I haven't had a boss npc on my battle tab for 4 weeks! Does higher/better scan help find better npc's?

I believe so. Now we know for sure you need some scan to find npc bosses with cloak, but I suspect good scan helps find better spawns in general. I don't find much either with low scan.

Just an observation it does...I am Genetarr race and hunt NPC bosses to share with my legion...I do not find them running low scan. The higher the scan it seems the better the boss found as some of them are highly cloaked.

I was under the impression that the highest cloak for a boss was 200. So if youre scan is over two hundred there will a roll to see if you find it. But there is only a few bosses with cloak so I dont know if having high scan will get you overall better NPC results. I wish it would, adds another strategy element to the game to have a few scanners in your cargo to pull out right before you kill off an NPC or right before they refresh on your battle tab.

The highest cloak I remember seeing is 600 on the dark command nexus, but I think someone said there is a 700. Probably the sha'din hypergrids or something. I think it either lets you find them or it doesn't, there aren't increasing odds with increasing scan. That is hard to prove though. It's more efficient to use one real scanner than all the little mission scanners.

It's just an observation of mine...low scan does not typically yield these results.

I don't see any cloak stat on the NPCs i get... Where should I look?

also whats a decent scan #? I've got 600 and i dont see many elites but compared to a lot of the people i see on the battle tab, my scan should be better than most in my range.

Status tab where attack and defense appear. There is no "sweet spot" for the scan amount to use I've already been trying to find that. I agree with Spoony about using 1 good module for efficiency over using artifacts.

It might also be useful to bump scan a bit before purging the npc list.

I'm pretty sure now -- completely different results with 60 scan and 600+ scan (energy modules that happen to have scan, the jacks mainly). Boss NPCs, uncommons, are more common, as opposed to 90% common NPC. I am 90% sure that higher scan yields better NPC spawns.

As long as enough scan is equipped to see the NPC's with cloak, scan is totally irrelevant. No amount of scan will change anything as far as NPC spawning goes. I am 110% sure of this.

I wish Dan would just say if it matters or not. Obviously cloaked stuff it matters - I mean for just spawn quality/rarity in general..

That is correct.

Sweet, thanks for letting us know; got kinda tired of these arguments.

Thanks Dan. Puts my mind to rest on it finally

To keep simple

Somebody with 600 scan and somebody with 4000 have the same chance see a Boss with 600cloak?

Yes. You need as much scan as the highest NPC scan. Which is Dark Command Nexus, at 600 cloak.

Actually, I can auto-level by NPC hunting and I have found that doing it with less than 200 scan is quite beneficial. The only 10 person bosses I get are renegar and graxis. The rest have crap XP and loot most of my legion doesn't need and it shows by a lack of expediency. In terms of the 3 person elites, only the XRP and telarys are missing, which are crap XP. The only bad XP 3-person elites left are xavox and the fabrication plants. You still get okkilor and refineries and korteth, which are all good XP. None of the single player NPCs are affected and I don't have to worry about my 4 meager NPC slots being taken up and my XP buffs going to waste while I sit on my hands and I don't have to solo stuff. I actually have to uninstall a genetarr transmitter to get under 200 scan though.

here's a list of what you miss with 0-200 scan
Shadin AI matrix
Shadin hypergrid
Dark Ring
Dark megacomplex
dark command nexus
XRP
Telarys carrier

I have the equipable loot from all of those and they are pretty bad XP except maybe the AI matrix. I'm pretty glad they don't clog up my bettle tab now. That was the main reason I started. The number of rares you get WILL cause you to see less overall if you can't see them; cloaked rares aren't replaced with other rares. So, in answer tot he original question, no, scan helps you find the crap NPCs. If you or your legion needs the loot, and most do, it is still worth it though.

That's actually a very good point. Except that you also lose the benefit of crits in the process. But still beats not getting all those. Good point there.

I don't have any math to prove it, but crits really are pretty insignificant when it comes down to it. Most of the time you're probably going to be pretty close to the hyperbolic damage cap anyways. If you are fighting a boss and that isn't the case, all you are saving is the difference in the XP ratio of a normal attack and that of fighting NPCs in general and that is you DO happen to save a whole attack via a critical. a crit on a boss means about 6 or 7 xp I guess if it is double the power, which it probably isn't.