FreeOrion

satellite defense

the AI often use the satellites for planetary defense

as far as i know their purpose is to be killed by a gun so that he big gun won't damage a real battle ship
could be usefull when plasma and death ray are on the party to reinforced a defence fleet

but what is the impact on the total production cost that depends on the ship numbers ?
have they the same impact on the building costs than any other spaceship or 0 impact or ??

phocas wrote:as far as i know their purpose is to be killed by a gun

An additional significant purpose for the AI is to trigger planetary defenses against roving unarmed monsters like Floaters, Small Krill and Small Snowflakes, before they get big enough to make problems, since we have not yet coded up a "monster hunter" military mission for them yet.

have they the same impact on the building costs than any other spaceship

Yes they do

They seem to be just a hack for the above monster killing effect and should be removed entirely and replaced with something else less 'hacky'.
But I'm not a developer so I don't get a vote and I'm sure there are other things in the game that are more important keeping them busy.
I'm also aware that replacing it with something else will not be quick and easy. It's more complex than it seems.

One thing that puzzles me is that, at least in the version I last played, the default mode is "hidden". So you have to go and change them to "control" or they won't trigger defenses.

defaultuser wrote:One thing that puzzles me is that, at least in the version I last played, the default mode is "hidden". So you have to go and change them to "control" or they won't trigger defenses.

That default setting is based entirely on whether or not the ship design is armed.