This is a guide for those who can’t seem to stop hitting the mines. This explains why they follow you and ways to use it to your advantage.
OK, basically the point of the game is to collect the coins that drop out of the boat but not to be hit by the heat-seeking mines.
First of all the mines are not heat-seeking, the tactic they use on following you is biased on the gravity-well property. You’ve probably seen this in many boring physics videos about black holes and such. Just imagine your boat is a black hole and that all the mines are not following you, they are “falling” into the well. This is why they go faster the closer they get to you and why the ones at the other side of the screen don’t seem to move at all.
Fortunately your well isn’t very strong and the event horizon (the point where nothing escapes the gravity well) is right under the boat. With this in mind you can easily rev up your speed and slide past them by a hairs width and not get blown up because you move faster than they can get sucked in.
This is very helpful when getting a doubloon that is almost right underneath the mine. Simply get the mine to move from the coin and once it has gotten far away enough, aim your boat and floor it. You don’t even have to hit it dead on because the capture radius on the coin is wider than itself.
A good way to keep all the mines in one place is to move along the edges and try to split the mines into two groups. Once you have done this, get them far enough apart you can go through the middle. Aim and floor it. if you time it right and you aren’t going TOO fast you can pull the mines inward and probably get a couple to explode. Remember: when the mines explode they send off shockwaves that sucks inward. this can drag other mines in to exlpode if they are set close enough together.
I hope this helped you better understand the behavior of the mines. – Mark Ellis