How to build scouts

[bssybeep]

Just purchased this game and having a good time.  But I'm missing something, the tutorials put an emphasis on scouting in the early game but for the life of me I can't figure out how to build more scouts.  It's not the Space Dock, Starship Constructor or Orbital Command Station.  I checked the wiki and manual.

I'm sure it's something simple I'm missing.  Any help appreciated.

Thanks

[x4000]

Hey there, thanks for your support of the game, and welcome to the forums!  The space docks actually build scouts, it's the first column on the left.  If you've turned off cloaking, which scouts all have, then that could be why you aren't seeing them.  Hope that helps!

[bssybeep]

Thanks for the reply.  Yes I did turn off cloaking, which explains why I can't find the scout build order.  In this situation, would I utilize fighters for scouting?

[Pandemic]

You could, but only certain ships gain the Scout Intel, like any mark Scout, Scout Starships, or Eyebots. They tell you what's there (ADV Research / Factories), and how many ships, and stuff like that.

So you could, but actual Scout type ships are helpful .


-Pandemic

[x4000]

In that situation, you really can't do scouting per se -- you can't get data for the intel summary, or ship counts, or enemy data in the planetary summary sidebar.  The only ships that have that are Eyebots, scouts, and scout starships, so that means you'd be playing blind.  I may need to look at adding a non-cloaking scout, now that you mention it.  Added that to my list for upcoming free DLC, thanks for bringing it up:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,568.0.html

In the meantime, you may want to play with cloaking on, because it's pretty hard to play without scout intel!

[bssybeep]

cool, in that case a non-cloaking scout would be helpful    (necessary).

I like your work on the AI ( as I'm a strickly solo player) and the fact you have no DRM.  Out of principle I no longer buy any games with intrusive DRM.

[x4000]

cool, in that case a non-cloaking scout would be helpful    (necessary).

Definitely.  Just never came up before now since I gave cloaking to all the scouts a couple of releases ago.

I like your work on the AI ( as I'm a strickly solo player) and the fact you have no DRM.  Out of principle I no longer buy any games with intrusive DRM.

Thanks!  I've been getting a lot of great reactions to the AI, and I'm totally with you on the DRM -- I've written a couple of blog articles and other posts about my feelings on it (basically: DRM stinks).

[dumpsterKEEPER]

cool, in that case a non-cloaking scout would be helpful    (necessary).

Definitely.  Just never came up before now since I gave cloaking to all the scouts a couple of releases ago.

Actually, that reminds me about something I noticed when recently playing through the tutorial campaign. On several occasions the tutorial makes a significant point about needing to send groups of scouts to explore specific planets but because of the scout cloaking (which I'm assuming was added since the tutorial was written) your scouts can essentially wander freely through the enemy worlds. I would send mine out in pairs instead of the (IIRC) 5+ the tutorial text recommended and I don't recall them ever being attacked or destroyed.

I don't know that it's a problem per se, it just threw me off a bit until I remembered reading about the cloaking when skimming the release notes, and I thought it might confuse others as well. It might be helpful to make the scouting a bit more difficult in the tutorial, as in my (limited) experience, scouting in a typical campaign is vastly different than in the tutorial with trying to keep scouts alive. Either way though, the tutorial at least pointed me in the right direction of what I needed to do in a real game, even if it wasn't strictly necessary for the tutorial.

[x4000]

Actually, that reminds me about something I noticed when recently playing through the tutorial campaign.

Wow, those are great points -- I definitely do need to add some tachyon emitters in that tutorial, plus other stuff to make the scouting more realistic with the real game.  I totally forgot about the tutorial aspect when the scouting was updated so much.  I've added this to my short-term list, thanks!  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,571.0.html