Yeah, I've thought about having to maintain a satellite network, too, but it is one of those things that seems like it would either be too powerful or too fiddly. Not sure.
Anyway, I'm not 100% absolutely ruling out the other level of fog of war in the first place. I'm not sure that it's warranted, but just graying out tiles is pretty straightforward to do and would look fine enough. My main gripe isn't a technical one, it's that I'm not sure it really adds anything for this game. I could be wrong, though -- the sense of the unknown really might be something that is helped by having that in a positive way, so we'll see.
Skyward Collapse definitely isn't something I consider 4X, by the way. It's a very experimental god game in my opinion. In a 4x you need a lot more direct control over things. Anyhow, thanks for the kind words.