Many threads have commented and game play has confirmed that the only way to find the locations of Nests, Lairs and Citadels is after an attack and defense of a haven.
It seems that the player should be able to scan for these locations and to take preemptive action instead of simply reacting to an attack.
Scavenge Locations close to sea and area scan of points close to sea also reveals them.
after you defeat your first pandoran citadel you get to research…the pandoran citadel…this allows all your scans to detect pandoran structures. (nest, lair and citadel)
however, if detected by the scan, the game will not label them “pandoran structure” they will pop up as a standard exploration site (circle with a question mark inside) so its useful in area’s you have already scanned (as suddenly a “new” site pops up, you will know it is a pandoran structure as you likely cleared or at least explored all the rest…you just don’t know what kind of structure it will be)
This research really didn’t do much for me (same with the NJ satellite links, that are supposed to do the same, no?)
I had several aircraft, constantly skimming the mist with scans and I only ever found 1. All the rest just suddenly appear and attack havens without warning
NJ satellite links don’t actually feed you any intel, they allow NJ havens to attack pandoran structures in their vicinity. causing an occasional free drop in the ODI…as they arn’t exactly quick in doing that. I havn’t actually see a tech by NJ that allows me to build these dishes in my own havens like I can with the synedrion mist repeller.
with the way pandoran structures work, it is actually quite hard to catch them with scans, past a certain stage in the game nests will no longer spawn. only lairs and the lair spawn can instantly attack a haven within its vicinity…if you do the defense you will find that lair…and it won’t be able to advance.
if you fail to get there in time you might catch it with a scan…on the condition there are no other lairs spawned on some far off continent in the mist, resulting in an instant “advancement” to a citadel for 1 of them…while the other one is abandoned (and the abandoned one might just be the one that just raided a settlement…resulting in nothing found on the subsequent scan)
point here is that pandoran structures need no real time to grow in order to attack that I noticed, and nests…just seem to vanish altogether by midgame. this doesn’t mean the tech doesn’t work as it does find structures…it just makes it a whole lot less effective in preventing strikes, something that I too attempted to use it for.