Sat. Formations??

[rdouglass]

IMO, sats are good for defence only at Warp Points (in the current deployment configurations). However, I would be interested in knowing about that mod that gives sats weapon mounts that you talked about Q - may make a nice addition against humans.

OTOH, I do not think that sats are totally useless - just useless at defending planets. They make GREAT sensor platforms. Put a cloak and some long range sensors ona large one, drop one in each system (especially the 'dead' ones) and you now have a great info gathering 'network' that you can see everything in the system. It works great for keeping tabs on AI and other players.

You don't even have to have any contact with them - open a WP to another empire territory, slip the cloaked sat layer thru the WP, then close it. Next, start dropping these cloaked 'Recon Sats' in each and every opponent system. As long as the AI (or human player) can't see your ship or sat and you close the WP, you will not initiate any contact with them. Yet you'll still be able to see whats going on - like fleet concentrations, colonies, etc.

Lastly, they are Zero maintainence items - if a construction queue is quiet and you have the points, build 'em and transfer 'em to ALL your Warp Points in the slim chance that some AI ship will get teleported by a 'spacial anomoly' deep into your territory while all your fleets are at the front line. Again, IMO they are quite effective at WP's.