[rdouglass]

To Seawolf:

Another reason you may not be able to directly give the command "Sweep Mines" for your sweeper is if there is another "marked" minefield in the path that your ship travels to the minefield you want to sweep. Any ship (It seems) will not go thru a marked minefield. The only way that I know of to "unmark" the minefield is to send a ship there.

For instance, if a marked minefield is on a warp point, you may have to tell it (the ship) to go to the other side of the warp point, then "warp", THEN proceed onto the sector you want to sweep.

This was also in SE3, and can be a pain if you don't have "ship trails" turned on. It happened to me once: Had a good fleet just finished capturing a nice AI system. I sent a scout ship to the other side of a warp point and found a minefield and another nice AI system. The minefield damaged my scout and it couldn't move. I then gave the command to my fleet to attack one of the better planets in the new system. Unfortunately there was another path to that system thru 3 other systems! It (the fleet) took the long way around 'cause the minefield where the scout ship was was still marked. I did not realize the fleet took that route untill 3-4 turns later. Meanwhile, the AI went and toasted my scout, went thru that WP, and I lost quite a bit of "slave population" 'cause the AI just glassed the planets I had taken only a few turns ago.