Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Bar » When to build scouts - and how many?
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| Re: When to build scouts - and how many? |
Tue, 06 December 2011 09:12   |
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Factors to consider - 25% cap, resources, sufficient breeder worlds targets, tech for prop/FM & con/priv_MF, factories built to maximise starting germ.
The logic behind it is primarily having destination worlds ready to ship out your pop in excess of 25% from your HW in MFs/Privs.
If you are not a -f, then I recommend building factories for the starting couple of years and back-counting the years to reaching 25% cap by 4-5 years.
Assuming 2411 for 25%,
2410 for priv/con4,
2409/08/07 - scouts hitting planets (Factories as per newly mined germ + Build up mine count to 25% cap),
2406 - Build scouts,
2405 - Tech to get FM/better scanner.
2400-2405 - Factories from starting.
Edit - I mis-read that you both play -f races. Sigh.
Earlier post >
If you are -f, you should put in the 1st two years into scout building. Gives you about 10 odd scouts.
If you need to research prop for the FMs or Elec for slightly better scanners, do it, as long as it doesn't take more than 2 years.
As a -f, you'll have atleast a 19% GR, so this means you should have atleast 2-3 destinations by 2405/06.
2400/01 - Scouts, 2402/03 - Mines
2404 - Con3, 2405 - Con4/ MFs built, 2406 - Privs built
[Updated on: Tue, 06 December 2011 09:19]
I know my minefields.. but I'm a chaff sweeper.
I used to curse when I got stuck in traffic... till I realised I AM traffic.Report message to a moderator
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| Re: When to build scouts - and how many? |
Fri, 09 December 2011 15:36 |
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 Mac1 |
 | Chief Warrant Officer 2 |
Messages: 159
Registered: November 2008 | |
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| vonKreedon wrote on Tue, 06 December 2011 10:56 |
I like to build a few scouts almost immediately so that I have 4-7 scouts out exploring by 2405 and send them out on planet hopping paths (I almost never play JoaT) until they get destroyed or run out of fuel. Then I only build more scout if something comes up or until I need them for recon to support an offensive. A -f needs to know what greens there are in the neighborhood as early as possible and everyone needs to know where the neighborhood enemy HWs are, but the return on infrastructure investment (Fac/Mines) early on is crucial so I don't like building a horde of scouts, just the minimum I need to know where to colonize as soon as I hit the 25% break point.
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In a real game you'll find the only reasonable green planet on the 2nd edge of the universe  ...., well at least that's my usual luck.
So always when i play a race that cant live almost everywhere, i start fast with few scouts (usualu 2-3) to scout nearest planets. If i dont find reasonable breeder soon i need to invest more in scouting, to survive. If i do find breeder, scouting can be slowed down.
Ofcourse it all depends on the setup of game, if i need to find enemies fast and know as much as possible about them, or if i only need to find a good planet for me and everything else doesnt matter that much so soon.
[Updated on: Fri, 09 December 2011 15:37] Report message to a moderator
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| Re: When to build scouts - and how many? |
Fri, 09 December 2011 16:19 |
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| Void |
 | Ensign |
Messages: 369
Registered: January 2011
Location: California, GMT -7 | |
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| Core34 wrote on Fri, 09 December 2011 00:06 |
Well, from the different answers here I see, that there's not one true way of scout building. Maybe the recommendation should be: The narrower your hab and the higher your growthrate is, the more scouts you need early on to find at least one or two colonies when reaching 25% cap.
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For the objective of finding planets, I would agree. Others have posted a good heuristic to determine when you should build scouts - and how many to build - depending on hab level and likely empire size.
But there are other considerations, including:
1) The sooner you arrive in alien space, the less likely they are to be shot down.
2) The farther your scouts are from your homeworld when you encounter a neighbour, the more favourable the border agreement is likely to be.
3) The sooner you scout the border areas, the more likely _you_ will able to settle the juicy planets there.
4) When you figure out what your neighbour's hab is, the more scouting you have done, the more likely your are to be able to deny him planets he needs.
In the interest of transparency, those are not original thoughts, and instead pasted mercilessly from a RCGS posting many moons ago. But the point is there are strategic reasons to scout aggressively beyond just finding planets that are good for you.
As a -f, the opportunity cost of building scouts is minerals (by way of building mines), researching technology, or building others kinds of ships. There's no benefit to researching technology before you need it, but there is benefit to building mines earlier. One big consideration for me is what kind of scanner I want on my scouts. For duels, I select 'starts at 3' so I can start off with a 100ly (with NAS) scanner so I can not only see which planets are good for me, but gain intel as to my opponents ships movements (and infer likely HW locations). I see this having benefit in non-duel games, as well.
So from my perspective, your scout building plans...depend...upon your overall approach to the game, the type of game you're playing in, and a variety of other factors. Playing a -f in a large universe (I'll spare the editorial on that combo) would lead me to build ~8 scouts early and send them off on deep space missions; that is, target planets at least 3 jumps (243ly) away. I'd use my initial ships to find something close by for initial colonisation, to ship colonists to once I reach the 25% (or 33%) mark. Then I'd build another wave of scouts later to fill in the rest of the planets.
Cheers,
Void
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| Re: When to build scouts - and how many? |
Sat, 10 December 2011 13:57 |
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Hi ,
I could give you only some hints when you should build scouts.
1. You will never have enouth scouts Informations are Power in Stars so the Scouts are your power house
2. It always depends on the setting of the univers and the kind of race you want to play and most of all your gameplay
a) if you play agressive and attack early - start build scouts early
b) if you play moderate - build scouts from year 2401 for -f or for all races with faktories form year 2403
c) If you play defensive - build scouts from year 2404
But you should have find out the way for your self. But what you have always to to check your borders. Try to get infos about new ship desines and fleets or you maybe get overrund and even not know it.
ccmaster
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| Re: When to build scouts - and how many? |
Sun, 11 December 2011 16:36 |
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| neilhoward | 
 | Commander |
Messages: 1112
Registered: April 2008
Location: SW3 & 10023 | |
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For me, more scouts the better. I set a minimum though.
Number of scouts: my race can initially inhabit 1/x planets, so I aim to have a minimum of (x+1) hitting a new planet every turn. The hab calc tool tells me that 1/y planets will be decent breeders (>70%) with 3/3/7 terraforming, so my ideal starting number would be (y+1) hitting a planet every year. In a packed universe (x+t) to (y+1) are fine, but in sparser unis you will need more ships the hit those numbers every year. For dense, normal, and sparse I multiply the x&y values by 1.4, 1.8, and 2.2 respectively.
Earlier is always better, but I keep a deadline.
I figure the number S of ships needed each year to initially export HW pop at 25% hold, E.g. 2 PVT w/ 18% mpgr, or 3 mf. Whatever that number S, is also the number of years I am to launch scouts before launching pop export. If a sparse Uni (S+1). So a 1in6 19% OBRM in a packed map needs 3 ships to export pop each year, and begins exporting in 2407, so my 6+1 minimum scouts leave the HW by 2404. The same race in a sparse uni would want 14 scouts leaving 2403.
[Updated on: Sun, 11 December 2011 16:37] Report message to a moderator
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When to build scouts - and how many?
) prefers to build only factories for about 5 years and the a swarm of scouts (maybe 5 or 6) in one year. 
