Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Scouting Tactics for the Beginner
| Scouting Tactics for the Beginner |
Fri, 02 May 2008 19:44  |
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| neilhoward | 
 | Commander |
Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023 | |
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Any criticism, provisos, or addenda greatly appreciated.
Scouting Priorities
The fastest most efficient scouting is not always the best scouting. For instance, suppose your scouts start with fuel mizers. Their most efficient use would be to build as many as necessary and set them radiating away from your HW. However building scouts a few years too early may cause an economic lag that could persist for more than ten years. It might prove more effective to use your initial ships to scout all the worlds within 81.99ly of your HW, then 162.99ly, 243.99ly, and so on. Your HW can use this time to build its econ and pop. Excepting -f races, the slower your econ growth, the longer you will want to run without doing anything else, to a point determined by your population management strategy and home world's mineral concentration values.
Also, there is not much importance on scouting the whole map early. I will focus on scouting out the maximum range of my transports first, in order to pick the cherries. I will set some scouts to wait behind patrolling the planets I want to colonize.
When I encounter a competitor's space, I will leave more scouts behind in order to keep my intel up to date. When I go to visit my neighbors, 20yo information would leave me unprepared to give them a proper welcome. By the time I have seen all the planets, I usually have my scouts divide by thirds, between my space, others space, and the previously unoccupied spaces.
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| Re: Scouting Tactics for the Beginner |
Sat, 03 May 2008 10:29  |
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Well, I generally take the approach of scouting where I want to, then where I need to and I don't worry about the rest of the map...
Ptolemy
Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Scouting Tactics for the Beginner |
Sat, 03 May 2008 18:37 |
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| Ptolemy wrote on Sun, 04 May 2008 02:29 |
Well, I generally take the approach of scouting where I want to, then where I need to and I don't worry about the rest of the map...
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Ditto, except that my scouts get relegated to "the rest of the map" once they've done the bit they were built for.
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| Re: Scouting Tactics for the Beginner |
Sun, 04 May 2008 15:59 |
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 Shadow Whist |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 2 |
Messages: 167
Registered: August 2003
Location: Vancouver, WA | |
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I like to know what's going on. So I build a number of scouts in the beginning. I know it hurts the resource steam roll, but knowing is more important to me.
I do try to jump from planet to planet in order to hide, but after my ships are 80-160lys away, I don't think it matters too much.
And sometimes you can't avoid showing your start point.
whist
[Updated on: Sun, 04 May 2008 16:00] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Scouting Tactics for the Beginner |
Tue, 06 May 2008 10:22 |
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Ahhh scouting.
I *like* to scout.
How to scout, when to scout, and scouting tactics depend on:
A. Reasons to scout
B. Factory vs factoryless races
C. Hab
D. HP vs HG
E. IFE or not.
F. Start with L1 or not
G. Ironium concentration
(among many other things, I am sure...)
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A. Reasons to scout
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First off, you need to define *why* you are scouting.
Possible reasons are:
1. Find out habs of nearby planets for early growth
2. Find out wider area (whole map?) habs for long term growth, military strategic concerns, etc.
3. Find other races planet hopping in your space. Find advanced colonies in your space.
4. Meet and greet.
So the *type* of game in which you are playing has a bearing. If it is a large free for all, then the #4-"meet and greet" reason is of higher importance. If it is a small crowded early conflict game, then the #3-"planet hopping, early colony" increases in importance. If your growth is high, and your hab is a bit more constrained, then finding those good greens takes the lead. Many other scenarios and combinations are possible, with different implications.
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B. Factory vs Factoryless races
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With Factory races, there is always a tradeoff between growth of pop and growth of resources(factories). I don't play a lot of +f races, so am ill equipped to comment on exactly how to determine this balance, and when to start scouting in earnest. I would be inclined, keeping in mind the *reasons to scout* in A, to scout sooner rather than later. Scouts take very little G, so you are only delaying a few factories (I know, and their compounding effect) until you hit the G crunch. Certainly with +f, you will deal with *fewer* scouts, until your HW is mature.
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C. Hab (versus growth rate)
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This relates to the *urgency* to get colonists off your HW, so the HW stays at, or as close to 25% in the early going as possible. IMHO, any well designed race has a high, but manageable level of "urgency." Thus, scouting for good greens is very important in the race designs I play. Luck in finding greens, feeds back to how I build scouts. If I find a good green early, I will delay building more scouts. If I don't, then I may build another (even L0-scanner) scout early, to find that (those) first early good greens. Timing on finding the greens, affects whether I:
1. Wait to build, get L1 first
2. Quick research L1 and build
3. Build a few L0 scouts first
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D. HP vs HG
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Again, this relates to the "urgency" of moving population. A HP has more need to get those amazing factories compounding. Slightly delayed population growth will not hurt so much. Whereas a HG, needs to get that amazing *population* compounding. He will scout earlier and more extensively.
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E. IFE or not
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This relates to fuel issues for scouts. IFE has virtually no fuel issues, but may use some boosters to get marginally increased results. Non-IFE races *must* use boosters for #2 reason, wider map scouting; and for #4 reason, meet and greet. Using boosters are dealt with in many other posts. Suffice to say here that 5 main types are possible:
1. More scouts, transfering fuel to higher stages, and either returning lower stages home, to fuel the next rocket, or using the lower stages for nearby planet monitoring (reason #3).
2. scannerless scouts (fuels). They can only boost, not scan, though they can cover orbits. They take up a design slot
3. weaponless destroyers with 2 fuel pods. These are actually the most efficient booster, but take up another design slot. They can't do nearby planet monitoring, but in certain circumstances, using a few just for stage 1 boosting might be worthwhile.
4. weaponed (usually 2 red lazers) "escort" destroyers with 2 fuel pods.
5. a rush to C7 for SFXs. Usually, you need to do som
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[Updated on: Tue, 06 May 2008 10:33] Report message to a moderator
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