Scout teams suggestions *Possible spoilers*

[Brom0id]

Hi, great game, very enjoyable, once you squash the bugs and balance it properly it will be a classic in my collection for sure. Now to the the point, scout teams.

In their current implementation they bring in pathetic amount of resources, I am talking 10 alcohol in 3 days pathetic. Only resource that could make a noticeable difference would be the staffing permits, I am saying would be, because it costs 5 permits to fully staff a scout team while you can get like 2-3 permits per chapter from the scouts. So you can have a surgeon, or a fully staffed scout team, spoilers, take the surgeon, he is immediately and incomparably more useful, and wont get randomly shot in the head during a mission so you wont have to spend yet more permits to replace him. And of course you need to invest freight and requisition forms to even get to the point where you can waste staffing permits on the scouting teams. So in short, scout teams are a net loss so deep, you can see Australia through it, and only reason to get one right now is for the achievements or story flavor, which has next to no impact on the hospital it self.

Now here are some unsolicited suggestions on how to make scouting teams an actual viable strategy to run an efficient hospital.

1st - no more staffing permits for individual scouts... just stop... get some help. Make it so you need 2 permits for the commander of the team, and staff it with soldier we heal. If you feel fancy you can give the team a higher chance of success in combat encounters if the scouts are higher combat strength, and there is more of them.

2nd - 10 alcohol in 3 days for helping the monks? Those are rookie numbers, you gotta bump those numbers up. Multiply everything you currently have on the scout map by x10, but keep the weight limit per scout, and make it so the resources remain in the location. Also lower the travel time to locations that have already been resolved. So for example, I help the poor farmer put out his burning barn and take him and his family to the hospital. There is 1000 freight, 100 alcohol, and 150 food left behind on the farm. I have 5 scouts, and each can carry 50 freight, or 10 alcohol, or 15 food, to clear out the farm it would take a fully staffed team 8 trips, lets say each trip there and back would take 12 hours before any upgrades to the scout tent, so 4 days in total. All of a sudden scouts are pulling their weight, paying back what you invested in them and than some, and it even makes sense to get more than one scout team to help out.

3rd - make the missions have tangible impact on the hospital itself. After I invest a bunch of valuable resources, that could have gone into saving more lives on the operating table, into scouts, and then have them run around for half a chapter tracking down an artillery emplacement that has been bombarding me for all that time. I would like to see the benefit of that labor after successfully destroying the encampment reflected on lack of/lighter shelling of my troops for the rest of the chapter, until the Germans set up a new battery, which would result in less casualties in ACS, and/or fewer trauma patients. If you feel fancy again, perhaps if my scouts have been Uber successful in keeping the platoon, they lead through the enemy territory, at full strength, maybe even give me the option to assault the fortified battery, at the cost of horrific casualties to said platoon, and take it over, which would result in even less casualties for the rest of the game, as the HQ / healed soldiers from the hospital could reinforce that position, and shell the Germans attacking the hospital instead.

So overall, I see immense potential in the scouting mechanic, but in its current state, it is not worth investing in at all, and the little stories it offers, while flavorful and entertaining, are diverting lifesaving resources away from the hospital for pretty much 0 benefit. Here is hoping you ll get around to improving this part of the game at some point. So far your are doing good, keep it up!

[BraveLambStudio]

Hi! Thank you for the warm words and insightfull feedback, it means a lot.
We might not be able to incorporate some deeper changes due to our limited resources and, of course, a possibility of breaking the game completely, but we will try to tweak some of the things you mentioned.