Scouts :: Unit Archetypes Series

(This post is a work-in-progress, revisions from the last version are blue)

Series Introduction
This is the first in a series of threads I’ll be starting to discuss unit archetypes. My focus will be
defining the primary job of units (and needed qualities), their common features (and reasoning)—plus challenging the status quo of each units archetype. Without further ado…

SCOUTS

Primary Job
• Gathering Information

Needed Qualities (to gather information)
• Combination of speed and sight-range.
(1) A combination of speed and sight-range are critical to gathering information. If the scout can't see far, then it needs to be able to cover ground quickly to compensate.

Common Properties
• Small
• Fragile
• Good Vision
• Harmless
• Fast
• Cheap
(1) Intel is one of the first things you need, so scouts needs to be cheap (so you can get them out early). An expensive intel can hardly be used in early game, so it won't fit the same role.

Challenging the Status Quo
• What if scouts weren’t small?
(1) Hmm… your thoughts?

• What if scouts weren’t fragile?
(1) What if… hunkering scouts hid them from enemy radar, allowing a sneaky way to evade danger. Disabling movement and radar in this mode might balance the ability (their normal vision would still be in effect). Imagine hiding scouts in bushes and observing passing subjects unnoticed at close range. They’d be cute little peeping toms, or erm… bird watchers?

• What if scouts weren’t harmless?
(1) What if… hunkering scouts created a unit disabling field, rather than destroying units they’d just put them to sleep. Disabling movement and radar in this mode might balance the ability. Milk and cookies might be in order for all the sleeping bots. Might be talking T2 with this one.
(2) What if… scouts converted into landmines, sacrificing scout abilities for a second life as glorified mouse traps.

What if scouts weren’t fast?
(1) Hmm… your thoughts?

Related Topics
• How are scouts countered?
• What variety of scout units are useful/fun? Why?

Suggestions
• Multiple Scout Types1

**Let er’ Rip**
Feel free to debunk or offer suggestions. I’ll add constructive comments to the original post to summarize the discussion. Oh, and have fun! Get goofy—this is about a game after all.

I think the wisest way to look at the situation is to ask;

• What are needed qualities of a scout?

A scout is a pretty **** scout if it can't do its job - that being gathering information. I'd argue that the combination of speed and sight-range are critical to it doing its job. If the scout can't see far, then it needs to be able to cover ground quickly to compensate.

Having teeth, or a thick hide is gravy. Both of those add utility to the scout, on top of its primary role.

As you add more utility, you increase the ability to be something other than a scout, say, a straight-up combat unit. In that case, I don't call it a scout any more.

Scouts all tend to move on wheels or legs. This is a cliche, and I think it would be better if they all had pogo sticks, or space hoppers, and bounced around.

It's also a cliche for units to be localised in space, why not make every unit a quantum wavefunction that only has a defined position when observed by the enemy?

Units in RTS games always seem to use weapons to destroy each other. Why not avoid this cliche and have them meet and settle their differences with rational debate like reasonable people?

Not all common properties of a thing are cliches.

your ideas for different concepts for a "scout " are fairly good ideas, they might even work well in a game like starcraft that concentrates more on the micro aspects of RTS gameplay, but i'm not sure that they translate well into a large scale macro style game as they would require inordinate amounts of time and focus spent micromanaging a single scout, ultimately drawing focus away from the core elements of the designed gameplay .

I think what Bullet Magnet said made a lot of sense.

I have been thinking about how there weren't land scouts in SC2 for a couple reasons.
1. Air scouts are the fastest scouts. (fast, slightly fragile)
2. Engineers are slow but have radar.

Normally a 'scout' and a 'radar' bot are 2 different bots, but for this discussion I would say they fit as scouts under your definition.

In TA their were both scouts and radar for air and land. There were also spies. Spies were high cost units with energy upkeep costs that could cloak undetected with a good sight radius in the middle of your opponents base.

As far as combat units. I personally feel that when a unit becomes good at combat it becomes an attack bot first and most. Whether it has some recon abilities is of secondary importance.

My impression from Mavor is that we will have a proliferation of units and unit types. Having combat units that fill in for unit roles such as scouting makes more sense when you have a very limited number of units like in SC2 where engineers filled the land radar slot.

It would also allow for a larger variety of scouts, so in T1 you could have a similar style of scout to FA's T1 Scouts, and in T2 you could have a Combat Scout, something a bit tougher, possibly armed but slower to go into your armies, they don't die to light damage/AOE but they won't have the speed of the T1 Scout.

