Why does satellites contribute to performance issues?

[Raptor34]

It's been widely held knowledge for awhile now that satellites cause lag, and that if you replace those satellites with a super satellite that covers the whole range, it causes less lag.
So why is that? Is it just map lag when you look at it because the data needs to be presented to you? Or is it something to do with what I heard years back that there are 2 separate layers of OOS, watched and unwatched? But even that wouldn't account for why less sats is better than more sats when covering the same area. Or is that difference overblown?

[The Q]

More satellites --> more objects --> more obects more cpu cylces --> more cpu cylces more performance impact.

[Raptor34]

So you're basically saying the concern is overblown? For context unlike other people I don't carpet everywhere with satellites, just mainly conflict zones and hostile sectors.
Ultimately I'm just not fully understanding why this concern even came up in the first place, or even how big it is considering you'll generally have more ships which do take more computation than satellites, which I'm not even sure what they actually do considering only BUC even acknowledges they exist.

[Falcrack]

So you're basically saying the concern is overblown? For context unlike other people I don't carpet everywhere with satellites, just mainly conflict zones and hostile sectors.
Ultimately I'm just not fully understanding why this concern even came up in the first place, or even how big it is considering you'll generally have more ships which do take more computation than satellites, which I'm not even sure what they actually do considering only BUC even acknowledges they exist.

I feel the concern about satellites is way overblown. I typically have hundreds of satellites in my game and don't see significant slowdown. I've done tests where I start the game with thousands of advanced satellites (19 in every known sector), and tested fps turning them on, off, and destroying them, both looking at map and not looking at map, and while there was some fps drop, it was like going from 60 fps to 55 fps. In other words, the tiny fps drop for satellites for myself is not a reason to not use them.

[Raptor34]

So you're basically saying the concern is overblown? For context unlike other people I don't carpet everywhere with satellites, just mainly conflict zones and hostile sectors.
Ultimately I'm just not fully understanding why this concern even came up in the first place, or even how big it is considering you'll generally have more ships which do take more computation than satellites, which I'm not even sure what they actually do considering only BUC even acknowledges they exist.

I feel the concern about satellites is way overblown. I typically have hundreds of satellites in my game and don't see significant slowdown. I've done tests where I start the game with thousands of advanced satellites (19 in every known sector), and tested fps turning them on, off, and destroying them, both looking at map and not looking at map, and while there was some fps drop, it was like going from 60 fps to 55 fps. In other words, the tiny fps drop for satellites for myself is not a reason to not use them.

5 fps would be more significant if you have less, then again I never checked.
Okay, so it is about what I thought then, I'll still pare down what I don't actually need but good to know it's overblown.

[Axeface]

It is overblown im my experience. Start a new game with all sectors with satellite coverage and then without. I think it only effects map performance at specific zoom levels, and of course, if you are flying around a sector and all objects are revealed on your gravidar, that might effect performance too, but that is local problem, not gamewide. Save game size is probably a little larger too because of thousands of extra objects.