(written by DungeonMaster)
Many players often end up with large stockpiles of cash and minerals well away from the frontlines. If the fronts are stable, or in your favour, then it’s imperative that those resources go to developing bases to produce more ships. As is often the case however, there is pressing need for mines at the fronts. The travelling minefield is an essential strategy to supply those resources across long distances.
What you need is: two high tech torpedo laying ships which can lay and scoop a 150 ly minefield. Some races or combination of races are obviously better at this than others (cylons). The technique is to lay a minefield with ship A and have ship B scoop mines at the very edge of the 150 ly spread in the very same turn. Since ship B moves after minefield laying in one turn you can “teleport” hundreds of torpedo units 150 + 81 ly = 231 ly. Why would you ever walk when you can run?
In VGAp at the highest levels it is paramount to have economy of action, that is to say, get the job done with the minimum expenditure of moves and resources. Proper application of the travelling minefield advanced strategy saves time and fuel. Importantly it gives great use to a ship with poor engines and guns but big tubes, such as a ship constructed with a low tech siliconoid base.
This advanced strategy can be enhanced in many ways, with daisy-chain minefields travelling across the entire cluster in a few turns, MBR and the firecloud of course are your friend. This can be done, with risk, in the heart of enemy territory, but you need a low-id ship since it sweeps (scoops) first. Good luck out there,
DM
Planets Magazine 
Awesome article DM! And welcome aboard!
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Great strategy! I’ve gotta try this one!
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One presumes that minesweeping by an enemy would mess with this tactic?
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Gnerphk if you note, I prefaced doing this in enemy territory requires a low-id ship. A low ID ship will scoop up the mines before the enemy sweeps them, and even before the minefields explode. Judiciously used you can re-supply your battleships at great distance in the theatre of war. From a turn perspective, it looks like you teleported torpedoes. Make sure you have enough fuel to make the subsequent move with increased weight!
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In Crystalline hands,,,this can be a nightmare! hehehe
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You can also extend the “range” of this using multiple ships to lay the mines as long as the ship IDs are arranged correctly. For example, you could have a low ID ship within 150 ly of the scooper lay a 100 ly minefield, and then any higher ID ships that fall within that field and also lay mines will add to it. So (in this example) you could use torps from up to 250 ly to fill out the minefield to maximum size before it gets scooped. It takes less than half of the needed torps to make a 100 ly minefield as opposed to a 150 ly one, so using this method you can move a good number of the torps from the longer distance.
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