The power of Anti Tank Mines, and a video why YOU should cert into them and forget everything else!

Seems like they turn you into a suicide bomber!

Nah, you can bomb and get out.

They are very useful... both in mining commonly traveled road.. though that 150 inf resources to blow up a flash can get annoying...

They seem quite useful for removing deployed sunderers, assuming you can get close enough.

Cool guys don't look at explosions. Generally the engineer is walking away from that sunderer/tank he just dropped mines on. Therefore, Engineers with anti-tank mines = cool guys.

Person in the video glanced back at a lot of the explosions, though. Needs more training.

Yeah, I use these things *all the time* as engy. I mostly play support - MOSTLY as medic - so I've pretty much just cert'd the AT mines as engy.

But...yeah, man, you gotta admit. These are WAYYYYYY OP. No question. I love 'em to death, I've killed so many Sundies with them, but...c'mon. One engy? The *level 1* version of the mines (just 2)? And you can casually blow away any vehicle in the game - most with rather crazy resource draw and timers on them??

I mean, I like them, but...compared to the C-4 cert, that takes nearl nearly four times as many cert points to get the same number of deployments and does, what, 75% of the damage?

These aren't anything like balanced - they are CRAZILY overpowered compared to C-4. Cheaper, far more powerful, far easier to deploy....just no comparison.

Well, C4 is basically for use by the other classes, we just get to have better anti-tank tools because we're Engineers. Giving it to us is just a formality. C4 could also possibly use a buff, too, or a price reduction, but I don't really know. Also, if you kill a deployed Sundy, it's basically the defenders' fault for not seeing you. You had to spend resources and certs on the mines, and they only had to spend resources on a vehicle (that they can get a lot more use out of if they're good).

In regards to the OP, I wouldn't say you should ignore everything else. Proximity mines are just as good at suicide bombing large groups of infantry, especially the huge medic circlejerks that form around the back doors of tech plants. I have gotten ridiculous group kills just charging into those and throwing down a mine into the surprised TR (it's always TR).

I love the trend where people make a couple nice plays in a game, and they think that by somehow calling OP puts them in the category of, "liking it before it was cool". It's precious. There needs to be a way to dispatch vehicles quickly without the air option(otherwise engis in/with vehicles would be completely unstoppable), and tank mines fill this gap. If someone is dumb enough to allow your tank mines near them, they've lost that fight. Also c4 has more utility and damage than tank mines, no idea where you're coming up with these figures.

"More utility" is arguable. "More...damage", though, is just wrong. Two AT mines will kill anything in the game, period (and easily - both deployed in a single second), for 200 cert points. Two C-4 packs cost 700 cert points, and even when properly deployed on a Sundy will only take it down to 10-20% health...which the enemy will pretty much instantly repair if they are paying attention.

More utility isn't arguable, C4 can be used against infantry(including MAXes which die in one hit unless they have flak armor certs) and since it's sticky it doesn't matter if the tank is driving around as long as you time it correctly you can get bricks of C4 on a drive by tank and still blow it up(granted it's not easy with how completely terrible the delay is on placing C4).

It is however apparently less dmg as you pointed out, that only matters for sunderers but that's still a big difference. Now you say Sunderers get repaired instantly but to be honest it's very likely that every engineer around a sunderer when you detonate 2 C4s are going to be dead. Then people who rez need to have the presence of mind of changing to engineer and repairing it asap, as it only takes about 15secs for the sunderer to blow up after the C4. Not an issue is people are smart but a lot of people are completely dumb and will run away from a burning sunderer as an infiltrator so they can go camp/snipe more. Also depending on your approach and wether or not there were people defending, you might still be alive and it's very easy to shoot people respawning out of a sunderer to delay the repairs.

Regardless though I think Tank mines are a lot better because of the cost difference. If C4 was universal it'd be another story but since it's currently 700 certs per class to get 2 while AT mines are 100(200? forgot) certs for 2mines, it's a no brainer for an engineer just starting out.

They need to fix that. Its a bug in my opinion and is rather annoying that one engi can instanta kill a sundy regardless of how well its defended. The mines should go off unless the Vehicle is moving over them.

