new guy: questions

[Taqwus]

On manual -- I doubt it. But almost everything it tells you, you can learn in the demo anyway...

Sats, mines, weapon platforms, etc -- any unit -- gets placed in the cargo area of a planet. Weapon platforms stay there (they're planetary defenses) unless you put them in a transport and move 'em to another planet; satellites should be launched (either by planets or by ships with satellite launchers). If you built the sats at the same planet you want them to defend (although defending a warp point might be a better choice, often), you should be able to select the planet and then hit 'launch units' ('L', IIRC). Or transfer ('Transfer Cargo' button) onto a ship w/ at least one sat launcher (you can launch as many as you want with only one launcher, outside of combat; having more doesn't help except in combat mode). Other units (fighters, mines) get specialized bays as well; for fighters, you actually want many bays because normally you're launching them in combat.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night