This is a branch off of
this thread.
I agree with Achilles that lack of access to scans is a serious inhibition for new players. Planetarion
is a team game, but there's lots of teamwork in attacking and defending. Having to know enough people to ensure that one of them is sacrificing their round for you to play is not a great way of letting new players try the game out before deciding to commit to another round in an alliance.
The simplest alternative is to keep amps/dists as they are, and either have all scans available from tick start, or unlock scan as progress is made through the round; either by tick number, number of amplifiers built, fraction of amplifiers or whatever.
Alternatively, a more cov-op style approach could be used. Amplifiers build up scan power, which is depleted by scanning.
New players would be able to perform enough scans to have a play around, whilst alliances with dedicated scan planets would still benefit from them.