09-12-2020, 06:14 PM
There's another relatively new rule about Scouts that isn't in the rulebook. However, it's unlikely to ever be needed so you generally shouldn't be worried about it. It's just there to close a game-system loophole.
When a Scout ship entered an occupied system, their chance of being caught depends entirely on the inertia engines on the Patrolling ships. Well... not quite. Nobody in their right mind (well, human minds, at least) is going to send in large, expensive ships into a very dangerous situation. They're going to use the smallest expendable ships they can manage. But, what if some alien mind decided to send in a battleship on Scout duty? (Well, maybe they're not expecting many defenders??)
It stands to reason that a tiny little ship is going to have a better chance of hiding from the Patrols than a gigantic battleship is of escaping their notice.
Enter the new rule... a Scout ship's SSD (1% per SSD) is now added to the percent chance of being caught by a Patrolling ship. This makes it really difficult to scout with large ships and helps convince everyone to use only small Scout ships.
In addition, this SSD rule includes an additional factor... it's the SSD of the fleet rather the SSD of individual ships that may be Joined together. So if you send in a half-dozen battleships Joined together, they'll be certain to be caught by any Patrol. Scouting with a fleet, in general, is not a good idea since they all come in together. So a Scouting fleet is either caught or not caught as a unit rather than individual ships, so don't Join together tiny ships to scout with, either.
When a Scout ship entered an occupied system, their chance of being caught depends entirely on the inertia engines on the Patrolling ships. Well... not quite. Nobody in their right mind (well, human minds, at least) is going to send in large, expensive ships into a very dangerous situation. They're going to use the smallest expendable ships they can manage. But, what if some alien mind decided to send in a battleship on Scout duty? (Well, maybe they're not expecting many defenders??)
It stands to reason that a tiny little ship is going to have a better chance of hiding from the Patrols than a gigantic battleship is of escaping their notice.
Enter the new rule... a Scout ship's SSD (1% per SSD) is now added to the percent chance of being caught by a Patrolling ship. This makes it really difficult to scout with large ships and helps convince everyone to use only small Scout ships.
In addition, this SSD rule includes an additional factor... it's the SSD of the fleet rather the SSD of individual ships that may be Joined together. So if you send in a half-dozen battleships Joined together, they'll be certain to be caught by any Patrol. Scouting with a fleet, in general, is not a good idea since they all come in together. So a Scouting fleet is either caught or not caught as a unit rather than individual ships, so don't Join together tiny ships to scout with, either.