How are satelites useful?

[Gurduloo]

Ok, I can see your point. I have a newbie question about that... when you have 100 satellites at your planet, does it cost anything to maintain them? And do they take up any cargo space on the planet's surface, or are they in orbit?

[geoschmo]

No maintenance either way.

If they are on the planet they take up cargo, and are not used during combat, except I guess to absorb a little damage during orbital bombardment.

Once they are launched they take up no cargo space on the planet and can fire in combat. Unfortunatly unlike fighters the AI will not launch sats during combat, so if you are playing simultaneous turns, you will want to make sure you launch them before.

Geoschmo

[mottlee]

quote:

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Originally posted by Gurduloo:
Ok, I can see your point. I have a newbie question about that... when you have 100 satellites at your planet, does it cost anything to maintain them? And do they take up any cargo space on the planet's surface, or are they in orbit?

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Maint= NO
Cargo= on planet YES Off=NO

[Val]

I always liked using a cloaked sat at a WP to monitor the system. Then I would hide another one in system (also cloaked), people would find the one and not realize there was a second (or third) in the system.

Also, a bunch of armed Sats make an excellent addition to a station guarding a WP, and are a LOT easier to get there.

[Gurduloo]

Is there a limit to how many satellites you can have orbiting a planet/WP?

[Suicide Junkie]

Default is 99 PLUS the number that one of your vehicles can deploy in one turn.
Planets can launch 1000 in one turn, IIRC, so the limit is more 99+ planetary cargo capacity in that case.

The highest you could set the limit WAS 5,000. In the latest patches that has been increased. 20,000 IIRC

[ 12 March 2002: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[PvK]

Other good things about satellites:

1) Can't be hit by several kinds of direct fire weapons.
2) Can't be hit by seekers.