How to know what difficulty to pick?

[x4000]

Very true -- and I was more continuing my friendly debate with Suzera than anything, though your post did spark it.  I just didn't want people to get the wrong idea and think I was suggesting that in any way they should pursue suboptimal strategies, that's all.

[Vinraith]

Any new player would be doing themselves a huge disservice by doing this. Removing the scouting component from the game removes the need to make decisions with less that complete information, removes the challenge of deep scouting, and removes the fun of exploring the map.

I usually find the map relatively trivial to scout out. It just takes some time and mindless clicking after you spend 3k knowledge. If you know roughly how the map generates, you can probably narrow down to 3 or 4 places where the AI HWs are as well without scouting. Newbies already have plenty of other stuff to figure out the first few games that they don't need a relatively trivial and mindless puzzle they have to guess the correct answer to to win. We can disagree on how hard it is to send a ship cap of mk 3 scouts around in a bundle for half an hour, but I think that is rather boring right now and only serves to needlessly pad time against the more interesting parts of the game that is determining which planets to take when and why.

I'd argue it's a basic skill of the game, and scouting can require any number of interesting strategies. More than that, though, what you can scout at a given time fundamentally impacts your strategy at that point in the game. You can't scout everything out of the gate, so you have to make decisions with limited information for awhile. This is even more the case if you play with an unrevealed map, so that you can't play the "I recognize where the AI will put its homeworlds" game. Decision making with limited information until taking the knowledge cost, time cost, and resource costs to get a complete picture (and in most cases taking a few worlds which allow deeper scouting) is one of the most interesting elements of the game, IMO.

[Suzera]

You can't scout everything out of the gate

You can get pretty close at least. You certainly start with enough knowledge to get mk 3 scouts. After that it's mostly just a matter of time even if you don't take planets with the aim of furthering scouting unless you're on a snake map or something like that. Since there's usually tachyon guardians everywhere, sending a full ship cap of mk 3 scouts out all together over and over again until it's all done really is the way to go if you want to get everything (or at least nearly everything) scouted. Splitting them up before you're done with your initial scout run just means they can't get as far. I would like to hear what interesting strategy is better than sending out a full ship cap of mk 3 scouts all together every time. Just for this post I started up a game and sent a ship cap of mk 3 scouts out and they made it through 17 hops on their first try, and this is not abnormal in my experience back when I used to scout. That will scout the vast majority of the map. Their resource cost is pretty trivial. You can just sit around and do nothing but build scouts for half an hour so resources aren't really an issue anyway. If you're playing without full visibility, it's probably even best to stop doing anything but build scouts for that half an hour until you have scouted almost the entire map so fleet and overall huge chunks of game time aren't wasted. I'd much rather just cut out that inactive time consuming middle step where I am doing something else entirely while waiting for AI War to be ready, so I just leave it full visibility.

If one of the AI is counterspy it's a little different, but that's one AI type out of many, and if there is not a counterspy AI up, there's really not a reason to just leave it full visibility.

This is aside from the fact that as soon as you get an advanced factory the entire map is scouted, if there's a corner that was hard to reach with mk 3 scouts.

[Vinraith]

You can't scout everything out of the gate

You can get pretty close at least.

Maybe you can now, I certainly historically haven't. If that's true at this point, it's reason to call for mark III scouts to be nerfed.

You certainly start with enough knowledge to get mk 3 scouts.

Yes, but it's not a good use of it at that point. Still, even if you buy mk 3 scouts, on a normal-sized map large sections should be inaccessible without, at a minimum, transport jumping and similar tricks.

I would like to hear what interesting strategy is better than sending out a full ship cap of mk 3 scouts all together every time.

As mentioned, that shouldn't get you everywhere, it should be necessary to use transports and the like to facillitate deeper scouting. However, when I talk about interesting strategies, I'm not talking about the scouts, I'm talking about having to make large-scale strategic decisions with less-than-complete information in the immediate term.

Just for this post I started up a game and sent a ship cap of mk 3 scouts out and they made it through 17 hops on their first try, and this is not abnormal in my experience back when I used to scout.

I've literally never seen them get that far. Were they buffed recently? Again, all this tells me is that they need rebalancing.

This is aside from the fact that as soon as you get an advanced factory the entire map is scouted, if there's a corner that was hard to reach with mk 3 scouts.

Incredibly slowly, yes. This is one of several reasons getting a mark IV factory is a significant early game goal.

[Suzera]

Yes a ship cap of mk 3 scouts routinely gets that far and I don't think the mk 4 scout moves that particularly slow. I didn't think about transports, but that's an extra 3 systems to their reach. 3k knowledge near the start of the game (maybe after taking 2-4 planets) is certainly worth saving hours of gametime later and a hundred AIP later. In my experience, very small sections end up inaccessible to scouts even at game-start unless you're on a snake map, have a fairly linear seed or play 120 planets.

Also, it seems very apparent to me that tricks like using transports aren't really necessary when you can scout out 17 hops by just building a ship cap of mk 3 scouts. Maybe a little convenient to get the last few systems, but hardly necessary.

[Vinraith]

Yup, time for a scout 3 nerf if that's what's going on. If they're so powerful they've rendered scouting meaningless, the problem is with them, not with the scouting mechanic. I thought scouting in my current game was going abnormally well, I thought I was just getting lucky.

[Suzera]

Actually, scouting is really meaningful. The scouting ships are just very very worth the cost right now to the point of it almost being a no brainer and there not being much a different between having it off or on. If people are already having trouble scouting though, it would be a shame if it was rendered near impossible for many people just because I'm doing it this specific way.

