I haven't actually browsed the forums lately to see if this has been suggested or not, but had an idea to use some of those durtanium brackets and android scientists that some of you may have lying around. A new CTL item and ship ally, SCOUT SHIP! It's built out of brackets and androids, and you would use it like a race ability. It will randomly scoot around the galaxy and scan in one new planet for you. Not sure on how often it would do this, maybe once a day? Once a week? But thought it might be interesting. Probably wouldn't get great planets out of it most of the time, but it certainly would be a nice thing to wake up to "Your scout ship scanned in a Massive, 10x mega artifact planet!" Thoughts, suggestions, ideas, you're a complete idiot and this is a terrible idea?

The scout ship would have to have a % chance success rate which can be upgraded as it levels along with its scanning power. Otherwise, +1.

Can you explain how the Scout Ship levels up so that like Rarek said, the success chance can go up? Other than that, +1.

I haven't had time to think through details yet actually, just had that idea and tossed it up there. I'll post a more fleshed out (hopefully) idea here later today. But suggestions are certainly welcome, that's why I posted it!

CT lab arti - 50 Star Chart Purgers 50 Alien Data Discs 100 Android Scientists

every 25 successful planet scans it gains a level

Activated ability to potentially scan a planet on a 24 hour cool down

Level 1 = 10% chance to scan a planet
Level 30 - 20%
Level 60 - 35%
Level 100 - 50%
Additional Added Ability - Create Star Chart Purger 24 hour cool down

Would use 1/2 of owners ships scan value for purposes where a cloak check would be in order (as obviously the scanners of a scout ship would be no where near as powerful as the scanners on your ship)

Obviously the percent chance is static so even if you personally couldn't scan a planet because you have 1000 planets on scan your drones percentage chance to find a planet is not affected..

And obviously this would be a mechanical Ally so you would have to choose to have this one installed over the anubix, assuming only one type of mechanical ally would be allowed to be equipped .. and the timers start over when equipped .. so you couldn't equip make a purger and put back on anubix..

I am 100% against new lab tech let it be a mission!

I agree with the pony.... It's op as lab tech. Mission is fine, though

why .. I still need my genius medal and how do I get that without more ct lab items

What makes something OP as lab tech but not OP as mission?

Problem with lab tech , to hard to get one item . I wish we had more dumb stuff and easier to get so people can get all there medals. this last Lab tech is i hate it so much!

Also scraping RP any RP you get for that matter should count for the medals and research Bord.

I think having a higher starting percentage would be better. I never usually scan what used to be past the 30-40% mark or so. I think having this ship as an ally should guarantee better scan results than what I could just go do with my own scanners anytime I wanted. At least that's what I was initially thinking. Not a guaranteed planet, but the odds of getting a new planet scanned should be pretty good. You're only getting one, and the odds of it being worth colonizing probably won't be great, so you should be able to find them. I also am not sure having it relate to your ship scanning is what I had in mind, it's a dedicated scanning ship, theoretically it should have better or even scanning as your own ship, otherwise you wouldn't need it. As far as doing a cloak check though, haven't thought about it but that may be the only way to have it easily coded is to use half your ships scanning power or something like that. But yeah, percent chance would have to be static and not related to how many planets you have scanned in since it would be scanning ships in other parts of the galaxy rather than your own

As far as lab item vs mission item, it'd certainly be easier to have it as a mission item, we have several high rankers in our legion who dumped a massive amount of research into getting the last CTL added, took a long time. This would conceivably take even longer to discover, so maybe having it as a mission would be a good plan. ANd just having it be optional as a CTL item.

Costs to build I still think should include durtanium brackets, and scientists. I like the idea of adding star chart purgers into it though, and possibly data discs too. Maybe several stages of the mission chain where those artis are required for completion? Each stage completes another phase of "building" your ally?

I like the leveling idea of ever so many planets your ship gains a level and increases percentage though. I still think levels should be higher than 10% tho, and should be close to guaranteed planet when it's level 100. Something within the following limits maybe? These are pretty arbitrary still, haven't done any number crunching with them.

Levels 1 = 30/50%
Level 30 = 50/75%
Level 60 = 75/85%
Level 100 = 95/100%.

As soon as the ct lab tech is researched you can make anything in the ct lab regardless of rank or energy you can spend outside of the energy needed to make the artifact. As a mission one must work through the requirements and energy cost to unlock it.

Also the CT lab is supposed to be reusable/creatable arts, only the ally is limited and we don't need more of that type added.

And the Aegis... and the Velox...

can make three of each of those and replace if accidently scraped, want to dismiss the ally and see if the same applies?

Any other thoughts/suggestions/tweaks for this idea?

Al long as its % chance as in you keep the scan scan number just can find more planets with the scan that you have then I like it.

anyone done the math on the time frame for it to rank up... 250 days for every 10 ranks, IF it finds a planet EVERY DAY.. thats just a bit too long term.

a leveling ally is a cool idea, as for scout ship if it were to have an ability it would be to scout your enemy lowering his defense against your attack(scout mission) +1 either way because the ally lvls and the sooner you ge tit the better it is. can help close the gap a bit on the players playing for 3 yrs.