellite with enough whatever onboard to self destruct beyond recovery of anything valuable is all that's needed (if you went nuke with the charge it wouldn't be a laser head, just an old standard nuke).
 
Mines will due to design limitations be limited to short sensor ranges. This is actually a good thing as you don't want several mines detect the same target and go off.
*** since you're using the comms from the control mine/satellite the 'short range' can be overcome by using a dispersed array similar to many different radio telescopes in use today.  Using whisker comm lasers the mine field then becomes 'very effective' to take on whatever blunders into range...including targetting by size, type and #s used for each.
 
One or two extra mines may not hurt, but a dozen? A controller will, if neccessary, assign proper number of mines to a target.
A controller will also ensure that mines doesn't attack dummies or already killed targets wasting expensive mines.
 *** maybe, maybe not in the fray of battle sensor quality will be degraded, along with the comms due to the plasma from the exploding mines on the one hand, and on the targets at the other.  Also relative velocities may mean that there isn't much time even for computerized systems to run through their logic trees ... (then again there might be, it just depends) and re: dummies, (decoys?) these if used would be designed to attract the hits and therefore would be expected to take a number of them (mines) off their intended targets.  Decoys would have a relatively short duration perhaps tens of minutes, perhaps more and would be fairly expensive so wouldn't be deployed willy-nilly, but only when the perceived need arises.
 
Currently I am running a campaign in Classic Times, but with TNE rules.
 
T 
 
--
Roger Malmstein
www.travellerfreepo rt.com

From: roger
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2010 2:39 PM
To:
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Minefields

 

Minefields by their very nature are booby traps. Once you know its there you can avoid them or sweep them. In the 4th Imperium, the Scout Service would take a dim view of mining a planet, unless they did it themselves, say to protect a low-tech population from contamination, and would probably sweep it themselves. In the New Era if near Coalition space, the RCES would sweep the field, a good way to show the locals that the "Star Vikings" are not so bad after all.
First, sweeping the field may be a problem, low tech worlds couldn't do it, a TL-8 world could, but it wouldn't be easy, at Tl-9 advanced thrusters start appearing that would allow people better-easier access to space. Sending in a ship is self-defeating unless it has enough armor to defeat the mines laser bolts. A second way would be to shoot down the mine using a air to air like missile reconfigured for space to space use. A third way is to send someone in a EV suit to deactivate the mines. They would need space based personal transporter (rocket stake, jet pack) and a small craft to get them near the mine.
To avoid having your mine spotted easily it should have stealth or EM-Masking, a close in defence system, maybe a motion detector rigged to a laser rifle to keep anti-mine personal away.
You will also need both large and small mines. FF+S allows for interpolation and here I would use it! Nuclear Pumped X-Ray warheads range from 10 to 500 kilotons, but ordinary!!! warheads go as small as 0.1kt. These cheap mines would be sprinkled amongst the ship killers with orders to take out small craft, while the larger ship killers were ordered not to detonate against anything smaller than 100 D Tons.
How long do you plan to keep your mine field active? If you are targeting a single ship or say vampire fleet. You can skip this part. If you plan to keep the mine field up as a deterrent or road block you should leave replacement mines in the mine field. These mines would not be active, and would stay dormant until they picked up a mine detonating then after a short period, say two hours they would activate. The delay would let the ship that triggered the original mine to clear the field. This is not mercy just practical, you don't want ta 100 Ton scout triggering the whole field simply because the scout is to stupid to not blow up.
You might have to think about intelligent control for your mine field as well. Big ships are few and far between in the New Era but they do exist. A 500kt mine might not be able to penetrate the thick hide of a large ship so would be a useless to shoot at it unless you went for sensor/ antenna kills, but shooting at its support ships could make a difference. If you can't sink the aircraft carrier sink all its escorts and the carrier captain is going to feel very naked without them! Here a intelligent mine, maybe with a full sized ship's computer instead of warhead would work. A maned ground base, or defence platform (again there's one of these in BARD) could work and the defence platform could be of use in protecting the mine field. Also I agree with Tim nuclear power plants in my universe give off heat so I would also go with solar power and batteries. In case this isn't feasible there is a rule in Brilliant Lances that allows a ship to reduce its
signature by one level if it reduces its power plant output to 1% so I see no reason that mines couldn't be designed to do this.
You might also think about placing your mines in the "junk belt" the area surrounding a planet that holds all the dead and living satellites and the other space junk that accumulates from a near-space faring society.
This is a good subject, its given me two ideas for adventures. First a Lancer crew is hired by the Coalition to lay a booby-trap mine field at a gas giant known to be a vampire refueling point in an effort to whittle down a vampire fleet. Second the Lancers are hired to remove a minefield that the Solee have set up to force a planet to join them.
Let me know what you think.
Roger