[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Situation A is almost the same as Situation C.

That's right - however the point of Situation A over the current environment Situation C is that everyone has Unit scans so players both new and old are much more able to begin attacking right from the get go, rather than having to rely on alliance scanners and/or attacking blind if they dont have an alliance/active alliance scanner. More attacking = more fun which was the point of the game.

I argued for Situation A over Situation B given that Unit scans were introduced for everyone as I felt that B would emasculate Xans too much (again).

Keeping planets from seeing cloaked ships will, in the later stages of the round, make (keep) them vulnerable to Xan and Etd incomings, as well as Zik.

This isnt correct, as by later stages in the game many people would have had a good opportunity to progress to Advanced Unit scans and/or have alliance scanners (including most DCs and a much higher proportion of their memberbase able to do at least low-amp scanning) by then. This part of the suggestion does not apply to late game, only whether Cloaked ships show up on (basic) Unit scans.

I also think you and Kargool are underestimating the advantage Xan has later in the round.

This may or may not be true. I found Xan to be very much a "Crash or crash through" kind of race, which means that they run into serious trouble at some point. But by later stages of the game, Adv Units and Fleet scans are more available so its not so problematic.

Gate and I were arguing over initial out-of-protection and early round issues predominately.

That said, I wouldn't oppose a boost in Xan research speed to for example 90 or 95 percent, because it seems to me most races (cath is an exception, an a minor one at that) have no real disadvantages. The stats should not be balanced using race characteristics.

Concurrence here .

exblade, you're missing the point of this suggestion. We want to get rid of the need for alliance scanners.

We do? I thought the point was to increase the levels of early attacking for the less connected? But i suppose the role of alliance scanners would change to just high-amp planets (who scan alot), rather than being uber rush-to-unit-then-jgp-then-advunit-scan-planets-with-loads-of-amps.