Poll follow-up: the future of the Spirecraft Scout

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, "Spirecraft Scout" came in third in the Player-side nerf poll.

I'm thinking to remove the current planet-mark-based attrition and give it a transport-like self-attrition of 50/34/25/20/17% when hopping outside supply.  That basically constrains how far you can get with one as opposed to the current situation where you can basically reveal the entire map with a single unit.


Thoughts?

[chemical_art]

Sounds good, a side benefit is that it improves its other role of acting as a picket which is currently underused.

[keith.lamothe]

Sounds good, a side benefit is that it improves its other role of acting as a picket which is currently underused.

True, that's a good point, and gives some reason to build more than just a single spirecraft scout.

[Hearteater]

I think I'd prefer: 49%/33%/24%/19%/16% which translates to 2/3/4/5/6 hops before dying, with one extra hop available if you don't mind them dying.  In particular though, with these numbers the scout will always have extremely low health on its last hop before dying, which makes it very obvious if you go one more system you die.  Compare to 50% for Mark I and after one hop you have half your health, and so on a quick glance you might think you'll surive another hop.  With these alternate numbers you have 1%/1%/4%/5%/4% health left before the fatal hop.

[Hearteater]

Another thought that would be pretty cool: what if we added a Spirecraft Scout Shard that is like a Spirecraft Scout but can't travel through worm holes.  You can't make SC Scout Shards yourself, but a Spirecraft Scout drops when in each AI system it enters.  This lets you set up scouts in whatever path the Scout follows.  For an expendable resource, that actually seems interesting and fair, and the releasing of a Scout Shard could be a fluff justification for the health lose at eat hop.

[keith.lamothe]

I think I'd prefer: 49%/33%/24%/19%/16% which translates to 2/3/4/5/6 hops before dying, with one extra hop available if you don't mind them dying.  In particular though, with these numbers the scout will always have extremely low health on its last hop before dying, which makes it very obvious if you go one more system you die.  Compare to 50% for Mark I and after one hop you have half your health, and so on a quick glance you might think you'll surive another hop.  With these alternate numbers you have 1%/1%/4%/5%/4% health left before the fatal hop.

Having the "if you hop again, you die" thing be clear is a good point, but I think with what you're suggesting people would still pass "the point of no return" before the health bar would get "gonna die" obvious: sure, you know your mkIs going to die if you go for a 3rd hop after your second, but you're probably already so far out from your supply that the only "not die" option is to just stay put.

That said, that's an improvement, and people will have to learn to plan ahead if they want a return trip anyway.

Another thought that would be pretty cool: what if we added a Spirecraft Scout Shard that is like a Spirecraft Scout but can't travel through worm holes.  You can't make SC Scout Shards yourself, but a Spirecraft Scout drops when in each AI system it enters.  This lets you set up scouts in whatever path the Scout follows.  For an expendable resource, that actually seems interesting and fair, and the releasing of a Scout Shard could be a fluff justification for the health lose at eat hop.

Hmm, that would be interesting, but seems like it would make picketing very easy indeed.  I'm thinking "too easy".  But perhaps since it is built using irreplaceable resources, etc...

[Hearteater]

Yeah, with the Shard version, picketing gets easier, but as you pointed out the resource is limited.  Also, I'd probably go back to your % health values (which reduce the number of hops by 1) since you always want them to die anyway.  So a Mark V nets you 6 pickets.  Note though that if you are trying to scout a lot of space, you will double-up pickets on AI systems if your Scouts need to travel the same path, so you actually get diminishing returns for doing massive scouting, but really good returns for tactically scouting small branches.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, put a change in for these.  Didn't do the drop-off shards yet as I'm really short on time, but may do that another time.

[Bognor]

Sounds good, a side benefit is that it improves its other role of acting as a picket which is currently underused.

But note that a Spirecraft Scout puts the world it's on and all adjacent worlds on alert!  Which may or may not be an advantage...

[ZaneWolfe]

But note that a Spirecraft Scout puts the world it's on and all adjacent worlds on alert!  Which may or may not be an advantage...

This ^ is a very good point. Why does it do that? I thought the rule was that ships without any kind of weapon, or defense like a projected shield, would NOT cause planets to go on alert.

[Hearteater]

It very rarely used to have uses, mainly for putting a corner of the galaxy on alert to eat reinforcements.  But I'm hoping that Keith decides to, and has time to, do the shard version of the Scout.  That would be much more fun.  Then Shards wouldn't alert, but Scouts still could although it would rarely matter since you'd often be suiciding them for the shards.