| How much economy are pen scanners worth? |
Thu, 22 February 2007 14:57  |
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 velvetthroat57 |
 | Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 111
Registered: June 2005 | |
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I am working on a race design and debating whether to take NAS or not. From the testbed perspective, it will always be better to take NAS (excepting PP) since it gives additional RW points to spend on the econ settings.
That got me to wondering what people think is a reasonable tradeoff between improved economy and pen scanners? Would you give up pen scans for a 5% larger economy? 10%? 20%?
In my particular case, taking NAS and putting all the points into widening habs gives me three extra clicks or six more points of habitability. That results in yellows coming online a couple of turns faster as well as making all the greens marginally greener. I am still testing it but I would say it will be 10% more econ by 2450 for this race.
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| Re: How much economy are pen scanners worth? |
Sat, 03 March 2007 11:54  |
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| velvetthroat57 |
| Master Chief Petty Officer |
Messages: 111
Registered: June 2005 | |
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| Marduk wrote on Sat, 03 March 2007 11:16 |
In my race designs, the point cost is almost always a non-issue.
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I don't know about that. As the sole LRT it is 95 RW points. Even with all the LRTs I take, it is usually 80 points. That is pretty big. You can make real changes for that amount. Either extra economy, mines, research, or luxury LRTs like UR or MA.
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I make my decision based on universe settings and how well my race can afford to do without pen-scanners.
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Agreed.
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As VonKreedon says, you can substitute for them to a degree by using chaff. And if you take NAS there is always a chance you can find someone to trade with and get pen-scans that way.
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I have found I can use chaff to see the neighboring worlds well enough but it is virtually impossible to see any farther once aggression has started and the enemy sweeps out his space. That results in a great deal of unknown as to what kind of armada is coming to the front lines and makes it much more of a gamble on any attack.
Still, even with pen scans, it is always a gamble to attack a world with a gate and that has to be done in every game anyway.
Beyond that, besides another player, the MT gives I think 3 parts that include scanning, so there is always a chance to pick it up late game (assuming random events).
But the question I asked is how much economy would you give up for pen scans?
The race I am working on now will definitely give up 3% of its max economy (and a mine) if it doesn't take NAS and the ramp up to the max should be marginally slower although I haven't been able to nail that down. One of my two tests actually had the nonNAS race growing faster due to a good planet draw. That suggests the ramp up may not be that much worse at least and I can live with 3% less econ.
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| Re: How much economy are pen scanners worth? |
Tue, 06 March 2007 01:14 |
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| Marduk |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH | |
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| velvetthroat57 wrote on Sat, 03 March 2007 11:54 |
| Marduk wrote on Sat, 03 March 2007 11:16 |
In my race designs, the point cost is almost always a non-issue.
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I don't know about that. As the sole LRT it is 95 RW points. Even with all the LRTs I take, it is usually 80 points. That is pretty big. You can make real changes for that amount. Either extra economy, mines, research, or luxury LRTs like UR or MA.
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MA isn't a luxury, it is a waste. But the RW benefit for NAS might as well be 0 if you could get to Elect 7 fairly soon without it. Pen-scanning makes exploration very much cheaper and faster and I find that this normally is a net gain when I have Elect normal. If my habitat luck supports it, I always seem to get a couple of extra decent planets (because I get to them first) when I have pen-scans for the secondary exploration wave. That's a substantial gain in economy that more than offset the 'cost' of not taking NAS. Occasionally I just haven't had habitable systems to find, and then it hurts. But if that happens you are probably out of luck anyway.
In The End, my 1-in-11 race found 3 habitable systems out of the first 60 scanned; and one of those was yellow, not green. The slight economy boost I could have had by taking NAS wouldn't have made any real difference, but having pen scans later helped out quite a bit. Not that I'll win because of them or anything, but I'll do some damage on the way down.
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As VonKreedon says, you can substitute for them to a degree by using chaff.
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I have found I can use chaff to see the neighboring worlds well enough but it is virtually impossible to see any farther once aggression has started and the enemy sweeps out his space. That results in a great deal of unknown as to what kind of armada is coming to the front lines and makes it much more of a gamble on any attack.
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Which is why I said 'to a degree'. You can get the most important bits, though. A trick I use to see better is to sneak an overcloaker or three in with some chaff, so I have a hidden 'base' to launch from. Just be sure you move it around, or the trajectories of any surviving chaff will point out the source. I tend to keep it moving slowly deeper into enemy space and don't launch every year. I'll follow them up with another wave or two, and when the lead elements run out of chaff to cloak (assuming they've survived that long) I bring them back for more.
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But the question I asked is how much economy would you give up for pen scans?
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As I said before, if you have pen scanners soon enough I don't think you are giving up economy. In a dense or packed universe, I would not give up pen scans unless it was a team game and I knew my teammate would have them. In a sparse universe and with expensive electronics tech, I would pretty much always take NAS to help pay for better mobility (cheaper prop tech, IFE, ISB) and get my economic boost from faster expansion. I'll need that better mobility for fighting anyway.
Under more moderate conditions (medium density, normal cost elect tech) I still don't think of it in terms of economy. A couple of percent more or fewer resources is seldom going to be the main factor in the outcome of a game. But winning or losing a critical battle often is - so I always base my choice on which type of scanning I think will be more useful. When better spotting of cloaked fleets is about as important as pen-scanning, I generally choose pen-scanning because it gives more information.
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Lately i have only played in games with 3-4 SDs in them. 