Traitor minefield????

I have noticed that ships will by default not enter a hex marked as a mine field even if there are no mines. I cant offer an explanation for the rest beyond agreeing that its wyrd

The same thing has been happening for me too Javaslinger, on the last turn when you sent 2 destroyers through the Ibsunk warp point where I had a minefield, your ships were destroyed and then my ships retreated.

If you look at the combat log, the starting forces list my mines and ships as 'Normal' and your two ships as 'Destroyed' and the ending forces list my mines as 'normal', ships as 'Retreated' and your two destoyers as 'Normal'???

Looking at the combat log for the first ship I sent through to the Sutran system it follows this pattern, the starting forces say my ship was 'Destroyed' and but 'Normal' at the end, but I can confirm it was destroyed. I still think the minefield problems we've experienced in the game maybe because we're using the same shipset.

Another possibility is that the game is noting that there should be a combat, then having the mines do their thing, so when the combat starts the ships are already 'destroyed' but make an appearance in the combat.

Are the ships that retreat combat-capable? If they're unarmed minelayers, they could be retreating as they would in any other combat. Or the hostile ships could be in a destroyed/invalid_target state so your ships can't find anything valid to attack, but are still told there's something hostile around, which would trigger a retreat order.

This is a phenomenon that has been happening to me also. Ships that are on the same place as the hex as a minefield are moved when someone runs into it. From the news logs it looks like after the enemy ship hits the minefield, gets destroyed, then the game still has combat with a destroyed enemy ship and your ships retreat to adjoining hexes because there is nothing to fight in that battle. BTW, these are warships also.

Your ships were probably destroyed be the enemy ships and not your mines. This is something that could possibly be used as a big exploit against a well guarded warp point. Sacrifice a couple ships to move enemy ships off it then minesweep and then run havoc in their system.