This is a discussion of mines and the Minelayer attachment rules from No Disintigrations .

First, what is up with the range on these things? The entry for the mines all say Short, but the Minelayer attachment itself says Close (unless it's modified to be Medium) as does the rules sidebar on mines. I think that the deployment range on the unmodified Minelayer attachment might be intended to be Short and all Mines (except perhaps the Seeker) should definitely have Close listed on the chart.

Second, the roll to avoid the mine effectively consume the action of the pilot targeted by the mine. I see it as this:

• Pilot's turn begins within Close range of a mine (it was deployed by a Minelayer since the pilot's last turn or the Pilot did not Fly/Drive away last turn).
• Pilot must spend an Action to make the Piloting (Space) check to avoid the mine .
• Pilot can take one Maneuver and may be able to take a second Maneuver.

OR

• Pilot spends Fly/Drive maneuver to enter Close range of mine (for whatever reason).
• Pilot must spend an Action to make the Piloting (Space) check to avoid the mine.
• Pilot may be able to take a second Maneuver.

It does seem reasonable that the Pilot can elect to not take the avoidance Action. This should indicate that the attempt to avoid the mine is done with Characteristic and Skill values of 0 against the Difficulty 3 and further modified by Handling and any other modifiers that exist. This will likely result in a fairly hard hit from the mine.

This tells me that the Minelayer Mod that increases deployment range up to Medium is essential for offensively employing mines, and that mines can be very effective at keeping Pilots from taking Actions--unless they want to take a hard hit from a mine. These are also pretty nasty in that they completely ignore shields (Defense) and that poor Handling on the targeted vessel means that they are far more likely to land and land hard. A Minelayer with strong shields piloted by an Operator with Offensive Driving can be a really nasty combination.

If only I could find the "we're dragging mines" scene from Galaxy Quest...

I also stumbled across the Range confusion. Are there any updates on this?

Also: how long does the effect from a Gravity Mine holds a ship? One round (pretty useless then), multiple rounds, depending on the hit success (avoid fails), or one encounter?

Could gravity mines be used to get ships out of hyperspace (along a known route / lane), i.e. for acts of piracy? Depending on the traffic, the pirate would not know what they intercept, but it might be worth the risk, as it could be done outside a system and outside the direct reach of law enforcement.