[James Sterrett]

Seems to me one of the simpler cures here would be to let seekers target sats. 8) This would prevent the "drop it off in bombardment range" problem.

However, from a wider perspective, should we change game mechanics to knock out tactics that work well against the AI but not against a human? I'd think that's a situation where the underlying answer is to improve the AI.

If sats/mines/fighters become cost-ineffective, then they never get built, and the system is less rich. As it stands, they *are* cost-effective, but they also have some serious limitations. A number of people have commented on the ease of killing satellites and fighters if you have point defence (which, bein useless against ships, put the designer into a tradeoff decision at some level - a Good Thing). All these weapons need help to get into a system other than the one they were built in, which severely limits their flexibility. Yes, you can get away with your sat carrier against the AI - but it's a fragile system. As a fleet support ship it would fare much better, and seem far less anomalous.