I don't know if this works better as a ship module or a base one, but I think as a base is where I see it.

Stellar Cartography:
750000 RP
Through massive data coordination and encryption efforts planetary data can be securely offloaded from your mainframe to the Legion base. Reducing storage capacity requirements and improving scanning performance.

Stellar Cartography Module:
Size 2 cost??? Limit???
Subtracts 5% of your total planets occupied from your overall found planets limit.

Not sure if this says what I am trying to convey but basically. Kaos made a point about scan capacity and how if he wanted to find new planets he'd have to decolonize planets to get his scanning back to a reasonable level and still find new planets. Well as a means to circumvent the escalation of scanning vs cloaking and limited planetary space my thought was this.

If you could subtract planets you've colonized from your "found" planets limit then you wouldn't necessarily need an ever escalating scan power to find new planets. As long as you were finding planets worth colonizing, and your base had some of these installed you could still have a chance of fining new planets even at lower scan powers.

In case I'm still not being clear.

Player A has 700 scanned planets of which he's colonized 500. Even if he purges those 200 un-colonized planets the 500 he is actually using are driving up the needed scan power to find new planets. With my idea lets say Player A's base has 5 Stellar Cartography Modules installed. That would mean 125 of his 500 planets no longer count against his chance to scan a new planet. Allowing him to find more planets without have to drive his scanning ever higher meaning Player B doesn't have to drive his Planetary Cloak ever higher to continue hiding his valued planets. Also it means that Dyson and Exotic planets that were made have a longer time till they might accidentally be discovered through creeping scan powers.

Thoughts, Comments, Questions?

yeah I've considering it before, as a base module, but actually as something to find planets on its own. Basically just finds X planets per day, or rolls a chance to find random planets, or planets meeting a criteria (but taking longer), based on its own scan power/modules. These would be common to the legion so anyone could get what it found, or you could use officer/leader restrictions like the other stuff.