I have a theory on where to place mines for the most effect, at least against the AI, and that is to the sides of phase lanes.

What is this Vasari/Subverter combo? Honestly, I've been hearing so much about how good Vasari is I might switch races.

In most circumstances, you have to lay minefields before your opponent enters the gravity well, as mines are vulnerable to weapon fire for a bit before they become active. If you can disable most of your enemy's weapons however this no longer holds true, and you can lay minefields while the battle is going on without fear of them being destroyed. The Vasari just so happen to have the best tools to pull this off in the form of their mobile minelayer and the Subverter, who can disable groups of frigates with one of its abilities. If you build enough you can disable an entire fleet if its not very spread out, at which point you bring in the minelayers and quickly lay as many mines as possible before they can move/fire again. It takes a lot of skill and practice to pull of, but if done right you can devastate an enemy fleet with few casualties and inflict far more damage than it cost to lay the mines.

If you want to go all out with this tactic its also one of the few cases where it might be worth bringing a Marauder, as you can keep your opponents capitalships out of the fight as well with phase out hull. Or you can just make sure to destroy the capital ships before trying to lock down the frigates.

All but advent mines react to sb,

Whip this one is ripe for a speech.

They have their uses but the phase missile upgrades are so good that 90+% of the time you're better off sticking with those.

You mean come to ICO speech?  [e digicons]:')[/e]

Well, its really not that different from your current strategy, you just need to substitute some assailants and sentinels for the minelayer and possibly more subverters. But anyways.

1. Research the minelayer ship (I think its in the defense tree, as something ruiner). Build a couple in the cruiser section.

2. Get subverters and distortion field as usual.

You'll need quite a few subverters to pull this off, and it might not be feasible at all if the enemy is fairly scattered. You should then try to disable say 90% of the enemy frigates, or at least all the frigates within weapon range of where you will be laying mines. You should then order your minelayers, which should be right behind the subverters, to start laying mines on top of the recently disabled frigates. Since mines are high damage AoE weapons, you can do a lot of damage to large concentrated fleets very quickly, though you'll likely sacrifice your subverters in the process. Use your assailants to snipe any ships you missed with distortion field, especially light frigates (as they are good at damaging and disabling subs and minelayers) and flak frigates (as they destroy mines quickly).

Again, you'll need practice to get a feel for how many subverters and minelayers you'll need and to be able to pull this off fast enough. Because if the distortion field ability wears off before the mines are activated, they can be destroyed before they come online.

You are right about the Marauder, it is widely considered to be one of the worse capital ships in the game. What it does have though is the only ability the Vasari have that can disable a capitalship's weapons. Phase out hull is actually a very useful ability, mainly because it is so versatile. In this case you want to target the enemy capital ships, as what often happens is the side guns start targeting your mines during their vulnerable period, thinning out your minefield and thus making them less effective. While they are affected by phase out hull, they effectively don't exist. You can't destroy them, but they can't attack or use abilities. Just keep it up on them until your mines go off, and hopefully you will have inflicted enough damage to win the battle. You can then use phase out hull to shut down its engines as it attempts to flee into phase space.

As for heavy cruisers, upgraded assailants do indeed far outclass them in damage. The only upside is that they are far more durable, especially with their self repair ability, but the Vasari really have no strategies that rely on tanking power. Thus assailants are almost always the better deal.

Its already compatible for 1.21! The recent 1.21 patch was not mod breaking, so while the one balance change they made (weaker bombers) won't be present in the mod, it will still run fine.

    TEC mines aren't really worth the money early in the game, and later, when you have the resources to throw away on them, your fleets are typically powerful enough that you don't really need them.  I tend to seed a handful of them around high-priority targets that the pirates go after (like the trade port).  Pirates are really the only faction that TEC mines pose any real threat against.  They won't stop them, nor will they really slow them down, but the extra punch is nice to have.  It's been the difference once or twice between victory and defeat for me on hotly contested worlds between the three main factions and the pirates.  I say, go for it if you can seed them well.  Otherwise, forget it; as noted elsewhere on this forum, scouts reveal them all too easily.  It's like shooting ducks in a barrel then.

    Vasari mines are nice because they have that gravity field option.  I have never tried using the mine layer offensively with the Subverter; I'll have to try it.  Normally, I engage my enemy and then drop a mine layer or two behind them.  I throw out a bunch of gravity mines to impede retreat, and seed a few regular mines amongst them to soften them up a mite.  Overall, my favorite thing to do is send the minelayers to non-planets (like nebulas, gas giants, and suns) and deploy the two mine types there as a surprise to the unwary. 

    Advent mines are my favorite though.  I use them offensively by combining them with my bomber squadrons.  As they make strafe runs, I'll hit the deploy button and drop a field of mines among my adversaries.  Mobile mine fields - gotta love 'em! 

    While it's true that the Vasari have a bunch of ship slowing/disabling options (like putting ships in phase-space), it is still nice to have that little extra bit of insurance.  Besides, the mines work well in traps; nothing like setting up a pocket of gravity mines and frag mines in the next gravity well, and then driving your enemy into it. 

    Plus, early in the game, it is easier to purchase a mine carrier and to deploy several gravity fields than to purchase an assortment of ships and then upgrade them.  Thinking along those lines, the mine layer throws out ten mines.  If all ten were detonated by an enemy fleet, then an equivalent effect in ships would require ten ships.  The upside to this is that the ships are reusable while the downside is that it can be more expensive and time consuming to build them; it is sometimes more expedient to employ mines than ships.  I am a major supporter of static defense tactics; they will not stop a determined, or careful, attack, but they will slow enemy movements and can buy you just enough time to mount a counterattack or to bolster the defenses of the next world.  Gravity mines coupled with the Vasari starbase can prove calamitous to fleets, and provide checks to small and mid-sized ones.  Personally, I throw everything into two or three huge, powerful, balanced fleets and tend to leave my worlds undefended aside from strong static defenses.  I keep a fleet close to home while I send the other(s) out on conquest.  The static defenses typically buy me enough time to move my home fleet to the contested gravity well before the planet is taken; artificial phase-lanes help a lot in this regard.  While this may seem counter-productive, it frees up most of my ships for strong offenses; it is difficult to focus on attack when you have a large, powerful fleet ravaging your systems.  I don't even worry about destroying colonies; that can come later once I have broken an enemy's military power.

    I suppose that it all boils down to personal preference and tactics.  Generally speaking, mines, for me, have little use aside from early warning systems and harrassment.  I seed them in gravity wells leading up to my front-line worlds so that I can maintain line-of-sight on these positions and track fleet movements.  Later in the game, I use them offensively and in choke-point defenses.  I've run into several others that refuse to use them at all; if that suits their fighting style, then so be it.