[This thread assumes passive scanning will still detect cloaked players, as active scanners apparently will]

I'm very interested in skilling into the Caldari Scout because I like the scan range bonus and its shield regen, but in my mind it's scan precision bonus is horribly useless. It can already scan all suits above scouts, so obviously CCP's intent is for it to become a sort of anti-scout scout. But just look what it's up against:

Base scan profile starts at 35/ 31.5 w/ skills (Gal @ 22.75); precision starts at 45 (29.25 w/ Cal scout 5)

Dampeners reduce by .15/.2/.25; precision enhancers .1/.15/.2

Right off the bat, passive scanning takes last not only by a 26% difference, but with weaker modules to compensate. But we should also assume most scouts are going to attempt to dodge proto scanners, so let's see what those numbers are and how to beat them (w/ cloaks as well):

Min/Cal/Am lvl3 dampening and basic dampener:---- 27.965
w/ Cloak:-------------------------------------------------------- 19.31
To scan w/ lvl5 skills:-------------------------------------- 18.82 (1 cplx, 1 ehn precision)

That's 2 level 5 skills (3,420,120 SP, btw), and half of it's high with high meta mods to beat the bare minimum required to beat proto scans (205200 SP). Imagine if more skills were put into dampening and higher meta mods were used? Heck, don't even get me started on the Gal Scout:

Gal and dampening lvl 5:------------------------------------- 22.75
w/ cloak:--------------------------------------------------------- 17.06
To scan:------------------------------------------------------- Cry

I'm all for a tough rivalry between the Gal and Cal scout, but for the caldari scout to sacrifice so much just to match and undampened Gal scout is unfair and unbalanced in my opinion.

Now let's see what happens when we lower the precision to 40:

Level 5 Cal scout and precision:---------------------------- 26

There, the scout can effective be better than a proto scanner, fulfilling it's role as a counter scout. Now the other scouts actually have to try and dodge those scans:

Min/Cal/Am lvl3 dampening and 2 basic dampeners: 23.67
w/ cloak: -------------------------------------------------------- 17.56
Cal w/ lvl 5 skills:------------------------------------------- 17.40 (1cplx, 1ehn)

Does this still suck in comparison? Yes. This just shows how useless this bonus is. How could it hurt to implement this? I mean, at worst (for the enemy), it forces enemy scouts to use an extra low slot (not even a complex with lvl 5 dampening will block the 1cplx and 1 enh Caldari scan). And there's still the trouble with the Gal scout. With any dampener, it's a royal pain to scan, even uncloaked. So seriously, this can only help the Cal scout.

The cloak is equivalent to a complex dampener and I assumed it stacked under the same rules as the mods (that is the highest bonus is taken first while the lower takes the penalty, resulting in the highest possible bonus).

The equations are roughly:

w/o: 32.9-(3.29*.15)
w/: 32.9-(32.9*.25)-(32.9*(.15*.87))

This also assumes you get the dampening bonus from an activated cloak.


I'm not worried about he Gal scout, it's virtually undetectable without sacrificing a lot. But scanning the other scouts is a real pain, as I mentioned above, it take a crap ton of SP, mods, isk, and sacrifice to break even the most basic dampeners.