So build a cargo ship with 11, 10, or 9 sensor modules, uncover everything within 22/30/36 hexes

   No need to build scouts at all.  So much for the thrill of exploring with your units.  Or upgrading the sensors of a starbase.

   Manu cost of an 11 sensor Eye of Sauron at game start is 141.  Rush for 2115 credits.  See everything 22 hexes form your shipyard on turn 2.

   This is fun?

Never saw the issue myself.  Any race dumb enough to not start with a "Hubble" space telescope doesn't deserve to be playing space emperor...  and map sizes are now huge vs Galciv2 .  Though there should be a class for such ships, and scaling to map size.  I only like it on extremely large maps.

I'm not sure if it's bad for the game. You could do the same thing in GalCiv2 and the mapsizes were much smaller. I usually have scouts in the early game with engines sensors and range modules because they are cheaper. After mid game I have big Cargo ships loaded with sensors. I usually stick with tiny and cargo though. Although I might try a sensor battleship.

@Dumhed there really is no reason to pickup starbase sensors. 

And yes R-T-B.

I agree with this. This however isn't a justification for how it is currently implemented. Rather it is a reason against it, as the necessity for everyone to do exactly this means there is no gameplay decision, player choice, nor strategic decision in positioning sensor ships or scouts. Everyone has these super sensor ships which see everything (because if you don't make such simple and obvious ships, you are just handicapping yourself compared to everyone else). Exploration is non-existent. Intel gathering is trivial and essentially non-existent.

Nope, just stick your sonar ship inside the starbase. Now its as hard to get to as the starbase itself.

Oh I know. 

+1 for getting rid of the additive stacking sensor silliness.

It's very easy to defend a sensor transport because IT SEES ALL giving you all the time in the world to move it out of danger.

Scouts become pointless when you're sweeping a giant FoW remover around the map.

Putting sensors on Starbases becomes hilariously wasteful - just put your sensor-laden cargo ship in defence instead.

It feels like an exploit.

It probably is an exploit.

Not even remotely similar.  A giant FoW removing spotlight gives you vast amounts of information every single turn.  A fast ship may cover a similar area eventually but per turn the amount of information you get back from that would be a tiny fraction of that provided by the sensor barge.

Sending a long range ship out into the distant unknown comes with its own risks; however, not if your sensor barge has already revealed the safest path.

This sensor stacking thing is daft and should be examined.

It's been this way since GC2. Also, Frogboy showed off his own sensorship in his presentation for IGN.

source: https://forums.galciv3.com/463970/page/1/#3541244

Who cares if they show of sensor barges with a dozen sensor on it... it says nothing about how OP and hugely unbalanced it is to use it in comparison with other things in the game.

You can easily have a relatively cheap sensor barge with about 20 range from turn one that has both good range and speed. Later on you can have sensor ships that span entire sectors.

Sensor scouts are pretty much invulnerable since their range is so great they are NEVER threatened. That is why there is such a huge balance issue with this.

It is super boring to explore the game with these ships, no challenge at all... you might as well just remove FOW on smaller maps and even on insane maps you can control vast areas with very few ships and you will never be surprised and the tactical advantage is just huge over the AI.

It is allot more fun when there is a challenge and you actually have to make some efforts and take risks... if you do it right you just don't have to.

Why give the tools to make the game too easy?

Why give star bases the possibility to upgrade sensors when it is safer and more economical to use sensor ships, you are just confusing people?

But in GC2 there was an artificial sensorrange hardcap of 15. Which you could nearly reach by simply building the Eyes of the Universe Galactic Achievement. So anything that already had bonuses to its sensorrange like bigger hulls (from medium onward), planets etc could reach that limit in conjunction with the other racial bonuses to sensorrange (tech: starscanner1 +1, technologists party +1). That basically defeated all purposes to build any sensorships at all. Rushbuying the Eyes was more cheaper than producing a fleet of sensorships, and it was more effective because it increased the sensor range of everything you owned, so no positional managment required.

In a huge to immense galaxy size such a sensorrange was well justified considering the up to +1500 habitable planet count, however in a tiny or small galaxy it was broken (everybody can see everything).

In a way it was a player compensation for the fact that the/all AI don't play with a Fog-of-War, know where all habitable planets are, all galactical resources, and all fleets. (although in the particular case of planets the AI is coded to send a scout beforeahead). If this is equally so in GC3 I can't say, and I'm not going to make the call on this, because it will be better to wait for a general consensus here in the forums.

Anyway, one thing that always bothered me was when the AI used his constructors to put sensory modules on starbases when these modules are rather weak and do nothing for him. Might have instead build another base or a frigate instead.

As of Beta 6 Opt-In, AI still cheat and know where all the planets are.