Some feedback from me, as a new player.

[TheVampire100]

Is cloak booster not exactly for this scenario? As far as I know it prevents the decloaking from tachyons.
Of course this means to send at least 2 scouts on every planet you scout.

[Hearteater]

And this is why I said I'd like to see a reduction in how many tachyon posts there are.

There was a thread a while back about adding alternate types of anti-cloak protection to AI systems.  There were some interesting ideas, but I don't think anything ever really came from it.

Personally, I find scouting to be a reasonable part of the game.  Where's the fun if you never get to accidentally trip a Raid Engine because you didn't know it was there?

Yeah, I liked that thread . I think most of the issues raised were that the proposed Sentry alternatives didn't proved as perfect a coverage net as the current Sentries. I don't really think they need to though.

[Draco18s]

Is cloak booster not exactly for this scenario? As far as I know it prevents the decloaking from tachyons.
Of course this means to send at least 2 scouts on every planet you scout.

Or 8, if you want to hit the next system out.  2 to get into the first system, double that to get out of it, double that to get into the next.

[Misery]

Okay, what about the scout starship, then?

If that thing is sent out VS normal scouts, is it capable of getting further?  Or having some other effect?

I havent really messed with that thing too much, and really the whole "cloak booster" mechanic in general I hadnt known about till it was mentioned in this thread here, so I might be missing (or forgetting) something, and I cant remember just what that thing does VS normal scouts. 


Same question with higher levels of the normal scouts.  Does their individual cloaking become more effective, or is the main benefit the fact that it's then easier to have more scouts around in general (because of ship caps)?  Are they worth unlocking, or not so much?


The scouting has definitely been the aspect of the game to give me the most trouble at this point, in terms of getting a handle on how best to get going with it effectively in-game without absolutely having to raid every blasted tachyon sentinel beforehand (which seems to ruin the idea of stealthy scouting, haha). 

[Hearteater]

Cloaking is binary. You have cloaking or you don't. Tachyon removes cloaking temporarily, just like when a unit with cloaking fires it loses cloaking. Cloak Boosting only works on other cloaked units and makes their Cloak unbreakable by Tachyon beams. A unit that is cloak boosted cannot cloak boost anything (i.e., no chains). This means scouts form little "packs" of one scout boosting one or more others, and only the scout doing the boosting is vulnerable.

As Scouts increase in mark the number of cloak boosting beams they have goes up. Mark I have one beam, so half of all Scouts are immune to tachyon when they are sent out together. Note however that if enough firepower exists when the scouts pop out of a wormhole and the unprotected scouts get revealed, they can be killed before their cloak boosted brothers get out of range of the tachyon source (normally Tachyon Sentry) which means they too get revealed and possibly wiped out. Thankfully they have Radar Dampening so if they can get far enough out they can still be safe even if their cloak is broken. They just need to avoid getting near anything for the few seconds required to recloak.

But at Mark II they each have two beams. This means scouts end up in packs of 3, with two being immune, so you normally lose only 1/3rd your scouts per wormhole. In addition, Scout IIs are faster so they are less likely to get caught still within tachyon range. Then add the increased ship cap and better radar dampening and Scout IIs are an excellent unlock. Scout IIIs are even more amazing because they get better in every way: cloak boosts, speed, radar dampening, and ship cap.

The Scout Starship has a ton of Cloak Boosting (Mark I has 20!). This means it gets to carry tons of Scouts through wormholes with none of them getting revealed. Its other big advantage is its high health lets it stay alive under fire when its cloak is busted, which keeps it boosting the little scouts around it. So the best way to think of the Scout Starship is as a Scout Escort. It carries its little scouts deep into enemy territory were they can stay and hang out so you have eyes everywhere. The energy cost of the Scout Starship is too high to leave it deep in enemy space though. Try and bring it back once all your fleet scouts are deployed as pickets. I'll let you experiment with Scout Starships and Cloaking Starships and the fun that can be had there.

WARNING: Scouts cost a fair amount of energy. Be aware especially in the early game.

* Some units (Spire Scout and Scout IV) have permanent cloak, which cannot be broken by Tachyon, almost as if they were cloak boosting themselves.

[TheVampire100]

Is cloak booster not exactly for this scenario? As far as I know it prevents the decloaking from tachyons.
Of course this means to send at least 2 scouts on every planet you scout.

Or 8, if you want to hit the next system out.  2 to get into the first system, double that to get out of it, double that to get into the next.

Right, I forgot about that, but I always send my ful scout army out and let them simple rebuild before I send them to the next system.
What makes this also a little annoying is the fact that the scout cap is a little low. It dies not seem so at the first sight but when you have to double your scout team for every following system that doesn't belongs to you, well...
Yeah, I see now why people want the tachyon sentinel get a rarer spawn rate.

On another side note: Why not just give scouts tachyon immunity?

[Hearteater]

The whole purpose of Tachyon Sentries is to make scouting non-trivial. If Scouts were immune to tachyon beams then at the beginning of the game you'd have the entire map scouted with one scout. There is a lobby option to make the map visible from the start if you don't like the scouting system.

[TheVampire100]

Guess that's true.