2 Things I need to know. Deploy satellite network and cargo drones.

[Incubi]

How do you get cargo drones to work? I recall a thread about it but could not find it in the sticky.

And the deploy satellite command. Does this drop a asingle satellite in each sector of a jump range? Does it drop teh sat in a safe place? Or does it just unload a bunch in a single sector? If it has both advanced and normal, what is the ai preference to drop? I am wanting to use way more satellites than I want to domanualy.

[RandomBandit]

Freight Drones are touchy to use but have plenty of advantages. Just start using them, you will figure it out. (I am not putting it all down here because there is simply too much to type. I am just letting you know that they are NOT useless).

The deploy satellite command works like a dream (I set up a network in 2.1). You put some sats in a ship and tell it to deploy a network. It will ask you for the coordinates that you want the satellites (I usually do the standard 0,0,20 to 25). The ship will fly from sector to sector (AVOIDING ENEMY SECTORS, if you have split set to foe, for example, the ship will fly around split space) and deploy a single sat at the given coordinates. The ship will automatically try and restock if anyone nearby sells sats.

EDIT: On the topic of what sat it uses...just use advanced. They are not that much money by the time you are looking to set up a network and the nav sats seem to have no real use other than being a sector watcher.

[Incubi]

Freight Drones are touchy to use but have plenty of advantages. Just start using them, you will figure it out. (I am not putting it all down here because there is simply too much to type. I am just letting you know that they are NOT useless).

The deploy satellite command works like a dream (I set up a network in 2.1). You put some sats in a ship and tell it to deploy a network. It will ask you for the coordinates that you want the satellites (I usually do the standard 0,0,20 to 25). The ship will fly from sector to sector (AVOIDING ENEMY SECTORS, if you have split set to foe, for example, the ship will fly around split space) and deploy a single sat at the given coordinates. The ship will automatically try and restock if anyone nearby sells sats.

EDIT: On the topic of what sat it uses...just use advanced. They are not that much money by the time you are looking to set up a network and the nav sats seem to have no real use other than being a sector watcher.

So if I buy a buster and tell it to deploy satellites at 0,0,-50. It will then continue to do this to every sectorin game save the enemy ones?

[RandomBandit]

Yes, it will try to. I am not sure of the exact numbers, but if a reload is too far away or if it dead-ends itself it will call you and cry about it...this is easily dealt with by just telling it to DeploySatNet again on the other side of the cluster is just put down. I have pirates and paranids set to foe, it only got stuck twice before the entire universe was set. I did the pirate ones myself (one NavSat and two LasTowers), and periodically scout the paranid border sectors before I raid them.

Just a heads-up, +/-25 is about as far as you are going to want to go if you are looking for useful visuals on a good chunk of the sector. If you want to just run best buy/sell and remote trade then 50+ is a good plan.


EDIT:hmmm, you just gave me an idea. NavSats at +/-20 with AdvSats at +/-100. I might just do that...

[Incubi]

actualy I meant 0,50 or -50,0.

[Threesixtyci]

Menu Commands for Freight drones only seems to work with your owned property. To get them to work with NPC property they only seem to work if you eject them out of the cargo hold, first and then treat them as ships that self detonate after a given amount of time (or treat them as combat drones that can dock to stations). You then have to pick them back up, one at a time, to get them to reset their self-detonation timers.

I don't really know what they do when they dock into a user ship's hanger. They don't self repair their energy from what I've noticed, so I can only guess the detonation timer is only suspended, not reset (or they maybe they self detonate while docked?). Remotely, you'll have to undock them and then pick them up from the special menu command. In which case...just using a docked ship is much easier.

[Bill Huntington]

I find that satellites are one of the support tasks that have big payoffs after they are set up. I put one in a sector as soon as I have money and can do it. When I have a lot of money, I even put up multiple sats in active sectors.

I don't use the Deploy satellites command, because setting each sector up isn't that hard and there is a payoff if done a certain way. I pick a gate and make sure that gate is covered by the edge of the sat coverage. If it includes more than one gate, that is a bonus. I set the altitude at 21.5 km. You lose coverage after 25. Under 18 or so, and the bad guys will destroy you more often and you don't cover as much either.
If you can see one gate of a sector, you can see if the target of an assassination mission is there. If the target is not there, logic says it is at another gate of the sector. The satellite pays for itself with one successful assassination mission.

If you deploy satellites at 0, 25, 0, you might miss all the gates. So I use Move to Position, and when I get the message, I select the cargo bay, and have 1 satellite ejected. I count from the gate, and use the figure of 4 km for each square, then count about 5 1/2 squares from the gate I want covered. If I can get two gates, I'll do that. If they is more leeway, then I move toward the center.

As stated in a previous post, Advanced Satellites are the ones worth getting.

I hope this helps.

[Ulan Dhor]

I usually deploy mine only 2 km away from the ecliptic, so I actually see the traffic. But that's just me.