What is the actual difference between satellites and nav beacons?

[Ziron]

^

[directorguy7]

I think Satellites give you info about an entire sector (like prices?) and Nav Beacons are more about marking a SPECEFIC point so you can return to it, like a rift in space that you can travel through but is hard to see unless you are right on top of it.

i think this is correct. Have not played the game much.

[Ziron]

during the story you place a nav beacon down to know WHERE a tear in space is. But it does not seem to apply anything else. i need to test this more...

[Ziron]

i also want to know if it's safe(can the game handle it) to place tons of these things all over the place.

[lance10ca]

I've been putting sats all over the stations I find. Having the auto's and I know where the best prices are is a good thing.

[Vandragorax]

You can see nav beacons blinking with a blue flash in-game. Satellites don't flash or anything. But really, it's possible to just use satellites as a nav beacon if you want to, just select it on the map and press T to target then you can see where it is anyway.

By the way, it's pointless to put satellites everywhere covering all stations just to get trade deals. You can buy a trade contract with any faction leader for 10mil credits which gives you full access to all that factions station trade deals forever, no more timeouts and no visual coverage needed.

[SpiralRazor]

Originally posted by Vandragorax:

You can see nav beacons blinking with a blue flash in-game. Satellites don't flash or anything. But really, it's possible to just use satellites as a nav beacon if you want to, just select it on the map and press T to target then you can see where it is anyway.

By the way, it's pointless to put satellites everywhere covering all stations just to get trade deals. You can buy a trade contract with any faction leader for 10mil credits which gives you full access to all that factions station trade deals forever, no more timeouts and no visual coverage needed.

Its not pointless lol......

A) that contract cost around 16 million per faction. Teladis is the most expense. Also, some factions are much easier to farm rep with then others...My ministry faction is still at 9, antigone is at 8, while some others are over 20 already.

B) it only gives you info on that faction.

I have a web of satellites up covering all the stations i was likely to trade with.

[Ziron]

Ya i would say that's not pointless either that's a massive amount of money lol

[ImHelping]

The use of nav beacons over satellites is the visual pop on the map. When zoomed out nav beacon spots are very distinct.

But, you can't rename them. So ♥♥♥♥ everything.

"...Wait. Was this a data cache of a warp... okay now that i'm here, it's warp... Where did this nav beacon marked warp go again?"

It defeats the purpose of placing a nav marker, when you still have to bust out a pen and paper anyways.

[Drakan]

You can absolutely rename Nav Beacons.

Click Nav Beacon -> Info Panel (map view) -> Click the "Name" field (under 'General Information'). Rename the beacon to whatever you wish, press enter. Enjoy. Ships / Etc can also be renamed in this similar way.

In short

NAV Beacons are simply used to mark points of interest, whereas Satelites are used for relaying information (prices, traffic, etc). I'm sure there is a performance hit from setting up too many satellites, whereas a nav beacon is a static marker.

Originally posted by ImHelping:

The use of nav beacons over satellites is the visual pop on the map. When zoomed out nav beacon spots are very distinct.

But, you can't rename them. So ♥♥♥♥ everything.

"...Wait. Was this a data cache of a warp... okay now that i'm here, it's warp... Where did this nav beacon marked warp go again?"

It defeats the purpose of placing a nav marker, when you still have to bust out a pen and paper anyways.

[Skala]

Nav beacons don't show information but are about 25% the cost of satellites.

[Ziron]

Originally posted by Drakan:

You can absolutely rename Nav Beacons.

Click Nav Beacon -> Info Panel (map view) -> Click the "Name" field (under 'General Information'). Rename the beacon to whatever you wish, press enter. Enjoy. Ships / Etc can also be renamed in this similar way.

In short

NAV Beacons are simply used to mark points of interest, whereas Satelites are used for relaying information (prices, traffic, etc). I'm sure there is a performance hit from setting up too many satellites, whereas a nav beacon is a static marker.

Originally posted by ImHelping:

The use of nav beacons over satellites is the visual pop on the map. When zoomed out nav beacon spots are very distinct.

But, you can't rename them. So ♥♥♥♥ everything.

"...Wait. Was this a data cache of a warp... okay now that i'm here, it's warp... Where did this nav beacon marked warp go again?"

It defeats the purpose of placing a nav marker, when you still have to bust out a pen and paper anyways.

You pretty much pointed out all the information i wanted to know. THANKS!