[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Fair enough, the only counter to a distwhore is still knowing someone with a lot of amps; normal players won't build them. But with the increase in use of SKs and info blackout, I expect that the percentage of distwhores (in relation to the total number of planets) will never reach the levels it did last round, so there'll be less of a need for high-amp scanners.

I didnt play last round, so i didnt experience that comedy (though usually as a DC i have a relatively high number of amps but not as much as scanners). Still, was it fun?

I kind of assumed you agreed with me that we should get rid of the need of alliance scanners, but in hindsight, I remembered it was Achi (and possibly dec, I'm not sure) who first advocated that position.

Well, I'm not sure that i have an opinion either way. Tbh, i think i would have much prefered the situation as per rounds past when you had a choice between Hyperspace and Military scans and due to less co-operation within alliances and galaxies it was relatively hard to find Mil scans when you needed them. But that's from a different era, so its no longer relvent. But doing your own scans would be better imo (as then you need to balance the need for good information with resource optimisation (and security) which would be more challenging i would havbe thought).

As for Gate and your focus on the early stages of the round, I think that's a mistake. New players don't generally sign up at tick0, but throughout the round, from tick0 until far into havoc, and it's these players that will have most benefit from this suggestion.

That's a good point - however, i think what the suggestion was is that everyone starts with Unit scans, which would presumably benefit everyone as at the aboslute least that means there is less stuff to research in order to get a useful scan (ie critical information to start attacking, or at least scanning incoming).

As such, when the alternative is no scan tech (or whatever the late-start-benefit says is cool, which is often P/S/T and only extremely late round would get U from the get go), then having at least some scans is a good thing, surely? How could it be a negative?

I disagree with your view of Xan's philosophy. Yes, if you so choose you can just send your entire fleet to people and hope there's no defence, and that will certainly work every now and then. However, I don't think Xan's strengths lie in brute force, simply because their armor (and recently, init) are not suitable for it.

Well, yes. What i said was more akin to 'old skool' Xan where their low armour but high damage and good init meant that you had to kill the enemy essentially outright before they could fire, or you would just die (and thus should recall). Granted, that's changed as now Xan has medium firepower, average init and low armour (thus, avoiding anything resembling battle seems like a good idea).

Thus, the faking strategies that you outlined (which were very good) would be the only course(s) of action to persue.

Still, I think universe-access to basic Unit scans which show all cloaked ships would reduce the ability to do said faking, which imo is a bad thing given how shit Xan is compared to everyone else at the moment. Then again, perhaps i'm just being stubborn and populist?

P.S. I'm enjoying this rather a lot; it's nice to have a discussion with people who can actually think.

I love you too long time.