PHost supports up to 10000 minefields in a game. In HOST (and PHost up to 3.2), the limit is 500. Most games still use PHost with a limit of 500, though, as client support for 10000 minefields is not widely available.
Mine Decay: In PHost, Mine Decay happens before mine sweeping. Therefore, the minefield will be smaller than displayed by your client (and possibly out of range) when you try to sweep it. On the other hand, HOST will report different sizes for a minefield which is laid and then scanned. To compensate this difference, PHost is generally played with a bit larger MineSweepRange.
Minefield Explosions: Depending on PHost version and configuration, handling of overlapping minefields differs.
- In PHost 4.0b/3.4f and later, overlapping minefields detonate simultaneously, no matter how the overlap was produced. This is similar to HOST's behaviour, although we use better (and more fair) formulas.
- In older PHost versions, overlapping minefields only explode when they're laid, using one of the mine laying ship missions. When two minefields become hostile after being laid (by cancellation of an alliance, maybe), they'll not explode.
It is possible to configure mixtures of the old and new behaviour, see AlternativeMinesDestroyMines.
Mine Laying: In PHost, it is impossible to lay a new mine field when you already are inside one of your mines (except by laying in a different identity, of course). HOST has some tricks which allow that. When inside multiple mine fields, PHost allows you to choose which one to enlarge. By default, PHost adds mines to the lowest-Id minefield you're in.
Mine Laying Order: HOST as well as PHost 3.2 and below do mine laying in order of ship Ids. When all 500 minefield slots are used up, only low-Id ships will be able to lay mines. PHost 3.3 and later use a more fair order (see the Mine Laying mission for details).
Mine Scooping: Mine scooping needs beams in PHost. In HOST, it does not.
Web Mines: HOST has a bit trouble with Web mines that do not belong to the Crystals. Since most of these effects are considered to be bugs, PHost implements that in the "intuitive" way.
The basic rule is that web mines are no different from ordinary mines. Web mine draining, however, is a Crystal-only racial ability. The owner of a minefield (or web mine) is immune to its effects, while others are not (unless they are allies). Therefore, a Crystal ship will have fuel drained from it if it is in a web mine belonging to another Crystal player (in a custom PlayerRace game, for example).
Non-Crystalline webs still have the improved hit odds, and fuel drain when an enemy hits a mine.
Web mines interact with normal mines only when AllowMinesDestroyWebs is enabled.
► Note: Note that some clients have trouble displaying non-crystalline webs, because the Winplan RST file format does not allow storing those. Clients that evaluate util.dat should display them correctly.
