Make IFF of mines group-sensitive, so that if someone who is in a group or guild lays mines, those mine's proximity fuse will not be triggered by members of the same group/guild. This makes use of mines practical for group or guild activities such as blockades, station defense, etc.

Mines should also not despawn if a player with linked IFF remains in the sector.

For conquerable station sectors, mines dropped be a defending keyholder should use the station key IFF, only detonating on players without station access.

No.

+1 to no time out while in same sector

+1 to including the group in player immunity to detonation.

Id have to say no to making mines group and station friendly. To put my objection in the simplest terms: Friendly mines would require little to no tactical awareness when deploying, groups or station defenders would be able to lay massive, impassible minefields with exactly zero strategic cost.

The strategic cost is the fact that they're laying mines instead of doing something else. It used to be that way (no FF), and it was fine.

So, the strategic cost of setting up a potentially massive defensive measure that you put in place and forget and poses no threat to you or yours... is that you have to do it instead of doing something else?

Just wanted to make sure I understood this.

Mines time out if you leave the sector (or you die and aren't homed in that sector) or after 15 minutes, and can be destroyed very easily, and sometimes chain-rections can be caused when you kill one mine. If, for example, you are laying mines at a conquerable station you own, you are sacrificing your ability to repair turrets.

Friendly fire is a relatively recent addition to VO. In the entire time since mines were introduced until FF was enabled, I don't know of a single major complaint about mass mine-laying.

Slime... part of the OP is that mines would NOT time out.

"Mines should also not despawn if a player with linked IFF remains in the sector."

And actually... I have no issue with this. The part I do have issue with is this... "Make IFF of mines group-sensitive, so that if someone who is in a group or guild lays mines, those mine's proximity fuse will not be triggered by members of the same group/guild."

And...

"For conquerable station sectors, mines dropped be a defending keyholder should use the station key IFF, only detonating on players without station access."

I know a few guys that wish mines did in fact work like this but, at the end of the day... mines cannot distinguish between friends and enemies and they are still missing various limbs.

Ah, it should be either-or.

You're telling me that mines that are capable of knowing when a ship comes within 100m of them (specifically, ships that did NOT lay the mines), and in the case of lmines shooting a beam of energy directly at said ship aren't advanced enough to tell friend from foe? They can already do that, it's not a big step at all to extend the list of friends from 1 to an arbitrary amount.
RP-wise, of course.

+1 to much longer time-out while in sector - say 4x as long.
+1 to Lmines having group IFF - everything else is dumb-fire.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I will say that this would give a huge advantage to defenders in conquerable station battles, especially after the turrets are down (if the defenders are in a group together). It could drastically alter the conquerable station gameplay balance.

Yeah, it will make group defending the dock pretty difficult to dislodge . . . if you don't address their concentration of bodies and mines intelligently.

Mines can be targeted. I fail to see the problem. Staged in close proximity to the dock will likely take out all or most if one is destroyed.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Welcome. It seemed somewhat needed since there was actually discussion happening about it.

I'll try to bring the sarcasm down to your level next time.

And I'll try to be less subtle with mine. I'll tell you what, we keep missing each other now, but when we finally connect, its going to be... I'm not really sure but WOW! comes to mind.

...back to discussion. I agree with Lecter's conclusion that only L-mines should be group-safe. I think conc-mines and prox-mines should 1: have longer timers when in-sector and 2: not disappear after the player that dropped them leaves the sector.

+1 to a new, evolved Lmines mk2 with IFF for Nation+Group. Maybe manufacturable at a smaller faction.

Remaining mine types should remain as is, dumb fire.

+1 to a new, evolved Alloh mk2 with an above-room-temperature IQ. Maybe manufacturable at a low class Brazilian whorehouse, just like Alloh mk1.

Remaining Alloh types should be terminated for everyone else's enhanced sanity.