Satellites
 

Ok, I've seen this discussed before...

Is there a way to get satellites to ungrop so they not all in one spot on the combat screen?

I know they realize this is happening. Is there some logic behind it?

Thanks,

KEn

Re: Satellites
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, convienence of coding for MM may be the reason.

Stacked together like that they combine into one super-ship, so effects like cloaking, ECM, combat sensors appy to all, that may be what people want. I know I use it to my advantage. It may mak sattelites more usefull.

Spread out, they would be harder to get by a ship with fewer weapons. That may make it too easy to defend a planet.

'Course, the result of the two above possibilities could be reversed -- maybe it's worse to have them stacked and that's the plan.

Sat's with missiles can reach an incoming ship wherever they are. Sat's with point defence likewise protect the planet from incoming missiles. Large sats get a long range mount. So there are options.

A sat group might be right in the path of an attacker when combat starts. So sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not. If you want a foolproof defence, you can use mines -- but that seems to be what people like least -- a foolproof defence makes for a dull game.

Fighters also stack. Fewer people dislike that. Maybe all units have to be the same.

Re: Satellites
 

Fighters can be placed in arbitrary sized stacks though.

When launching in combat, you can specify 5, 10, 15 etc.
When lauching outside of combat you can launch 5,10,15 etc, then move them away, launch more into a new stack, move them away.
When you're done you have arbitrarily many stacks of fighters, all in the same sector for defense.

Re: Satellites
 

You can force the game to split your sats into two Groups, but only (really) for planetary defence:
Keep half your satellites in orbit and the rest in cargo storage. When combat begins, there will be your orbitting satellites in one group, and then the planet can (should, in strategic) launch the remaining satellites into a second group. This has obvious limitations (ie cargo space) but in Proportions mod for example, where breathable worlds and especially homeworlds have huge amounts of cargo space, it ought to be viable.

For full planetary coverage throw a couple of defence stations up as well. I guess if you built stations with cargo storage & sat launchers you could have even more sat Groups.

[Light bulb]
Ping!
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A cool idea: The "Satellite Snail" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Build a transport (biggest you have) with a low movement rate (maybe 2 combat movement) and a single weapon. Fill up the rest of the ship with sat launchers, cargo bays and sats. It should be fairly cheap to build and maintain. Give it primary orders of "point blank" & "don't get hurt" as secondary. Leave a few of these in orbit of your planet and when combat begins they will begin crawling slowly toward the enemy, leaving a trail of armed satellites in a line between the attackers and the planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif The enemy ships will waste time and firepower shooting at the sats on their way to the planet, all the while messing up their formation and taking fire from your satellites & other defences.

The "snail" ships themselves will soak up some weapons fire when they reach the enemy and might get destroyed. However if you pick a weapon with a high damage resistance it probably will be the first component to be destroyed. Once a snail is unarmed the enemy ships will probably lose interest and your ship can crawl towards the safety of a corner. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Has anyone every tried this out? It's probably cheaper just to use fighters... Am I the first person to think of this strategy? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Satellites
 

I have to ask a very basic maybe stupid question:

Are satellites launched in strategic combat by planets and satellite layers??

I have not seen it and I remember to have complained about this in the very beginning of SE IV to MM. The reply I received said, that the non launching was intentional because not all sats may be combat sats and therefore sometimes the launch might be not reasonable.
Has this been changed?

Re: Satellites
 

I don't know, actually. I just assumed that they did, seeing as how the game will launch fighters and drones and things in combat. Easy enough to test, I suppose.

Re: Satellites
 

Unfortunately, SE IV does not launch satelites in strategic. Have no idea why it is not implemented. If it launches fighters and drones, what is so different with satelites ?

Re: Satellites
 

Or, we could email-bomb MM with complaints until he makes the 'Combat Satellite Group Amount' setting actually do something... like divide 'strategic' satellite Groups into smaller 'combat' Groups. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Satellites
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I vaguely recall statements on this forum about the AI being unable to recognize that it shouldn't launch unarmed spy sats in combat, but I'm not in any mood to coax the thread out of the search engine at the moment.

[Edit] OK, I'm in a (marginally) better mood today; here {link} is the most recent of the threads I was thinking of.

[ August 18, 2002, 20:50: Message edited by: capnq ]