[Suggestion] Time to fix Tank Mines

With the release of Hossin, the current implementation of tank mines are becoming more and more of a problem. There's a lot of foliage and water on Hossin that can completely hide them. There's also tons of random little bottlenecks between trees that are way too effective with the current tank mine implementation.

Mechanics that randomly one shot your expensive and cooldown intensive vehicle, that take little skill to use, are just bad for the game. Proponents of the current tank mine implementation are going to argue that it's balanced and it just comes down to L2P issues of drivers.

Sure, Tank Mines can sometimes be anticipated in obvious bottlenecks and in certain situations. However, tank mines aren't only being used in these situations. They can be scattered around in the most random and unpredictable of locations.

I will admit that previous incarnations of tank mines made the explosives completely useless because they were just too easy to see. The current method of balancing damage versus ease of spotting is just fundamentally impossible to balance; so why not shift the focus of the mines?

Why not give us the Planetside 1 tank mine implementation back? It's all around a lot fairer.

Rather than two mines, give us access to lots of mines that have to be a little spread out. Rather than doing huge damage they just do a little damage. They reward someone with say one kills worth of experience for reach successful detonate or when they are disarmed. What I am is saying make them an area denial mechanic that slows people down rather than outright killing them.

The EOD implant has rendered AT mines useless in most situations.

Or you could equip mine guard and sing a merry song as you waste an engineers resources. As much as I would like the PS1 deployables back I doubt it will happen

EOD HUD doesn't work properly. If you're going top speed in a Magrider, the slowest ground vehicle, you won't be able to stop in time because the mines don't render until the last second.

I love how in the same day you can have one guy demanding a cert refund for his tank mines because they suck so bad and a guy insisting they need to be nerfed since they're OP.

I'll avoid the issue of whether tank mines are balanced and just point out that if you got blown up in a "random and unpredictable" location, that's most likely very skillful mine placement. Tank mines cost too much to throw them around at random, so an engineer must have guessed a vehicle would take the path you took.

Also, have you tried running EOD HUD? It's the obvious counter to mines and it's the reason that other guy thinks tank mines suck now.

Tank mines work well on hossin...AND NO WHERE ELSE. Don't take this from me.

In all honesty tank mines are in a good place right now. I mean it's a damn mine...they're not supposed to be visible (god damnit people, where on earth do you live). Placing tank mines is a sneaky tactic used by the people on the defensive. If you're driving a tank you better be prepared to lose it. Hell, most people place mines on the road anyway, just drive off-road, you're in a Higby tank.

Bottom line, tank mines are meant to kill tanks.If we had a lot of mines with low damage, we would barely get any kills with tank mines, since after the first mine, the guy would obviously drive more carefully or have the gunner jump out and run infront of the tank...

Disclaimer: I use a lot of tank mines so my opinion may be a bit biased

The only problem with tank mines is that they're invisible and invincible while underwater. That is it.

Outside of that, tank mines are fine.

If you're going to complain about a very specific problem that any reasonable person will agree upon, then don't dirty the water by saying tank mines are overpowered in general. It just detracts from what is important...

If you want it to take more than 2 tank mines to kill a non-mine guard vehicle, the mines better be extremely cheap and extremely hard to see or notice. Also, EOD HUD needs to not exist whatsoever.

If you agree to these terms, I'd probably still be against it. Personally I like them the way they are. As much fun as it is to tank mine the swamps currently, the mines there shouldn't be invincible / 100% invisible, for balance reasons I guess. It makes perfect sense why they'd be so hard to see and it's silly when you think about it, driving a TANK in marshy terrain.

bog
bäg,bôg/
noun

1.

wet muddy ground too soft to support a heavy body.


But yes, as Alarox said, only the underwater stuff needs adjusting.

Not exactly overpowered, but flawed.

there's a def mod called mineguard and no one uses it because mines are less of a threat than everything else.

I never once used to word overpowered. I would actually use the word frustrating. They aren't a compelling mechanic for either the person they are being used on (which is argument enough) or the person that is using them.