Or something like that.

Mike

I could be remembering wrong but I think the UEF had this great T3 spy plane that was fairly fast, had an amazing visual radius, and decent armor.

Really I don't think scouts need to fire back, maybe they could pop flares or chaff to shake incoming missiles. But once they start shooting stuff they aren't really scouting anymore.

Then there is the surveillance satellite philosophy: you don't need to move very fast or have much armor, but you can see quite a lot and are out of reach of their defenses.

All Factions had a T1 and T3 Scout air unit, they were more or less all identical, and their armor was less so in HP and more so in speed, T1 and T2 AA had a real hard time hitting them, but T3(tracking missiles) shredded them.

Mike

SAMs weren't actually all that great at taking down spy planes that didn't fly straight at them. A SAM had an initial velocity of 30, which was coincidentally the max speed of a spy plane, and missiles only had an acceleration of 6, so it took a few seconds to get a hit. The missiles only had a lifespan of four seconds, so a spy plane could actually fly fairly safely within about 60% of a SAM's maximum range and not take a single missile. I've seen spy planes flying around with dozens of missiles uselessly chasing after them and make it out alive.

Some good thoughts here for sure. Let me just add a couple more to consider.

Macro vs Micro.

Scouts, are one of your traditional high micro units simply because of what they do. However from everything I hear, PA is aiming for more of a Macro focus which is one I personally agree with 110%. So how do you do that?

What if scouting units have limited AI? What if the can do their own scouting patterns and scour the map with little or no input from the user. Of course we should also keep the option of managing their routes personally with micro if desired.

Retreating

With your classic high speed fragile scouts, the idea is that the user is responsible for using micro to get the most out of these units by running away when encountering the enemy, and possibly even harassing where possible. What if there was the option to let an AI handle this for you as well? What if your scouting units by default simply run away and or hide any time they encounter the enemy? Think about it.

Hiding

As an alternative to the typical "fast scout" many games have experimented with the idea of the sneaky scout as well with stealth. Being able to hide in some way can be nice. Like retreating, this could also be an optional automated feature. Care should be taken balancing this however since if stealth is "too good" there is going to be that feeling of "Map Hax" where a player feels powerless to stop scouting units. This is a situation that should be avoided.

At what point does a scout cross with a mobile radar?

If you want to try them, Zero-K has a few combat scouts, most probably inspired by TA. They cause ridiculously low damage and are cut to ribbons by the lightest raider, but they are also cheap and incredibly fast. They will swarm and tear apart any undefended building, which include the other side of your factory, if you have only one unit or structure defending it.
One of them also turns invisible when immobile, like the Seraphim light bot IIRC.

There is also a relatively slow but jetpack-equiped sout, which is both cheap and tough. They can also be used for screening other units, thanks to their great hp/cost ratio. (It is also spammed by some and hated by others because it leaves a mould when dying instead of a wreck, blocking the path of vehicles and even bots if in enough numbers.)

I'd say that the difference between scout and radar unit is that the scout is a light, fast, cheap and expandable unit while the radar/spy is an expensive unit with a far greater perception range.

The biggest scout cliche in my opinion is that scouts are the cheapest, weakest units you can build. Why not have armored recon with decent weapons, that have comparable costs to main battle units? Why not have excellent scouts with a high price tag?

The main feature a unit needs to have to be a good scout is good vision. Mobility helps this vision affect a larger area, and allows for repositioning. Decent weaponry allows the scout to kill other scouts, and possibly even engage targets of opportunity, if the scout finds a defenseless target in the field.

Because intel is one of the very first things you need, so the scout needs to be cheap (so you can get some out fast) and fast (so it can actually go scouting fast). If not, you would send light raiders instead (and in Zero-K, light raiders can be used instead of scouts in some factories).
An expensive intel can hardly be used in early game, so it won't fit the same role.

I updated the original post to include some comments. I'll add more as time allows. Great discussion so far.

P.S. I can't get this damn scout probe idea out of my head. Perhaps I'll be making my first mod .

I am suggesting that there are multiple types of scouts that have a place, not just the one "scout" unit. There does in fact need to be a super cheap, basically unarmed unit that allows early game scouting. However this unit might not meet your mid or late game scouting needs, and having other options that are more expensive and effective recon units would be a good thing.