How to program Mine and Sat layers

[Urendi Maleldil]

I find that defending your systems by manually placing mines and satellites is tedious. That's why I program my mine and satellite layers to launch their units over important warp points automatically using the Repeat Orders and Repeat Build functions.

The following instructions are for a satellite layer, but the process for programming a mine layer is exactly the same.

Step 1: Preparing the Satellite Layer
Build a satellite layer and some defense satellites. Then load the satellite layer with defense satellites and move it to the side, using up all available movement points.

This way the "Launch Units Remotely" button is activated, and the satellite layer won't move when you're trying to give it a set of repeating orders.

Step 2: Preparing the Planets
Decide where in the system you want to produce satellites. All colonized planets can build units, so choose planets that don't have space yards (This way your sat layer won't interfere with ship construction).

Select the build queue of the first planet and tell it to build one turn's worth of satellites. Then click the "Repeat Build" button. Do the same with the other planets. The more planets you use, the more your satellite layer will carry each turn (depending on available cargo space).

Step 3: Programming the Ship
Make sure "Show Ship Movement Lines" is selected under the Empire Options screen (this way you can visualize the path your satellite layer will travel). Select your satellite layer.

Click the "Launch Units Remotely" button, select the warp point you want to defend, and tell it to launch satellites. Then click the "Load Cargo" button and select the nearest satellite-building planet you prepared in Step 2. Do the same with all the other planets from Step 2.

(Make sure the ship's movement path passes through a sector that contains a Resupply Depot. Otherwise your satellite layer will eventually run out of supplies and slow to 1 movement.)

Then click the "Repeat Orders" button. You can click the "View Orders" button to see if everything is layed out alright.

Now, as you play the game, your empire will continue to build satellites (or mines) and deploy them automatically until the sector hits the maximum units limit, or you change the orders.

Some variations:
You can program the satellite (or mine) layer to launch units in more than one sector. Just repeat Step 3 and make sure you tell the ship to load more units in-between remote launches.

You can also instruct the ship to launch units at a Waypoint number instead of a specific sector. This way when you change the location of the Waypoint, your ship will change course along with it.