Random OHK mechanics on costly high cooldown vehicles are just a bad idea in general. That had nothing to do with balance. If you are playing carefully, sure you can mitigate SOME of the negatives. However, the fact is random mine deaths that are completely unpreventable still happen. The shrubbery and water on Hossin are just the worst offenders.

First C4, now Tankmines..
Just use EOD Hud III
or Mineguard.

Indeed, Time to fix Tankmines, they can simply be negated as a counter by a simple noskill defense slot

I use Mineguard on Hossin myself because that continent can be deadly if it comes to things like tankmines, but you can defend yourself against that if you really want - And I laugh at the failing tankmines that just tickle my tank and if they really put around 5 tankmines down at the same spot the Engi just made enough effort with enough cert costs to counter me.

To be honest, tankmines should function like this on every other continent -> They are way more efficient because of the small roads.
You can stop an incoming tankzerg with them (if it is a stupid "zerg"). I can place with a friend with both utility pouch 10 tankmines to defend a base. And that is where they shine.

The (I think thats how its called) Hurakan Secure Storage being attacked by the east side is the BEST example where they shine.. A simple road, tanks that have no mineguard or EOD Hud or don't spot the mines and the tankmines themselves doing their job.

My issue is that someone can drop a tank mine and bugger off somewhere on the opposite end of the continent and still have the mine active and lethal.

I don't think a duration (Say...10 minutes?) would be a bad idea (After 10 minutes you've run through a pair of Resource refills, thus making back what you'd lost, usually). Keep the mines as a tactical option instead of "I'll just leave this here 'cause I know eventually someone is going to run over it" and more "The enemy is pushing armor towards this base and will be here soon, mine up the choke points ASAP".

At the risk of pulling real world examples into the game, mines can last for decades, there are still active munitions from WWII in some regions. Reducing mine duration is, in my opinion, not the solution here. Mineguard is a viable alternative, although it is somewhat cert intensive for the gain. In my opinion, there are enough good options on tanks to add in a second slot for such things - NAR is still the obvious choice, but a second slot would allow for proxy / mineguard / etc.

On the other hand, 2 tank mines require enough resources to justify for the occasional insta kill. The main issue with this, is that Engies can store up to 40 mines, and tankers... well, my spandex isn't quite roomy enough for that many magriders, even VS pocket tech only carries us so far. I'm hoping that the resource revamp will help to correct the disparity, but we can only wait and see - last I heard, all deployables / droppables / vehicleables are going to require resources when you use them, rather then being able to build a massive stock, making them much more finite then they currently are.

Personally, I want another Sundy option to help armor columns deal with mines. Allowing a sundy to cert into explosives detection would be quite nice - especially if it functioned in a similar manner to scout radar, allowing the sundy to broadcast the location of all stationary explosives (and perhaps carried explosives as well, providing an early warning system against approaching C4 faries, etc)

I get blown up by well placed tank mines ALL the time. It's difficult to get mad because it requires forward thinking, they are relatively expensive & there are (2) specific counters for them:

Mine Guard- Checks & balances, you cant have it all. Sacrifice your side armor or regen.

EOD Hud & drive cautiously- As an added bonus, It's amazing how many fewer TKs you get when you aren't driving like an *****.

I do agree that underwater mines are some BS though. Easy fix, mines aren't water proof. Boom! Just like C4 or Proxies/Betties near spawn rooms or jump pads.

1) spot where you drive (free)
2) use EOD hud and drive carefully (cost implants engergy)
3)certs mineguard (is cheap)
4) ask to a friendly mineguard sunderer to go first. It requires 6 mines to be set on fires and 7 mines for instant blow up.

Forcing a proximity on mines would help ease lots of the issues with them. Dropping like 2-3 on top of each other means instagib. When the mines are more spread (say, 5m from each other), it helps the driver (and still gives the mines a role as a fear/deterrent weapon).

Simple fix: make mineguard protect against C4 the same percent as mines. Do this on sunderer as well, composite is still plenty good for battle bus, but mineguard would be an all-in-one explosives protection pack.

C4 and mine protection would make mineguard an attractive defensive option for many players.