Difference between revisions of "Mine"

Revision as of 21:14, 16 October 2007

Mine
Type:	Drop and Run
Keyboard selection:	F5 (x2)
Standard effects:	50hp injury (max.), Small circular crater
Present in:	Worms, Worms DC, Worms 2, W:A, WWP

Mines are incredibly common in the Worms games, largely due to the fact that they randomly appear on the landscape under certain scheme settings, similar to Oil Drums. The mine weapon and the mines that appear at the start of a game are very similar, but have a few minor differences. Mines that are placed by the player have a 3 second fuse. Mines that start on the landscape can have fuse lengths between 0 and 3 (random or fixed) and may occasionally be "dud" mines, that just give off harmless smoke rather than exploding, again, depending upon the scheme settings. The way mines bounce is identical to a Grenade on the MAX bounce setting, that is, bounces reduce the horizontal speed by 4% and the vertical speed by 40%. Mines are activated by having a worm come close to them, this detection range is a circle with a radius 48 pixels large.

Mines have the tactical advantage of being able to be pushed around the landscape by the force of explosions given off by weapons, meaning that they can be moved around the landscape into other worms to some degree. The mines get thrown around by the explosions to a larger extent than a worm, and combined with the high, erratic bouncing, they can become quite unpredictable when trying to move them across the landscape.

Mines placed by the player in Worms World Party are slightly different. They are "smart" mines, they come in that team's color and will not detonate if a worm from that team comes into contact with them. (please re-check this affirmation, I played WWP for years and we often used the trick of droping a mine in order to detonate it in another turn)

Dud mines can be detonated in Worms World Party and versions of Worms Armageddon before the 3.6.21.1 Beta update. See Dud mine explosion for more details.

The probability for a mine being dud works in a similar way to how Crate Probability works. There is an array holds values representing "normal mine" and "dud mine". When a mine is triggered, one of these values is chosen then deleted from the array. When the array is emptied, it is reset. Although the array size is unknown, this information allows a player to know that the odds of a mine being dud increases as mines are detonated. If the first 5 mines in a game are not dud, then the sixth mine to detonate is guaranteed to be a dud, according to Deadcode.

Tactics

• When the default mines have a low or random fuse setting, they can be used to block access to certain areas if they are carefully moved around by the player. Low force weapons such as a few shots with the Handgun or a single Shotgun bullet can be used to move the mines around carefully. Of course, this depends upon the movement options and utilities that the other players have access to.
• Many players try to knock worms into mines, causing more damage to the worm during their turn. Sometimes, mines may be knocked into the worms, but this is usually harder to achieve accurately.
• Mines can be dropped off of the edges of cliffs onto worms below more accurately than a grenade can, provided the enemy worm is diretly below the cliff edge.
• Mines naturally have a tendency to fall into dips and craters in the landscape, so worms stuck inside holes can easily be hit by stray mines bouncing around.
• After creating a tunnel with the Blowtorch, a small thin layer of land can be left at the end of the tunnel if the player can't dig far enough or turns off the blow torch before completely digging through it. By placing a mine at the end of this tunnel, the worm can trigger it during their next turn, allowing them to pass through the barrier and still be able to fire a weapon that turn, which is useful if an enemy worm is on the other side. This cannot be achieved with the smart mines in Worms World Party. (Same thing, I've never seen a team mine not being activated by a worm of the same team)
• Mines can be pushed by worms jumping into them, or by having worms on Jet Packs slide into them, although both of these cases are only possible when the landscape is the correct shape.
• The Longbow is the best weapon to hit mines across the terrain. When a mine is hit by an arrow, it is catapulted in the opposite direction at high speed, usually at the same angle that the arrow came in on, if it was fired from higher ground.
• The term mineipulation was coined by Vader, and means to directly hit mines in to other worms.

Criticisms, problems and weaknesses

• Mines placed as a weapon are not that useful, as Grenades shot directly downwards has the same effect if dropping a mine directly on top of the enemy worm. Also, their fuse is always 3 seconds, which reduces their ability to block off certain areas, as the opponent can usually trigger the mine and escape before they detonate.