Mining
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[edit] Mining
It can be seen as the easiest thing to do in Renegade, but still some players do it wrong. This tutorial will cover ways to mine the right way and ways that aren't advised to do the mining job. The mine also known as proximity C4 is the Hotwire/Technician's strongest weapon.
[edit] Setting up
Before you begin to mine you need to question yourself:
- Is there anyone else mining?
- How many doors are there?
- What's the mine limit?
- How many doors are covered by Base Defense and don't need mines?
You can simply ask in team chat if there is someone mining, but you need to know which buildings are on the map to know how many mines you can use per door. Also note that proximity mines are virtually ineffective against vehicles. If someone is rushing into your base with a vehicle, chances are that your mines won't stop them if they had enough health to get into your base otherwise. If you put mines out at vehicles entrances into your base, any APC coming in will clear them out and probably still make it to a structure intact, except now you've done them a favor because none of your building entrances are mined. Stick to mining buildings! You can see which buildings there are on the map by pressing J. Now we need to know the mine limit, in regular Renegade it's 30. But server owners are able to set this limit. Type !c4 (!minelimit or !mlimit on some servers) on public chat to see the mine limit. Now divide the mine limit with the numbers of doors. When you have done this you know how many mines you can put per door. So we can now start the mining.
As for damages, it takes 4-6 mines at most to kill any character. Mines do anywhere from about 45 to 65 damage to a person depending on their distance from the mine when it goes off. Therefore, never put more than 6 in any doorway to a building because you're wasting them. 5 is a good number, generally... if people survive those it'll only take a pistol shot or two to send them packing at that point. It's generally a good idea to consider Proximity C4 a deterrent to the enemy and an effective way to stop a one-man assault. An APC rush with multiple players won't be stopped by proximity C4, but hopefully one of the enemy players died, signalling you to investigate the death you caused.
[edit] Mining formations
There are different mining formations but there are some rules you have to keep before the mining formation is effective. When mining, one primary rule is not to place more than one mine on-top of eachother. If you do so, the second mine is entirely useless as when the first one blows, the second and any others on top of that disappear without detonating.
- Don't put the mines too close at the door.
Do not place mines too close to the doors or enemy vehicles can 'ram' the door, blowing up the mines and clearing a path for infantry. You should place mines back from the doors sufficient so they cannot be detonated by vehicles.
- Don't put the mines all over the place.
Do not place mines far apart, or too far from the doorway. You can see here how the enemy could easily avoid some of the mines by simply walking around them. Remember if you run a low end connection you may lag so take your time mining and do it properly or you might get !n00b'd.
- Watch the limit.
This image will show you the a perfect defense, but it takes up too much of the mine limit, which makes other places unmined.
These images will show you nice formations to mine. But I can't tell you it enough: Stick to the mine limit.
[edit] Should I mine to defend vs. vehicles?
This is not recommended. Mines only do about 30 points of damage to vehicles, regardless of the armor type, so at most if you used all 30 mines on an entrance you'd kill anything but a Mammoth, but your little trap will be a one-off shot and you'll leave the rest of the base undefended. People in public games do this a lot on Mesa, Field, Walls, and Under especially. This is futile, as you need to use a disproportionate amount of mines on vehicles to affect any sort of damage on them. It is a better idea to save them for building entrances or common foot entrances into your base, depending on the map.
Note, however, there are servers that run mods that allows the mine limit to be raised above 30. If the limit is raised above 30 on a map such as Walls, you may wish to mine the entrance as opposed to the doors to prevent stealthed units sneaking around your own forces and planting multipule beacons - particularly atop the Weapons Factory in the flying variation of the map. This can however easily be countered by sending in an APC to remove the mines quickly followed by a detachment of SBH (Stealthed Black Hands), or bringing an engineer to defuse a path through the mines. You should consult with your team mates when mining to consider the best advantage. Different maps call for different mining tactics.
[edit] Dealing with the n00bs
There are some players who do not keep themselves to the rules I posted above, they mine on strange places, use too many mines or mine other players. If they do so and it annoys you, then simple page him telling him to stop wasting the mines. If he doesn't stop then contact a moderator/vote kick him.
[edit] User Opinions
This tutorial covers "mining" in the sense of how to mine buildings. Proximity mines are most useful in defending buildings, but unless the server has a rule about where you put them...and as far as I know, not a single one does...you are allowed to use proximity mines for any purpose as long as it's for the benefit of your team. (NOTE: This does NOT make provisions for Flaming APCs - this tactic is banned on some servers.)
This means, for example, you could place them in the tunnel entrance on Walls Fly to defend your base from people trying to come in from there. Or at some strategic chokepoint in the middle of the map you think could be useful. If somebody thinks you are wasting mines, tell them why you have put them there. If you are told all mines are needed in the base, it's advisable to listen. At certain points in the game, for example if your team has most of its players defending already, or the opponent's base is being dominated and is nearly dead, you can be less cautious about where they are placed.
Don't forget that the best defense is an active one, so you should never rely purely on mines to keep your base defended.
