what are scouts for? stealth hacks?

Assassination, hacking, sabotage, point defense, all sorts of stuff. Each scout (should) be able to do those things, albeit differently due to slot layout, bonuses and stuff.

Gal is good for stealth & CQC
Min for Nks & hacking & CQC
Cal for EWAR & mid-long range combat
Amarr is.... the light assault that needs a tweaking

Amarrian scout is a scout hunter, capability to come close to the scout he/she is hunting and.... Terminate them.

The Amarr Scout needs a major rework. I think a ferroscale bonus is very reasonable.

Someone hop onto Destiny and poke Zatara Rought.

Really Nothi? You're going to lump everyone into big categories?

EWAR is far from balanced or in a good place (although saying a patch has the best EWAR balance isn't exactly a high accolade in Dust). Fundamental problems: Immunity is Powerful, hence the previous scout nerf. Omnipotence (or would it be omniscience in this case xD) is also powerful, hence the problem with perma-scan and previous nerfs to Scouts (and range mods when the rings where introduced).

I feel a system wherin scanning took time rather than a binary yes-no would be far better for the overall EWAR balance of the game personally...you avoid the problem of immunity, while ensuring that scans are not fully Omnipotent either. (Example: A medium frame detects a heavy frame in .5 seconds, while taking 3-5 seconds to detect a scout frame) Active scanners would work the same way, just project over a larger area...ramble ramble ramber...possibly make Cloaks immune to either Active or Passive Scans (one or the other, not both)

The reasonable voices are oft drowned out by the more numerous buff-my-stuff-balance-be-damned consensus. That consensus is what I've attempted to capture in the "big categories" above ...

That'd make for a fantastic EWAR system, btw.

(Imma extend on that)

...Where the dB of precision and profile influence the chance of being scanned. If you're 16 dB profile, and I have 40 dB precision. I can still scan you in X amount of time with a Y chance of picking you up between X time intervals.

Or is that unnecessary lol.

Unnecessary...making it chance based provides a the possibility of total immunity, or total omniscience...in general, you want to avoid random chance in a skill based game. Although it wouldn't necessarily go against the spirit of the system, as making your profile smaller would, on average, make you invisible longer....the idea of the time is that it remains consistent

(Imma extend on that)

...Where the dB of precision and profile influence the chance of being scanned. If you're 16 dB profile, and I have 40 dB precision. I can still scan you in X amount of time with a Y chance of picking you up between X time intervals.

Or is that unnecessary lol.

Love it, Thad!

So the lower a detected unit's scan profile, the shorter his onscreen blip is displayed and the longer the interval between blips. From the scanner's perspective, the stronger the scans the longer blips appear onscreen and the shorter the interval between blips.

The signal from an undampened heavy would "read" much differently than the signal of a dampened Scout. The former would blip at a much shorter interval than the latter, and the blips of the former would linger longer on screen. A sneaky heavy could effectively mask his signal by running dampeners. He'd still get scanned, but his signal might easily be mistaken for that of a MedFrame.

This could be alot of fun and would absolutely make for more dynamic EWAR interplay.

Unlike other modules which are always effective, dampeners and precision enhancers are currently effective under very specific use conditions. If an Assault (for instance) is scanned while running a damp, that damp pays his user zero returns. In a setting where strong scans are always up, the Assault is better served 100% of the time by other types of modules (i.e. plates, biotics, etc). Under your proposed system, our dampened Assault would still get scanned, but he'd be scanned for a X% less time than an Assault who was not running a dampener. EWAR modules would become more like other modules; every unit would benefit their use, and that benefit would no longer be binary.

That is also a fun one...and probably much easier to implement than a "time to scan"...have everything revealed when it enters your scan range, but the opacity/transparency, size, and duration of visibility? of the "dot" changes based on the competing Precision/Dampening...and it avoids the problem of immunity, but omnipotence of active scans isn't addressed...they would need a more fundamental change in order to work within that system...but we already knew that

Hurray for collaboration on ideas \o/