One single sat with the sensers its enough for the whole wolf-pack, right?
I modified my Version of the Proportions mod to hold 1000 mines/sats per sector, so I only use mines.
In heavely contested areas I send a shipyard ship to build an starbase fighter-carrier, because since the AI doesn't use the fighters strategically I consider cheating to just place a fighter group hovering over the warp point.
Just make sure your base can launch all fighters on the first turn, just in case it gets blown out with the first enemy broadside.
I also build an starbase full of guns with the "Massive Base Mount", which packs quite a punch. (don't forget the multiple tracking component)
Satellites I use only as a Last fill in, because they pay no maintenance, while in Proportions an starbase full of Massive Mounts can bankrupt an small empire.
Finally, there is always the evil human trick of closing the warp point, but I think that would be an exploit when playing against the AI.
I have a question though, would a sat packing only armor protect the whole sat group? What about packing only shields?