Before the change I launched up to 100 satellites one at a time to provide a buffer zone between my planet and attacking ships. But now I use mines because 90% of the time the AI ignores the sats until the planet has been glassed. It made satellites worthless, except possibly lots and LOTS of missiles targeted manually in Groups in tactical combat. If you are near full on planet storage and mines are being swept too fast, build/launch sats. Otherwise build weapon platforms, or ships/bases if you can afford the maintenance.

P.S. I will complain once again about the lousy missile auto AI. When you have lots of missiles, only 1/3 of them should be targeted each combat turn. That way you avoid the tactic of decoy ships dancing at the range limit of the missiles while a troop ship runs in to capture the planet during reload. I do this myself to capture AI planets, but the AI should know better.

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 01 June 2001).]