How does scouting feel in 4.054?

[Vinraith]

Identical setup to earlier tests but under 4.055, cumulative results (.053/.054/.055):

Path 1: III's 9/7/7, II's 4/4/4, I's 3/3/3
Path 2: III's 6/6/6, II's 4/4/4, I's 2/2/3
Path 3: III's 8/7/5, II's 4/4/4, I's 3/3/3
Path 4: III's 10/7/5
Path 5: III's 10/8/6

Averages: III's 8.6/7/5.8,  II's 4/4/4, I's 2.7/2.7/3

I'm assuming that I result is simply an outlier. The gist is that the changes from .053 have had little effect on Mk. I and II scouting, but have dropped Mk. III efficiency by around 38%. Keep in mind all these tests are from a homeworld, too, so the first world is "free" in that it doesn't have a tachyon guardian.

[Wingsofdomain]

'build cap of scouts, aim them at, shoot'

That's what I do with them. I pick a planet, shoot them all there, if at least one Scout makes it I feel as though my mission is accomplished. Whatever got fragged simply rebuilds at home and I can repeat the process until I have a few dozen planets giving me constant intel.

Yeah me too. Howver the auto explore split up my fleet of scouts into pairs. They didn't make it through the first enemy planet, and I already had scouts there xD.

[m_hermann]

I like auto-explore for the early game when you are not dealing with tachion emitters on every planet and shipcaps there are still around 50 ships. After that it becomes more: 'build cap of scouts, aim them at, shoot', which is easy enough to do if you dont forget to do it

Scouts die, with or without auto-explore.

Every planet that I explore has tachyon guardians on every worm hole. Can't get out more than 2 systems with a full cap.

[Vinraith]

One more, in light of the new nerfs, already put it on Mantis:

Identical setup to earlier tests but under 4.057, cumulative results (.053/.054/.055/.057):

Path 1: III's 9/7/7/5, II's 4/4/4/4, I's 3/3/3/3
Path 2: III's 6/6/6/5, II's 4/4/4/4, I's 2/2/3/2
Path 3: III's 8/7/5/5, II's 4/4/4/4, I's 3/3/3/2
Path 4: III's 10/7/5/4
Path 5: III's 10/8/6/5

Averages: III's 8.6/7/5.8/4.8, II's 4/4/4/4, I's 2.7/2.7/3/2.7

Again, keep in mind all these tests are from a homeworld, so the first world is "free" in that it doesn't have a tachyon guardian. By the standards I've been using we've now seen a 44% drop in Mark III performance since 4.053, but if we account for that free world it's really more like 50%.

I was actually surprised to see another scout nerf in .056, I kind of thought you already had it about right in the last patch, maybe even towards the harsher end of the "good" range.

[BigJake]

I've run something much like Vinraith's experiment; 120 planets, 2 vanilla diff 7 AIs and no factions or plots.

I sent a cap of scouts down each of 4 lanes, 4 times each.

		Mark I		Mark II		Mark III
Route 1		4/4/4/4		7/6/5/7		12/11/12/13
Route 2		4/4/5/4		5/7/5/7		12/14/11/12
Route 3		3/3/4/4		7/6/8/7		16/14/21/17
Route 4		6/5/5/4		11/7/10/9		17/21/20/18
Averages		4.19		7.13		15.06
Avg (w/o R4)		3.92		6.42		13.75

These aren't cumulative like Vinraith's, each number separated by a slash is a separate iteration of the route and not previous versions.  Route 4 seemed a bit of an outlier so I averaged both with and without it.

I was too lazy to do enough iterations to draw any real conclusions but I think I'm liking the current balance. 

[Vinraith]

I've run something much like Vinraith's experiment; 120 planets, 2 vanilla diff 7 AIs and no factions or plots.

I sent a cap of scouts down each of 4 lanes, 4 times each.

		Mark I		Mark II		Mark III
Route 1		4/4/4/4		7/6/5/7		12/11/12/13
Route 2		4/4/5/4		5/7/5/7		12/14/11/12
Route 3		3/3/4/4		7/6/8/7		16/14/21/17
Route 4		6/5/5/4		11/7/10/9		17/21/20/18

These aren't cumulative like Vinraith's, each number separated by a slash is a separate iteration of the route and not previous versions.

I was too lazy to do enough iterations to draw any real conclusions but I think I'm liking the current balance.

Mine aren't cumulative. You managed to get a cap of mark III scouts through 18 planets under .057? 

[BigJake]

I meant that I didn't have data from any of the previous versions.  And yea, they seemed to be getting really far afield.  I'd really like to do it again on another map or two tonight, but I need to find the motivation

[Vinraith]

I meant that I didn't have data from any of the previous versions.  And yea, they seemed to be getting really far afield.  I'd really like to do it again on another map or two tonight, but I need to find the motivation

We're talking about 30 mark III scouts, right? Just sent down a path, no management, no transports? In my trials, on the current version, I could never get further than 5 jumps. I can't fathom what would cause a discrepancy that massive.

[BigJake]

I meant that I didn't have data from any of the previous versions.  And yea, they seemed to be getting really far afield.  I'd really like to do it again on another map or two tonight, but I need to find the motivation

We're talking about 30 mark III scouts, right? In my trials, on the current version, I could never get further than 5 jumps. I can't fathom what would cause a discrepancy that massive.

The discrepancy between the results you just posted and the game I had started tonight is what inspired me to recreate your experiment in the first place.  I really wish I had data from previous versions like you but I'm definitely going to go back and run it again on at least 2 more maps.

[BigJake]

Same experiment, 2 more maps.  Again 120 world, 2 vanilla diff 7 AIs, no factions or plots and from the homeworld(forgot to mention that.)  These two maps were much closer to your numbers.  I have no idea what was going on in that first one.

Map #2

		Mark I		Mark II		Mark III
Route 11		3/3/4/3		6/7/7/7		10/11/10/11
Route 2		4/4/4/4		7/6/7/6		13/11/14/11
Route 3		4/3/4/5		7/8/5/6		11/9/8/10
Route 4		4/5/6/4		8/6/6/5		11/9/11/12
Averages		4		6.5		10.75

Map #3

		Mark I		Mark II		Mark III
Route 1		5/5/5/5		9/10/6/7		12/13/15/13
Route 2		4/4/4/4		8/7/7/7		9/11/10/9
Route 3		4/5/6/5		7/8/7/7		172/12/9/10
Route 4		4/5/4/4		8/7/8/8		11/13/13/12
Averages		4.56		7.56		11.47

¹Route 1 ended up including an AI homeworld on the 8th jump.
²This outlier was not included in the average.

[Vinraith]

"Much closer" only insofar as you're a factor of two higher, rather than a factor of three. I really don't understand what's going on here.

Wait a minute, two questions: What game speed do you play on, and what ship cap? All my tests are on epic speed and normal caps. I'm starting to suspect that something's not scaling right.

[BigJake]

That's it, it had completely slipped my mind.  Blitz speed and normal caps.  Sorry for that confusion.

[Vinraith]

That's it, it had completely slipped my mind.  Blitz speed and normal caps.  Sorry for that confusion.

So scout range isn't scaling properly to game speed. That's a big deal, actually. Would you mind copying your testing stuff over to this Mantis thread: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2097

[BigJake]

No problem, done.   

[x4000]

Thanks for all the testing and thoughts!  I'll respond more on that mantis thread this week, but that's definitely something that needs to be addressed.  Thanks for that!