Space Mine

Description
Space Mines are a type of mine designed to protect an area of space from enemy spacecraft. While somewhat useful when space travel was more limited over a millennium ago, the evolution of military-grade armor and sensors had largely rendered them irrelevant in modern combat. On occasion though the strategic use of space mines has proven critical during battle, and the development of Screen Launchers has revitilized interest in them.

Space mines typically consist of small bomblets equipped with short-range passive sensors and chemical thrusters, allowing the mines to maintain their position, lock onto passing spacecraft and maneuver into them. They are normally deployed via canister, whether fired from a screen launcher, from a dedicated space mine dispenser or positioned by zero-G engineers, with each canister filling an area 15 to 18 kilometers across with around two thousand space mines.

Space mines placed too close to a planetary body risk being pulled in by gravitational effects, while those located inside the K-F field generated by incoming JumpShips are automatically destroyed before they have the chance to inflict damage.