The target star is within jump range but out of scanner range. I don’t know it’s natural resources. I send a carrier. At some point as the carrier approaches the star, I can see it’s resources. I lose the combat and now I can’t see the resources. The result is that if I’m looking during the right tick, I will know the value of the star even if my ships are lost. If I’m away from the keyboard at that tick, I lose out on some valuable information. That doesn’t make any sense.
1
Currently the only ways to know the details of a stars is either the target star is within scan range from one of your stars or within scan range of your FA ally, or you own that star, or your FA ally owns that star.
Scanning tech applies to stars’ capability, not carriers’ capability.
2
If your carrier arrives at a star outside your scan range and is greeted by enemy ships, then combat must first be resolved before ownership of that star is determined.
So if you lose combat at an enemy star, then you do not own that star, and would not scan any other details of that star, except the failed combat report.
As always, xjhdexter provides an excellent explanation.
One nice/reasonable change Jay could make (that should be pretty easy) is if you WIN at a star, it should ideally tell you in the Event Log what the stats are. I.e. you already know the Economy (since you got 10X that in cash) … and you do OWN the star. So if you lose it next tick, you are penalized for not logging in within that time window to see the stats. This would also apply to turn-based games.
Not sure if you want to auto-capture scan data from that star of neighboring stars … plus this would be more work for Jay to implement.
Ok. What I was missing was that there is a distinction between claimed and unclaimed stars. When my carrier approaches an unclaimed star there is a brief window, like a tick or two, when I can see it’s resources before I have claimed it. I thought it would work the same way with a claimed star. If not, fine.
But the scenario that HULK describes has also happened to me, and that really doesn’t make sense.
Carriers can’t see. They have no ability to un-hide what’s on a star unless they conquer it.
Your scanning tech must have increased the range of your nearest star as the carrier approached. That or a bug…
If your empire has Scanning tech level X, then you can scan the NR ECON IND SCI WG & ship counts up to (X+2) LY from your own stars, not carriers. Carriers do not have Scanning tech.
If you click on any of your stars, the dotted wavy ring is the scan range from that star. Hit the shortcut key “V” to use the chain ruler to double check distances.
Unless there is a new bug.
If you were unable to scan a star, and then at some tick it becomes scanned, it is because that star has come within scan range from a friendly star somewhere. You might have captured a star that is near enough to scan it, or your Scanning Tech level might have gone up by 1, either by SCI Research or from Experimental RP bonus, or your FA ally gained scan on that target star.
If you had scans on a target star, and then at some tick you lose scan on that star, it is because somewhere else your empire lost a star that had scan range on that target star.
NR is readable on any stars within scan range. It makes no difference whether that star is claimed or unclaimed.
A claimed star can become unclaimed when that empire abandons that star.
Ok. I get all this. But what about the HULK scenario? If I capture the star, hold it for a couple ticks while I’m AFK, then lose it and log in afterwards, shouldn’t I know something about the star?
Jay is busy with many tasks and pending feature requests.
Another reasonable feature request could be :
If my empire acquires scanned data on a star but later loses scan to that star, I should still have NR & position data of that star, and be able to jump to that star if it is still within HR. (Might need to add another layer in the NP2 server database.)
Waiting for Jay. . .
You guys are going to hate me, but i have to say it 
!
Other day people were debating realism x ‘‘meta cheesy’’ solutions for the game, this may be the case here, but unconsciously or not (i have no idea lol) Jay may have foreseen this kind of stuff by ‘‘sorting things in their right places’’ like: Shouldn’t Dark Galaxies supposed to be the hardcore rule set version of the game (rated 18+ or something lol) ? With the worst survival enviroment possible and strict realistic rules etc…
Considering that Jay wants to ‘‘rotate stars’’ in the future, maybe the best easy/elegant solution here is to just add star stats in battle report (NR: x TR: y E: z I: w S: k) winning or losing, and if losing all goes dark again if out of scan range…
All active game mechanics are about vision/blind x movement/risk x time/distance so messing with one shall develop unwanted unbalance i guess !
Obs: time/distance are hybrid once it interfere in passive game mechanics like EIS.
Obs2: I let diplomacy out because its hybrid/meta once it can interfere with everything, but differently from time/distance you can ‘‘control’’ it.
I agree. This is the way to go.
That could help some players get some sleep. LOL. The other players might earn the Sentinel badge.
Hmmm… i see what you mean… for me personally i dont hunger for this kind of info (i judge stars tactical importance most by position than ‘‘size’’ 60/40% of my choices give or take, sometimes one is both lol xD !) but i can ‘‘see’’ players abusing 1 ship fake attack just to get data and stall scan research which is tricky, on the other hand, to be ‘‘deserving’’ of a sentinel badge idk, maybe its a stretch, because there is a lot of ''tips and variants that can give away enemy intentions without seeing too much but something still… (personally i like the idea of betting in multi-attack/focus-super-attack or just research the damn tech scan and watch your borders lol)… you got me here, i always come back to suggestions that make Jay’s life harder lol like: -scout ship with x scan lvl -amazing statistics/info/data screen after match that allows x players with x statistics to be deserving of x badges (idk something like the players that logged in, stay logged more time or attacked/evaded sleeping players more times are considerated deserving of sentinel badge ? and only those top x are able to receive you gift ?) tricky stuff lol !