Wingflier, this is a game, not medicine. Lets not try to compare houses to peanuts here. This game has been around for a few years now, and its gone through a number of balances thanks to the efforts of people like Darvin and Raging Amish. But they accomplished their goal, they might not have met every expectation. But through their efforts they were able to bring the game far closer to a true balance then ever before.

But the community has been down this road and back again. They see something getting exploited and they post a million threads on the same subject til the Devs come in and give them what they want.  Not a month later they have found that the last nerf/buff gave another unit too much power over the others and now their dealing with another exploit. So they go back to the threads and post another million (obviously exagerating) threads demanding change. (not Obamas Change, thats another subject) So once again the devs come back in and give the community what it wants....ONCE Again they find another exploit (just so you know these exploits are normally found by the Pros themselves and then introduced to the community as a whole via smurfs) eventually the devs make so many changes the game becomes unbalanced as a whole. And then people like Darvin and RA come in and do the math and propose a rebalance. The community rallies and the Devs once again give us what we want. At this point, I dont see how nerfing/buffing Scouts and LFs will do anything other then open the door for another round of LRM Spam.

Guilty

AntiVeryLight is Flak....Scouts do Anti-Light damage.  The specific change you are referring to is back when Flak got a damage nerf across the board so they weren't slaughtering fighters, but they got a modifier boost against some of the heavier armors so they weren' useless against other ships.

Scouts were always pretty effective as an LRF counter.  Raging Amish used them against me back in 1.05 and there were discussions about the effectiveness of massed (Advent) scouts way way back in the day.

I think in the early days one of the biggest reasons scout armies did not get used was due to the uncapped damage ability Malice being immediately available.  Malice has been capped for a long time, of course, but then we moved into the age of strikecraft supremacy, and fighters just tear Scouts a new one.  Now fighters can be countered, the only uncapped damage ability is Missile Barrage, which is level 6 and avoidable (not counting starbase abilities), and quite simply, the level of refinement of online play is at the point where it is now the age of the scout.  Quick Start also has a lot to do with it -- scouts build so fast that it allows you to immediately convert your cash into a small fleet, rather than use it to build advanced structures or ships.  Before quickstart, you were building 1 ship at a time as cash became available (in early game).

Bottom line, Scouts have serious limitations, but skilled players can use them effectively to get an upper hand before you can progress far enough to make their scouts obsolete.  I can play any race, but I tend to favor Vasari.  Vasari don't really have much of an answer to Advent or TEC scout spam.  And building defenses is not an answer....if someone puts you on the defensive with scouts before you can expand, you are pretty much done.

I think scouts should still retain their abilities to fight LRF...I wouldn't want to see them nerfed stat wise (maybe a little for Advent scout's health).  I think they just need to be a bit more expensive, say 250 cr and take 3 supply.  This would put them more in line with Vasari scouts for cost.  They could still be spammed to counter LRF, but their cost and fleet supply would be a bit more in line with the value they bring to an army.  I think they are just too dirt cheap for how effective they are currently.

  Well there you have it, they were buffed.  This would be another factor that contributes to the current state of things, in addition to what I mentioned.  I have old memories of scouts being used to counter LRF, but this explains why I have NO memories of 30 scouts trying to take down my capital ship.

I'm not really talking about the Vasari Navigator...as I suggested bringing the other "scout" class ships in line with them.  I'm talking mostly about the Seeker, but even the Scout is a good deal at 200 cr and very fast build speed.  I don't think having all races scouts at 3 supply would hurt them.  The only reason you think the Navigator needs a buff is because you like playing these games out with tech 0 ships.

I am with the group of people that is annoyed by the fact there is not much reward to teching up and using mid-game ships.

It wouldn't require rebalancing the scouts...it IS rebalancing the scouts.  I think the stats on Seekers and Scouts make them just fine to have at 3 supply slots.  A Seeker is almost as tough as a Disciple health wise, it just has significantly less firepower.  From my experience, Seekers and Scouts do better than barely counter LRF -- they completely suppress them because they are so cheap, build so fast, and require so little fleet supply.  If someone had a mature fleet of Illuminators, scouts would counter them in sufficient numbers...I think you yourself talked about using 200 Scouts to fight a fleet of Illuminators.  I know 3 supply scouts can still fight LRF because I've done it with Vasari scouts.

And no, I don't think defensive strategies are great to combat scouts.  Smart attackers do not waste their scouts fighting on top of your defenses, they just box you into your first few planets and then they tech up and fleet up and crush you at their leisure.

As you yourself point out, a mixed scout & LF fleet counters pretty much everything up to HC's.  It kills LRF, Flak, Carriers, and support cruisers.  You are pretty much using a Tier 0 fleet to counter everything up to a Tier 5 ship...and of course no one is going to survive long enough to have HC's in sufficient numbers against a good player.  Yes, Carrier Caps are the best defense...so lets all build Carrier Caps so we have a chance.

You complain about LRF spam, and I agree, it was an issue, but frankly I don't find it as offensive as this.  I still think 1.10 was one of the best balances, even if Carriers were a wee bit too tough...simply because EVERYONE had equal access to strikecraft.  And I absolutely wrecked people a few times who used carrier fleets against me by hitting them with LF's, so it isn't like they weren't counterable either.

I don't think Scouts stats should be nerfed...they still need to be usable ships.  But I do think the Advent and TEC scouts are too cheap, build too fast and take too little supply.

I think Normal start games add a bit more strategy to the early game, but Quick start is somewhat of a blessing in cutting 5 fairly uneventful minutes off of long games.  Not playing Quick Start will probably cut down on the times when 20 scouts roll up on you a few minutes into the game, but the cat is out of the bag and scout fleets are here to stay based on current game balance.

I agree that quickstart allows you to have an instant fleet but even without quickstart one can still mass scouts faster then other if one wishes too.Even at 15 cred sec income you can still pump out scouts and if other player doesnt then outcome would be same.Metal and crystal would remain near the same so lf would pump out retty fast too.