the skiter

I should of noted you were referring to Bobucles post on the reclaim being added to the skitter. I was trying to make a point that adding a role to a unit that is perceived to have little to no role isn't good reasoning.

There are three scouts. Skitter/Sunfish/air scout. And then there is an orbital radar that is sort of an orbital scout. The point of the unit is to increase vision, which is a valuable commodity in itself. There is also plenty of combat units that perform the same "role" (Ant/Scamper/bluebottle). Having a scout for each "surface" is important.

But it has a role, scouting, the problem is that currently it is by far exceeded by the Air scout. And when you have 2 units doing EXACTLY the same thing, it's basically impossible to make them both viable in the grand scheme of things.

To me at this point, it's logical to just accept that you can't have both doing the same thing, and figure out which one keeps doing what it was and which one does something different. To me in this scenario it's the Skitter that has the most potential to fill a slightly different/new role.

Mike

Your argument that they do the exact same thing is False. A fighter jet can take down air scouts in one pass, for a skitter, this is not true. Once fighter jets pass overhead, the vision remains if there are skitters laced into the army. The army with better vision, will most likely come out on top. Removing or changing the role of the skitter from extra vision would mean that if you don't have air dominance, you don't have better vision of your enemy. Now there is another disadvantage if you ignore air completely. Maybe I'm taking the scenario that the skitter has its role changed completely to far.

Regardless, I'm for keeping the skitter in. It's name is awesome, it fills the role of land scout, and can stop on a dime.

With the addition of speed grouping for this next build, integrating skitters into your army will be be even easier

It's really really difficult to do this with large armies, and this will help evolve gameplay

That has nothing to do with what they do...and your scenario is kinda biased no? If you were to replace Fighters with Bombers you have potentially(if harder to achieve) the same outcome with Bombers vs Skitters as with Air Scouts vs Fighters.

Mike

Unfortunately i think the skitter is required for the higher vision radius. Not always do we have air control, so i dont think that both units overlap as much as expected.

Yes!

What's the Skiter? ...never used...

+10000

if im playing a small planet i will got veh over air as my 2nd factory and scout with them since i can then have tanks on the field a bit sooner to crush my enemy since everyone loves bots so much, as do i.

I've seen people throw skiters between their army and the opposite army to act as sandbags, sense they are so fast they are able to get in there quick and draw fire.

But I do see where you are comming from where you can just get an air scout.

the vehicle scout.

I was a joke. But, thanks
I should start using those Skittles.

Its an example of "layer" elimination. Bombers can't wipe out an entire ground force yet. Even if they did eliminate an entire ground force, then the example is moot. A fighter blob can run over an army and eliminate all air and run out. If you only had air scouts, you would lose valuable vision. If you had bombers attack your land army and you lost all your land scouts, then I guess the same scenario plays out.

My argument hinges on the idea that multiple scout layers is important in case a rapid attack eliminates your vision in one layer. If a layer is missing a "scout", then if they don't have air scouts, they have no good vision for their troops. Getting rid of a layer because it is "perceived" to be missing is something I don't agree with.

Then get better at reasoning? Literally everything in the game has vision. A slightly better vision is not that special.

Vision boosting for your army may have a clear bonus, but it only demands a single scout. It doesn't scale, which is terrible for a game built to have massive scaling armies.

Reclamation gives players something exceptionally powerful- a unit that excels at contesting the most important resources in the game. More importantly, it SCALES. More reclaimers means more chances to harvest resources. Additionally, reclamation destroys low cost units like walls, helping to vanguard for your main army. It is a clear counter that does not demand 50000 DPS.

The results of a reclaimer are obvious and lead to a very unique and exciting approach to battle. It is an open role that nothing else is really good at(fabbers being too slow/expensive and flyers too fragile). A vision circle has very limited use beyond making your main army better. It competes with everything and is blatantly trumped by a single anything that flies, ever.

And guess what? The scout doesn't have to sacrifice a damn thing. It can STILL be fast, it can STILL be cheap, and it can STILL be the goto choice for scouring the ground. In fact, those three factors are the exact same attributes that a reclaimer needs to be great at its role. It is basically a perfect match.

How is this even a discussion? The best direction for making a powerful and exciting scout is so obvious that it isn't really a choice.

you have fabbers ... they are meant to be your workers ... why should a scout do what a worker is supposed to do?
you want to get that metal lying there? get your fabbers out in the same way you send them out to claim metalspots ... and risk them being picked up by enemy scoutplains or bumbelbees ...

Yes you could sent out fabbers, but you're overloading the fabber role. It is not wise to have a fabber that is fast, efficient, cheap, and also excellent on front line duty. It's simply too many good things to put in one package.

Again, you perceive vision to have little to no added benefit to an army. But you build air scouts and naval scouts for that added vision and scouting. Why can't the land scout just provide the same benefit? No one has explained this to me.

Scale able? I'm pretty sure you don't have to build many scouts in a game. They are kind of like specialists. Providing a unique attribute that no other unit has, sure you don't need a lot but that is not a very good argument. (IMO) You need more then one in an army, but you don't need 1000 in an army. You have continuous build for a reason to have 20 ants, 4 anti air and 2 scouts or whatever ratio you deem fitting for your army to properly engage with the enemy.

I guess I just plain out disagree with giving the scout some extra role considering there is already fabricators and combat fabricators that can do the same exact thing. And they are all land units.

w/ the formations, probably they will be more usefull

agreed. They should naturally be on the outskirts of any formation to give maxium vision.