I am testing the Close the gaps scenario to proofreading my translations (in French version) with the release of 04Nov2024 and and I notice the same problem encountered at the time 4 years ago : Mine laying contains several bugs.
It is difficult to give specific examples because it sometimes seems random, regardless of the passage : North, East, West, South or the difficulty level (except Easy mode : on Easy difficulty with both conditions, this seems to work correctly).

a. Although the mines are placed within the 1.5u radius of the intersection of sectors, some are sometimes not detected.
In hard or Chimeric mode, referenced laid mines change categories or disappear (even though they are still there on the radar) for no reason when others are laid. It's really weird. And without doing anything, 5 minutes later the gaps is validated.

b. In normal mode, there is a text inversion (above, below) for the West and East doors. l3056, 3057, 3076, 3077 and sometimes there is this error :

and this one

and this one

And line 3016 and 3070

c. In Hard and Quixotic difficulties, with all 4 conditions. The 4th laying condition doesn't work "4. Must be along 20U distance from station line connecting asteroids".
This text does not seem consistent "You need three in each sensor scan area" in relation to the 4 laying conditions. After further testing it works fine.

d. Somes suggestions: These are just my suggestions. :-)
1 The rules for laying mines are a bit hidden in Relay, I hadn't seen them the first time because I didn't even know there were any.
2 The "What is the minefield" button is extra/useless. The 4 "What do the sensors show ..." buttons should be located directly under "What are my currents orders". This avoids an additional click and if the player stops in Current Orders, they will not have all the instructions.
3 The size of the stations is independent of the difficulty level. And yet it makes a big difference I think.
4 If there were fewer geometric constraints and simply close the gaps as best as possible by laying the mines, it would be more coherent (and the bugs would perhaps be easier to resolve). So, the level of difficulty could be managed with: the size of the station, the number/strength/harassment of enemies, the number of mines to lay. If there was a way to explode the mines when they are too close to each other, that would solve the realistic side because we should scatter them rather than stack them like pizzas.

If anyone wants to test this scenario as well, it will give @Xansta more feedback to resolve the issues.

e. The following text: "Where are you headed? (cost: %f reputation)" line 3443, displays the reputation cost with 6 digits after the decimal point. “3.236919 reputation” for example.

f. The options "Optional: Get ship maneuver upgrade from %s for %s" etc. (as in DefenderHunter) allowing you to upgrade the ship are not found in the game. They seem unused.

g. The 2 texts: "Count below: %i" (line 2432 and 2452) and "Count above: %i" (line 2433 and 2453) are not found in the game. They seem unused.

h. If the station to be protected is destroyed, this doesnt end the game. When our ship is eliminated, so we lose. I don't know if this is intentional.

i. There is redundancy in text when giving an order to a friendly ship. "Defend WP %d" and "We are heading to assist at WP %d." This is strange because it doesn't do it in EN but in FR. WP is repeated twice in these 2 sentences by adding “WP %d” (It is the one found in the comms_ship.fr.po file that is used and not the one in the scenario file) as a variable. This gives for example "Defend WP WP 1" or "We are heading to assist at WP WP 1." (but in FR, not in EN) This does it in Close the Gaps and other scenarios like What the Dickens but not in Scurvy Scavenger. While the translations are strictly identical and do not contain duplicates.