4-5 satellites in 1st month? How?!

[macsee]

So I've seen some replies on posts drumming into people that they must prioritise satellites above all else and they should at least 2 uplinks with 3-5 sats within the first month.

The problem is I can't see how that's possible. I'm only playing on normal but I can't see any way to get a 2nd uplink completed in time for the 1st council report.
The uplink takes 14 days but before that you need to excavate and build a workshop then pray you get an engineer reward council mission early just to hit the 10 engineer prerequisite (1st abduction only brings you to 9 engineers).

And that's not even going into the cost of the satellites themselves!

[Mandemon]

I don't know about getting those on the first month. The second satellite, yes and perhaps begin the construction of the second uplink if you can afford it. However, I have never succeeded in getting both Satellites and Uplink done in the first month.

[Nick Naughty]

Uplink time doesn't matter, it could take 3 months as an example but you still claim the benefits for the coverage.

[macsee]

Originally posted by Nick Naughty:

Uplink time doesn't matter, it could take 3 months as an example but you still claim the benefits for the coverage.

I don't quite understand. You can't launch the satellites without an uplink.
Or are you saying that you receive backdated rewards? i.e. Giving mexico a satellite on 2nd month gives you two months cash/engineers/scientists on next council report?

On a sidenote how does everyone distribute their satellites? I've been aiming for one every continent in the hopes of spotting UFOs before they silently raise the panic level.
Unfortunately I recently saw a silent panic increase on one of the countries I had a satellite on so I'm wondering if this plan is actually pointless

[Wead Mancer]

From my experience I would say cover an entire continent at once if possible, and on a panicked country if necessary to prevent it from defecting.

If an entire continent is covered, abduction missions will stop spawning there, becoming one less continent to worry about. You might actually be spreading yourself too thin.

[Nick Naughty]

Launching a satelite minutes before a council report claims the benefits for the coverage, namely the money gained or bonus.

The uplink time is for coverage to discover new ufo's.

[Nick Naughty]

Sorry mate, I was thinking of uplink time, not satiellite uplink construction.

[macsee]

Ah yes now I understand, having the satellite up for 29days or 1, it doesn't matter so long as they are in the air before the council report.

Head Trick thank you for the advice, I'll be looking to prioritise North America anyhow since all are at 3/5 with Mexico at 4/5

[Nick Naughty]

Originally posted by HEAD TRICK:

If an entire continent is covered, abduction missions will stop spawning there, becoming one less continent to worry about. You might actually be spreading yourself too thin.

I have had total global coverage in classic and that didn't stop abduction missions from spawning, that was quite a while ago and things may have changed since.

[Nick Naughty]

Satellite uplink built next to a satellite uplink gives a total of 5 possible launched satellites.

Get engineers anyway possible, make satellite uplink, make as many satellites as possible.

Satellites have a 20 day build time.

[Wead Mancer]

Originally posted by Nick Naughty:

Originally posted by HEAD TRICK:

If an entire continent is covered, abduction missions will stop spawning there, becoming one less continent to worry about. You might actually be spreading yourself too thin.

I have had total global coverage in classic and that didn't stop abduction missions from spawning, that was quite a while ago and things may have changed since.

Even if you have the entire planet covered, if you haven't done the alien base assault, abduction missions will still occur, although all the countries where the missions take place will be in the same continent. You basically get to do an abduction mission, without any county's panic going up. It's kind of weird but that's how it works, for me at least.

[Nick Naughty]

I have been at this for days thinking it was possible to get 4-5 satellites out before the end of the first month, then I thought it was impossible.

This was done on impossible differculty in europe.

1/ Do nothing except for allocating research.
2/ Do first abduction mission and select the 4 engineers reward.
3/ After completing abduction mission build a workshop (10 Days)
4/ Sell mostly everything in the grey market and build 4 satellites (20 Days) 20 days before council report.
5/ Build a satiellite uplink (14 Days) and place it next to the first after the workshop has been built.
6/ deploy all 4 built satellites hours before the council report arrives.

That is a total of 5 Satellites before the council report comes in.

[Pave Low]

Nick Naughty has it right. There are some caveats though:
1. If you don't get the abduction mission by day 7 there won't be enough time left in the month to build a workshop and an uplink
2. If you don't get the interception mission by the 10th of the month, you won't have enough money to buy all the satellites. You need to sell pretty much everything you salvage from the first shoot-down, including alloys and elerium.

Bear in mind what you give up by doing this:
1. You will not be able to buy any equipment for your soldiers, so no medkits or vests
2. You will not have any alloys to build weapons or armor in the second month
3. You will have no money and will need to excavate and build a power generator before you can build anything else. This may prevent you from building more satellites in the second month because you will run out of time.

[Nick Naughty]

Think I am in my third month early part with recently obtained laser rifles and arc thrower. Also I have a large ufo flying over and there is nothing I can do which just raised the panic there by one notch. No steam but in the bottom left hand corner has left me with loads of generators filling my right side of my base and satellite uplinks filling the left side.

The good news is the money comes in big, the bad news is it may look impressive but it gets invested into more satellites resulting to zero and selling more salvage.

Its working but does requires juggling with power and uplinks.

[Pave Low]

I found that month one sat rush works great in Classic. You can make it through the first two months without really needing to tech up and the money you bring in is absurd. On Impossible, the odds are too stacked against your soldiers to sacrifice equipment. Month two you deal with floaters and Chrysallids. Month three you have Mutons. If you think you can get past these with assault rifles and nano-fiber weaves, you're delusional.

[Nick Naughty]

Slingshot part 2 had endless mutons dropping down, including dropping in the same place as existing mutons standed, not fun.

I found grenades to be very useful as there 3 damage wasn't enough to kill in impossible, but it did destroy the cover for kill shots, thus leaving fragments. It was also fun to nade the hidden unseen aliens from behind walls.

Omg 6 hp thin men, nasty and sneaky, with another omg there is six of them. I had to bait them with an assault with lightning reflexes to my other soldiers standing up high and on overwatch, it was a back and forth with the assault but it worked.