[dogscoff]

1: Just put yor minesweepers onto a ship and send that ship into the minefield. Fleet that ship with warships and they will be protected from mines. (Or at least, will be protected from as many mines as the combined per-turn sweeping capcatiy of all the minesweeper components in the fleet).

2: No, you can launch all or launch none., those are you only options. If you want to launch only some, put some of your sats aboard a cargo ship, then select "launch" and then transfer the sats back again afterwards.

3: Say you have one battleship with 5 guns, against 5 enemy escorts. Each of your guns could take out one escort in one shot. So in theory, you have the firepower to destroy all five ships in one combat turn. However, without multiplex tracking you are only allowed to only target one ship per turn: You will destroy one ship with your first gun, and then the remaining 4 guns won't be used on that turn. Second turn it destroys the second ship, and so on. With Multiplex, it can shoot 5 guns at 5 ships all in the first turn.

4: You are correct.

5: In the early game, missiles are superior. Once you get point-defence though, they become far less effective. It takes far less tonnage and resources to put 2 point defence cannons on a ship far than the 3 missile launchers needed to beat them, so the PD tends to win out. Eventually your enemy might get lazy and forget to build ships with PD, in which case you can start using missiles again=-)

6: I never use it, but it can be effective. Just fit it to the ship and then when you need it, select the ship and click the "use component" button. I think the ship needs to be de-fleeted first, even if every ship in the fleet has EP. You will get extra movement the next turn, and then the component will be destroyed. In later versions it can only be repaired at a shipyard. (Note, if you want to get really technical, ie tracking movement within the 30-day turn, EP movement is a little odd, but you probably don't need to worry about that.)