It's not well defended if there's 20-30 troops there sitting on their hands ignoring the sole engineer running directly at them with no cover People need to wake up and guard their spawns better

regardless of how well it is defended? They weren't defended. Not one of them was.

Not talking about the Video, I'm talking about personal experience of this tactic.

Not going to take the morale high ground or anything since I have blown a few sundies myself doing it but really I think its a bug that needs fixing because I myself have and have seen some well defend sundies die to this trick, and I think its wrong that one Engi can kill a sundy in a second flat.

I had to peek so you guys can see the BOOM, normally I dont look back and try to pick off people nearby.

So it cool

Mines are very powerful, however, the video does not show all the times that people who are actually paying attention kill you as you make the mad rush from cover to make this happen. You can kill people easily with a knife too, but no one is here crying that they got knifed while not paying attention.

I have killed many vehicles this way, but I have died just as often with my mine still in my hands. Tank operators that are on the ball are never sitting still, so I have to run up to the front or back of a moving tank hoping he doesn't drive away from the mines instead of back over them. It's best to shoot the tank after and jump up and down so he runs you over

There is also the cost of the mines. They are 75 infantry points each. It takes 2, so those 2 mines cost more than a max suit. They cost nearly as much as a lightning tank or fighter jet. They are 3 times the cost of all of those one hit kill grenades.

Look at the engineer class. We get a manna turret that turns on a big light bulb saying kill me. We can't heal ourselves. We have no force field. Can't turn invisible. Can't kill anything from long range.

If we didn't have tank mines and drop ammo for the real warriors, people wouldn't even bother to kill us.

Happy jihading

It obviously isn't well defended if a lone engineer can waltz up to it and plant mines. People simply don't pay attention. I can't tell you how often Ive waltzed through a crowd of enemies up to a sunderer before the first person decides that it might possibly be a good idea to shoot a the guy with the big yellow backpack.


Also, mines are the only such weapon that has a direct counter available for all of its intended targets(including the flash). Also, it isn't like these things are cheap.

Pay no attention to this. Having the big green bullet icon on top is WAY cooler. Never use mine armor. It sucks.

AT mines are negated by Mineguard.

Can't you succeed in protecting your sundy? Get mineguard level 1 or 2. And it won't be a instant kill. Once engineer has layed 2 mines. Its defenseless against vehicles.
Rarely engineer have more than 2 mines. Since it costs 200 to get another 1. And 400 if you want a total of 4 in the utility pouch.

Seems rather fair to me.

Dirty secret - AT mines can also be used against infantry. Because ANYTHING sets them off. Sure, the infantry stepping on it won't set it off, but with C-4, you have to manually detonate it, anyway. So, same thing here - just shoot the thing. Throw a grenade. Anything!

I've certainly "walked up to" Sundys and insta-killed them, sure. But, by and large, the best use of mines is that you can deploy them at a distance. I can't tell you how many Sundys I've killed parked under a watch tower, or under a bridge at an AMP station, well defended by engies standing around it with turrets and nearby lightnings and all...but I'm a few floors above it and just 'drop' the two AT mines on the roof of the Sundy.

**BOOM**

Pile of XP. The better defended, the more XP!

Well, I'm not saying the engy shouldn't have AT mines, just that the AT mines should not be better than C-4 for blowing up vehicles. At least, not as implemented.

Some ideas?
- Halve the damage of the AT mines individually, but give twice as many of them for each cert level (so level 1 cert gives you 4 AT mines instead of 2...but each does half as much damage.)
- Make 'setting a mine' take an ACE deploy animation, like the deployment of ammo packs and turrets.

With those two changes, the AT mines would stop being the best choice, bar none, for 'suicide insta-kills of a Sundy'. Instead of 2 mines you can drop almost simultaneously that insta-kill a Sunderer, to get the same damage, you'd need to deploy four of them...each one taking a couple seconds to deploy. The mines would - instead - be something you'd need to deploy intelligently in prep for a battle and not toss around in the heat of combat. Which is definitely more appropriate to the idea of 'mine deployment'!

If that was changed, C-4 could be left as-is, and C-4 would end up becoming the correct choice for when you wanted to go all sneaky-sneak on the enemy Sunderer or tanks to get close and blow them up. Which is what the C-4 packs were intended for.