During this phase you can deploy any unloaded devices in the sectors that they occupy.  When a device is deployed, it is considered to be activated even if its effect is not registered until a later phase, and any empire in the same sector will register that activation on short-range scanners.  Empires in nearby sectors will not be able to see the device deployment directly, but they may be able to infer its use from its effects.  Except for warpdrones which can remain activate indefinitely, a deployed device is immediately destroyed.
 
A deployed device always fail to function if there is an operational starbase in the same sector.  The device is still considered to have been activated (and so will register on SRS) and is destroyed (again, except for warpdrones).