Kassiopeija wrote:Well to have an extended outside view of your surroundings can quite positively influence strategic decisions - you may find an outside world with a needed growthspecial (in order to unlock previous uninhabitable worlds) or a Monsternest or Ancient Ruins, so someone might deem it worthwhile to construct a specialized fleet in order to occupy & defend such a place outside your standard influence.
You also encounter the enemy faster, or get at least a glimpse from where their major forces are to be expected. Sometimes its strategically wise to not colonize right between 2 such opponents - and let instead them fight it out while instead expanding into safe backland territory.
Nothing wrong with your logic there, just the premise that it needs to be a scout.
With the basic research investment into sensors, which you would need to make a decent scout anyway, then your planetary sensors will do exactly what you want from the safety of planets you own. They won't be thumped by a random monster and have to be replaced either.
Research sensors, send colony/outpost/troop ships out behind your warships to snag new territory, and build a planetary sensor at the far edges of your territory.
The allocation of PP will allow you to keep creating new warships, while still building those planetary sensors. Building a scout diverts the PP to building that instead of warships.
It all boils down to the setting at start. If you play a sparse planet population then you might not have enough colonies or outposts at your edges to build an effective planetary sensor net. That's a case of where a scout fleet might be handy. I personally don't like games with too many empty systems because you can't connect the production web easily that way. Since I want no more than 2-4 jumps between colonies or outposts, for reasons of production, then scouts have no real value to me because I can push a wider sensor web out using the planetary sensors. Plus I have no diverted production or ship loss.
Unarmed scouts may have far more use in a game where encounters aren't automatically hostile. If you could make nice with an opposition AI then they could have a good value. Diplomacy or trade could definitely boost the value of scouts. But this isn't that kind of game. All the AI's hate you. It's only a matter to the degree of aggression. It's only their fear of loss that will keep them deciding if they will attack. But if any warship of theirs meets your unarmed scout, or any monster type, they will automatically attack. I just played a game where I found the opposition AI was my exact same race. The laws of randomness in the game make that a possibility, but you have to admit that seems pretty silly to be at war with your own race automatically without choice. Every opposition AI is going to try to beat you militarily if they can and scouts are lowest hanging fruit. They are a niche use item for very limited map types. You are far better served with pushing muscle out and using the planetary sensor net instead in normal or abundant planetary populations.