[Vinraith]

"Meaningless" is the wrong word there, I mean to say they render scouting "trivial."  Mantis ticket opened:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2097

[Suzera]

I could really go either way on this. Have at it though!

[Echo35]

I thought I was just getting lucky.

I managed to get a Mk. II scout onto a Mk. III planet with a Counter Spy. I'm positive it's a bug, but it looks rather hilarious regardless.

And before you ask, that Scout has been there for a good hour or two.

[Sunshine!]

IIRC, the instakill with Counterspy only happens IF the scout is detected, and then the Counterspy shot actually HITS the scout before it recloaks. And the counterspy only has 1 shot every 2 seconds or so, so it's not really all that dangerous.

Also, and I posted on Mantis, but I often don't even unlock mk2 scouts unless I'm having real problems scouting certain areas (this even applies to 120 planet maps with lots of connections, like Realistic/Hubs).  I rarely end up unlocking mk3, and I've never needed (or even used) mk4.

I don't think mk3 scouts themselves need a nerf given that you're supposed to be able to scout most of the map with them (otherwise what's the point?), but if there are going to be changes, here's some suggestions:

1.  Reverse the ship-cap progression.  Most ships lose ship cap as mk level goes up, but scouts are opposite, where you get very few mk1 scouts and a lot of mk3 scouts.  If you were given a lot of mk1 scouts (maybe make the progression 20/15/10 instead of 10/20/30), and remove cloaking booster from mk1 scouts to make deep scouting with them much more difficult (so they end up being planetary sentries for the most part).

2.  Scouts suffer from attrition outside supply like transports, with varying percentages.  Mk1 suffer highest attrition, maybe the same 35% as transports, mk2 down to 20%, and mk3 down to 10%.  Mk4 does not suffer.  That gives each of the marks set ranges for how far they actually can go, and makes long-range scouting (with a reach of most of the galaxy) still possible with mk3 scouts, but makes it more difficult since they also die easier the farther out they get.

[x4000]

Wow this thread is all over the place.

Regarding the counterspy, it should hit them even when cloaked.  However, the radar dampening range means they are not hit unless they are within range of that.  It's already in mantis to make counterspies ignore radar dampening, I just haven't  gotten to it yet!

[Red Spot]

I just reply where I ended reading yesterday ..  

One of the big things I actually do that makes a huge difference that I can imagine most people not doing is shift-queueing direct attack orders against every munitions booster while paused for every fight. Really huge difference, probably more than casual people want to do despite the fact that it means a longer and harder game for them.

Now why would you want to do that? I just do it once and make it the preffered target after which I may switch to other boosters after which its clean-up time

Any new player would be doing themselves a huge disservice by doing this. Removing the scouting component from the game removes the need to make decisions with less that complete information, removes the challenge of deep scouting, and removes the fun of exploring the map.

I usually find the map relatively trivial to scout out. It just takes some time and mindless clicking after you spend 3k knowledge. If you know roughly how the map generates, you can probably narrow down to 3 or 4 places where the AI HWs are as well without scouting. Newbies already have plenty of other stuff to figure out the first few games that they don't need a relatively trivial and mindless puzzle they have to guess the correct answer to to win. We can disagree on how hard it is to send a ship cap of mk 3 scouts around in a bundle for half an hour, but I think that is rather boring right now and only serves to needlessly pad time against the more interesting parts of the game that is determining which planets to take when and why.

I would still call myself a newb/noob in this game, though my experiance with playing other games on higher levels makes it fairly easy to pick this game up. (I'm not a total noob, but also not experianced with this game.) I can often pretty much determine where I will find the AI-planets, I however do still very much apreciate the scouting part of the game. I simply love to see how you keep changing your strat untill you have uncovered enough/all or just find the need to expand a bit already. After the initial stage there is no more 'altering strat on the move' for me, its just properly plan and execute that plan. (But thats basicly what I do for a job, fun how you take your work home with you ...mmhh

Anybody can play games.  In fact, nowadays it seems like companies intentionally design games for the casual, instant-gratification loving masses.  Most of these people have no concept of improving or becoming skillful at the game, they just want to have fun and that's all.

These companies simply have as main goal: to make money
or: to make more money

They dont care about you and 2 others that want a game that requires some though, they care about the 20million people that want the same game they already own, cause it comes with some new graphics, for ~€40,-.

You can't scout everything out of the gate, so you have to make decisions with limited information for awhile.

Not true, if you care enough to just sit still for long enough. As it is you start with 3K research points to unlock the Mk3 scouts, and scouts cost diddly, as well as transports. On an 80 map game I can scout the entire map from my starting planet, at least on X and basic maps I can.

[Vinraith]

You can't scout everything out of the gate, so you have to make decisions with limited information for awhile.

Not true, if you care enough to just sit still for long enough. As it is you start with 3K research points to unlock the Mk3 scouts, and scouts cost diddly, as well as transports. On an 80 map game I can scout the entire map from my starting planet, at least on X and basic maps I can.

Yup, which is why mark 3 scouts need a big fat nerf. What you're describing shouldn't be possible, or what's the point of playing on an unrevealed map?

[Red Spot]

Cause it is a choice you have to make early on in the game. Do you waste time and very very precious R-points on something as trivial as scouts and scouting? Or do you expand relativly uninformed?
If I do make the choice to get mk3 scouts and waste that many R-points on them, they'd beter be good ...