In the interest of all the mine discussion, it seems appropriate for me to bring something up I've thought of for awhile now.

Incarnate has clearly stated he feels mines should be more difficult to detect. I concur. However, some in the player base feel mines are being abused and want an easier way to destroy them, thus making them able to be targeted.

I propose a compromise.

Mine Detector:
Small Port
8 Grid
15,000kg
Makes mines visible to targeting computer.
Manufacturable.

An add on much like the mineral scanner or storm radar extender, that enables mines within 2000m to become targets. High grid and weight use prevents every fighter from throwing one on. However, if someone is feeling up to it, they could set up a mine sweeping ship to go remove them.

To help counter this and bring a bit of balance, I also propose a +2 mine increase across the board. (4 TU, 6 LM, 12 Proximity, etc). Since they can now be cleared with relatively little danger, make it more work to clear them.

15,000kg is way too heavy. Putting one of these on a fighter is already giving up a small port, which is penalty enough. A more reasonable mass is 1,000kg, which still hampers fighters by taking up a slot and being heavy enough to slow down any quick turning ship.

I'd say cut down the mass to 100kg. We have particle accelerators powereful enough to blow holes in other spaceships that only weigh 400kg, a little radar scanner shouldn't be made out of neutron stars. Lower the grid to 1, maybe 2 - max.

If every fighter equips one that means every fighter is doing without a weapon to do so, which for most ships is a pretty big deal.

This is a good thing. We have a lot of addons that nobody uses at all because they're nerfed out the door (storm radars, group extenders) or are so ineffective that they don't make any sense to lose a weapon for (cargo scanners, scanner blockers, cargo spoofers)

Perhaps out of the current ships available to us certain models should have this scanner by default preinstalled. Such as the X-1, UDV, SCP, SVG, IBG, Corvult, etc

Adding it to all those ships defeats the purpose of the add on.

UDV - it already has built in sensors

Orion Convoy Guardian - this would be appropriate for its job description

I agree with Wash.

+1 to op

-1 to dumping it on a bunch of ships. If a dedicated sweeper ship was created then perhaps a built in scanner would be appropriate.

I think it would be fun to limit the visibility of mines on the radar to 500m or so without this scanner, and maybe 5000m with the scanner. Make the minefields a stealth problem. Also, the usage of mines in general gameplay would increase much then. All ships could see mines within 500m, then decide to go get a mine scanner, and return to target and destroy the mines. Maybe could be worth giving the heavier mines like tu a really high health, and the tendency to detonate on destruction. As much as a strategic improvement to gameplay, how much fun would it be to clear a minefield watching them tu booms hehehehe... but would also make the job dangerous.

I'd say 5000m is too much. I'd start scanner visibility at around 1500m and adjust based once there is some actual feedback to go on. If we are going to allow ships to see mines at all on regular radar, I say make it no more than 100 m so that if you are turboing you have minimal chance of adjusting to avoid them. Would make for a nice Oh drat moment right before the Oh darn.

We do need an expensive tool to use to remove mine fields also.

Edited for joyelessjoker.

Would make for a nice Oh !@#$ moment right before the Oh @#$@

We all know EXACTLY what words you're thinking of, so what's the point in obsfucating? It's like... "I want to plant a few words into your heads without actually saying them." Nope, it doesn't make you any more classy or respectful, because the end result is exactly the same - we end up thinking of those words anyway.

EDIT: Thank you, Fluffy.

Mine Seekers