[Slick]

Just to be clear and conclusively rule out the mine theory:

Even if you had a partnership with other empires, you don't see thier mines. You don't get hit by them either, so you don't know where they are unless you are told. Since you had a partnership with 2 other empires, they could potentially have placed 200 mines in the sector of disappearance. And (unlikely, but) if those 2 allies had a trade or better treaty with another empire, a this 3rd empire could also have had 100 mines in the same sector.

When you say that the fleet could sweep "any amount" of mines, does this mean >200?

The reason I bring this up is I got bLasted once where I had a large fleet with enough mine sweepers to take out 100 mines and it got decimated due to 2 empires heavily mining the same sector. I swept 100 mines and got hit by the rest. This was not obvious to me and I first thought it was a bug.

Like I said, just to conclusively rule out mines, just how many mines could the fleet sweep?

Slick.