Minefields

Minefield Overview
Minefields in RogueTech are created by mine-laying ammunition when it hits the ground. Mechs walking through the minefield then have a chance to trigger it, dealing damage to their legs, stability damage, and any other effects determined by the ammunition that created the Minefield.

Key Concepts:


 * There is a crucial distinction between Mines and Minefields. See below.
 * A single hex can hold any number of Mines and Minefields, of one or many different types.
 * Only Minefields with built-in IFF are always marked on the terrain. Most Minefields must be within range of an Active Probe to be visible.
 * Most "friendly" Minefields will still hurt you. Only IFF Minefields are not triggered by friendly units.
 * Taking structure damage from Minefields can interrupt movement, including melee attacks.
 * Mine-Laying projectiles that hit a mech do not place any Minefields. A projectile must hit the ground to create a Minefield.

Minefields
To understand how mines are triggered, we need to understand the concept of Minefields as used by the game engine.

Each time a mine-laying projectile hits the ground, that projectile creates a Minefield that contains some number of mines. In most respects, it is the Minefield itself that is the thing we want to pay attention to. Each Minefield can only detonate once per trigger event. When a Minefield explodes, it expends exactly one of its mines. It may be helpful to think of it this way: The Minefield is the "weapon" that "fires" at a mech or vehicle. The Mines are "ammo" for the Minefield.

Understanding the difference between Minefields and Mines is essential to using them effectively.

For example: One projectile that places 100 mines in a hex creates a single minefield with 100 "ammo". Ten projectiles, which each place two mines all in the same hex, create 10 minefields with 2 "ammo" each. Which one deals more damage when a mech walks into it? Ten Minefields with 2 mines each deal more "pinpoint" damage than one Minefield of 100 mines, even though the 100-mine projectile creates a minefield that will last longer and potentially do more total damage.

Trigger Mechanics
When a unit moves through, or jumps into, a hex that contains a Minefield, it incurs some chance of detonating it. The exact detonation chances and effects are based on the ammunition that laid the minefield.

Before you move a unit into a Minefield that you can detect, information about the Minefield will be shown on the left side of the screen, estimating how many minefields, and of what types, you can expect to trigger by moving in the indicated path.

You may notice that walking and jumping display their estimates in slightly different ways. This is because the effects are different, as explained below.

Triggering Minefields by Jumping
When jumping, every Minefield in the destination Hex gets a chance to trigger.

Consider a hex with 100 active minefields of the same type. If you can detect the minefield, in the side panel you will see something like Minefield (3 45%) x100 to indicate this chance, along with indicating that 3 damage (for example) will be dealt by each Minefield that does explode.

If you then jump into that spot, each Minefield will roll to see if it explodes. Any that explode will expend one mine and deal damage to the mech accordingly. Therefore, the more individual Minefields are active in a given Hex, the more damage a mech will take by jumping into it.

Triggering Minefields by Walking/Running
For purposes of pathfinding, the terrain hex grid is further subdivided into Cells. When walking or running, a mech passes through many of these Cells. This is how mechs can follow paths that do not have to pass directly through the center of each hex they touch, as in the example below.



Each Cell belongs to a Hex. When a mech passes through a Cell, one (and only one) Minefield in the parent hex has a chance to explode.

If the Minefield explodes, it expends one mine and deals damage as normal. Otherwise, if there are more active Minefields in the parent Hex, each of them gets a chance to explode (in the order they were placed). This continues until either one Minefield explodes, or until all Minefields in the hex have not rolled an explosion. Exactly 0 or 1 Minefields will explode when passing through a single Cell.

If you can detect the mines, the side panel will show an estimate of the number of Minefields you can expect to detonate by walking through all the Cells along the indicated route. If your path crosses through twenty Cells belonging to Hexes with mines in them, the game calculates `20 x 0.45 = 9`, and the side panel will show Minefield (3) x9, to indicate that you should expect to detonate about 9 Minefields on this path, for 3 damage each.

Notice that this is quite different than how Minefields behave when a mech Jumps into them. When jumping, every single Minefield in the Hex had an individual chance to explode. When walking or running, the absolute most Minefields you can detonate equals the number of Cells you move through. Therefore, laying more Minefields per hex doesn't increase the maximum damage output of that Hex—instead, it increases the likelihood of a Minefield detonating in that Hex at all.

Using Minefields
Okay, so how to actually use minefields effectively?

To maximize minefield damage, you want to create as many overlapping minefields as possible. This means using the Attack Ground command (to avoid hitting mechs, as projectiles that hit a mech do not place their minefield) to throw many individual projectiles in a tight area. The more mine-laying projectiles you can drop on a location, the more Minefields are created, and the more damage enemies will take on average when passing through the area.

Clearing Minefields
Perhaps you placed some Minefields between yourself and the evac point, or your enemies have surrounded you with mines, or you're just wondering why your minefields keep disappearing after your allied PPC Carrier's turn. Certain weapons are able to clear Minefields. This functions in more or less the reverse of how Minefields a placed—if a weapon that can clear Minefields, such as a PPC, hits the ground, any Minefields within the clearing radius will be removed. If the weapon hits a unit or structure, it does not apply the mine-clearing effect.