Recon Satellites

[inigma]

What's the best method for researching and placing recon satellites?

Currently in my game with the AI it took me forever and a day to research tachyon sensors III and long range sensors III AND the medium satellite it took to put them both on a single sat plus steath armor.

I was just thinking I could have saved myself the trouble and just put tacy3 on small sat, lr3 on another small sat, and stealth on another small sat, then launch them into my border systems and beyond using a simple stealth sat layer. I understand they stack, including the cloaking. Is this true? Is this the better tactic rather than pushing for an all-in one recon sat?

I was also wondering about sat placement. Currently I try to place them in 6,6 - usually the star of the system, 'cause at LRIII you can see everything up to 5 spaces away which only leaves the sectors on the edges of the system in fog.

Also, I was wondering in PBW games if empires make mutual neutral zones and allow the others to establish monitoring satellites there - does this happen often?