With the newest updates the minefield decay is also displayed in the minefield preview when sweeping and scooping mines. What is very helpful to control enemy minefields can cause problems when trying to decrease your own minefield sizes by scooping parts of them – for example to pull a minefield or web out of an opponent’s sweeping range. Remember that the scooping ship must have a lower ID number than the sweeping enemy in order to scoop successfully before his ship can start to sweep.
This table below gives you the minimum of lightyears you need to scoop the minefields and webs away from your opponent’s sweeper:
| Minefield | Number | After | Resulting | Decay | Min | Min |
| Radius | of Mines | 5% Decay | Radius (ly) | Difference (ly) | Web Scoop | Mine Scoop |
| 150 | 22500 | 21375 | 146,2 | 3,8 | 5ly | 9ly |
| 145 | 21025 | 19974 | 141,3 | 3,7 | 5ly | 9ly |
| 140 | 19600 | 18620 | 136,5 | 3,5 | 5ly | 9ly |
| 135 | 18225 | 17314 | 131,6 | 3,4 | 5ly | 9ly |
| 130 | 16900 | 16055 | 126,7 | 3,3 | 5ly | 9ly |
| 125 | 15625 | 14844 | 121,8 | 3,2 | 5ly | 9ly |
| 120 | 14400 | 13680 | 117 | 3 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 115 | 13225 | 12564 | 112,1 | 2,9 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 110 | 12100 | 11495 | 107,2 | 2,8 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 105 | 11025 | 10474 | 102,3 | 2,7 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 100 | 10000 | 9500 | 97,5 | 2,5 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 95 | 9025 | 8574 | 92,6 | 2,4 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 90 | 8100 | 7695 | 87,7 | 2,3 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 85 | 7225 | 6864 | 82,8 | 2,2 | 4ly | 8ly |
| 80 | 6400 | 6080 | 78 | 2 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 75 | 5625 | 5344 | 73,1 | 1,9 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 70 | 4900 | 4655 | 68,2 | 1,8 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 65 | 4225 | 4014 | 63,4 | 1,6 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 60 | 3600 | 3420 | 58,5 | 1,5 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 55 | 3025 | 2874 | 53,6 | 1,4 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 50 | 2500 | 2375 | 48,7 | 1,3 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 45 | 2025 | 1924 | 43,9 | 1,1 | 3ly | 7ly |
| 40 | 1600 | 1520 | 39 | 1 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 35 | 1225 | 1164 | 34,1 | 0,9 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 30 | 900 | 855 | 29,2 | 0,8 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 25 | 625 | 594 | 24,4 | 0,6 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 20 | 400 | 380 | 19,5 | 0,5 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 15 | 225 | 214 | 14,6 | 0,4 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 10 | 100 | 95 | 9,7 | 0,3 | 2ly | 6ly |
| 5 | 25 | 24 | 4,9 | 0,1 | 2ly | 6ly |
Good luck, Commander!
Planets Magazine 
Thanks very much to Thin for posting this.
One thing I didn’t realize was that the Planets uses the square root of the number of mines to calculate the radius, not the area in the circle formula. So larger mine fields have more mines per area than smaller ones, they are more dense. The change in density has no effect on chances of hitting a mine but does effect the cost of laying a certain size field and the effort needed to scan it.
When using the chart above for mine fields in sizes that are not multiples of 5, the quick and dirty solution is to round up to the next multiple of 5. So a mf of 42 light years, the quick method would be to round up to 45.
-V-
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