Minefield

CTLD ships a built-in minefield scene. When it is deployed, CTLD spawns real DCS landmine statics in a staggered (quinconce) pattern in front of the transport unit and, optionally, draws a bounding quadrilateral on the F10 map to show the extent of the field.

This page covers how the minefield is made available in a mission and how to tune its behaviour. The in-cockpit actions — unpacking the crate to lay a field, and using the Clear Mine Field menu to remove one — are pilot operations, described in the Pilot guide.

Making it available

The minefield is a self-registering scene: as soon as CTLD.lua is loaded it appears automatically as a Mine Field Crate in the F10 Request Equipment menu, for both coalitions, requiring a single crate. You do not need to declare it in spawnableCrates. See the Crate catalogue for how crates in general are listed and requested.

Pilots then request the crate, carry it, and unpack it on the ground; the field is laid in front of the aircraft along its heading. See the Pilot guide.

Default layout

The crate always lays the same fixed field: a quinconce grid computed from 5 mines per full row × 15 rows, starting 20 m ahead of the unit, with 6 m between adjacent mines and 12 m between rows. Odd rows carry 5 mines, even rows carry 4 offset laterally by half the column spacing, for a total of 68 mines:

x    x    x    x    x        <- odd row  (5 mines)
   x    x    x    x          <- even row (4 mines, shifted right)
x    x    x    x    x        <- odd row
   x    x    x    x          <- even row

Configuration

Settings are read through ctld.gs("paramName") at runtime; you set them in CTLD_userConfig.lua under _cfg.settings[...].

Setting	Default	Description
showMinefieldOnF10Map	true	Draw a bounding quad on the F10 map when a minefield is deployed. Set false to keep the field hidden.
demineRadius	150	Maximum distance in metres from a landed player to a minefield centre for that field's Clear Mine Field entry to appear in the F10 menu.

_cfg.settings["showMinefieldOnF10Map"] = true
_cfg.settings["demineRadius"]          = 150

Advanced: laying a minefield from a script

If you want to place minefields from your own mission logic (rather than by having a pilot unpack a crate), fetch the scene model and call one of its two layout functions. Both take a DCS Unit object, which defines the origin and heading of the field, and both return a success flag plus the array of spawned static objects.

Get the model once:

local mineField = CTLDSceneManager.getInstance():getModel("mineField")

setLandMineAuto — by area and count

Provide the target dimensions and a desired mine count; CTLD computes the best column/row layout automatically.

local ok, result = mineField.setLandMineAuto(
    transport,   -- DCS Unit object (origin and heading)
    30,          -- distance (m) from the unit to the first mine row
    50,          -- width (m) — lateral extent of the field
    80,          -- length (m) — forward extent of the field
    40           -- desired number of mines
)
-- The actual count may differ slightly from the request due to quinconce rounding.
-- Use #result for the exact number of mines spawned.

setLandMine — explicit grid

For full control over column count, row count and both spacings:

local ok, result = mineField.setLandMine(
    transport,   -- DCS Unit object
    20,          -- distance (m) from the unit to the first mine row
    5,           -- mines per odd (full) row
    15,          -- number of rows
    6,           -- lateral spacing between adjacent mines (m)
    12           -- forward spacing between rows (m)
)
-- Quinconce total: 8 odd rows x 5 + 7 even rows x 4 = 68 mines

Layout edge cases

Condition	Behaviour
1 mine total	A single mine with a small square F10 marker.
1 mine per row	A straight forward column, no stagger.
2+ mines per row	Full quinconce (staggered) layout.