I've only played HD for 3 seasons, but I have'nt  used the Future Stars Scouting service yet. I would like to get some thoughts, and opinions from those who have used the service, as to how reliable, and, or useful the service really is, before I purchase any states. Thanks in advance for your input.

To me it's essential for recruiting.  Even when I was a D3 in Texas and it was a huge chunk of my money I bought my state.

The key feature is that you can see blues/reds/blacks when you look at recruits.  There are plenty of times I poke around recruiting during the season and look for guys that "look good".  Once I get FSS during recruiting I see that he looks good now, but has no growth.

To me it's key and I would never recruit without it.

yup

you absolutely have to have it.  

  at d3 you usually can only afford to FSS a handful of states, but since long distance recruiting is tricky anyway, that doesnt ususally hurt you too much.  occassionally when filling the last roster spot and funds are low and i see a recruit that i think i might like but cant afford fss (oftentimes because he is in a big state with expensive fss) i will sign a kid "blind" (without FSS)   but its a really a crap shoot at that point so i try to do it as little as possible and dont think i have ever done more than one kid a year like that.  

must use, although as noted there are budget constraints at all levels

I'm in the D3 budget constraint but only in my second year.  I've read posts and asked questions to guys like oldave, Trentonjoe, gillispie, and many others... Sooooo I will share what I have been taught.  They have all said how important it is.  Even in year 2 of recruiting (as I didn't use it like I should have in year one) I would HATE to sign a player without knowing potentials.  In D3, grab a couple of local states as local guys are your best bet to get your career started anyway (at least again what I have learned and been taught).  But once you use the FSS you will love it and hate to recruit without it after.  Freshmen and sophomores that are good are nice in D3 when you are getting started... Seniors and juniors that are great are essential in D3.

Use it. Always.  If you don't have much of a budget, only scout a few states.....otherwise, you're just guessing potentials, which is basically picking randomly, and you're not any better off than the sims. 

If you're in a "big" state (CA, NY, PA, TX) and have a small budget 1-2 open scholarships, consider waiting and buy FSS after signings begin -- the cost will go down considerably and, at the D3 level, there will always be an overlooked gem or a late dropping D2 guy that just showed up at D3 available.

That said, I parrot everything said here -- gotta use it. Even if you don't find as much value in it as others, you can't recruit from a position of disadvantage against the vast majority of your human counterparts in a world and expect to consistently compete.

There are definitely some seasons I have found it more useful than others. I just finished getting 4 players to sign in Allen. For the most part, they are all transfer students or in far-away states that I didn't FSS. I only FSS'd 2 states (and it ended up wasting money, I guess, because I didn't recruit any players from those 2 states... none of them seemed to meet my needs as well as the transfers from out of state).

But I think it depends on the season. More often than not FSS is going to help you.

At D3, where your budget can be a very limiting factor, its usually best to look through the recruits and find the ones you would go after if they had good potentials, and then only buy FSS for the states they are in. This can save you some money over just buying a bunch of local states and then realizing that you wasted money because there isn't a single recruit you like in a state.

Posted by theploww on 5/14/2014 2:48:00 PM (view original):
At D3, where your budget can be a very limiting factor, its usually best to look through the recruits and find the ones you would go after if they had good potentials, and then only buy FSS for the states they are in. This can save you some money over just buying a bunch of local states and then realizing that you wasted money because there isn't a single recruit you like in a state.

I'm with ploww on this.  I do that, I don't know why I said local states.  I meant I look at local kids, and more often that not I can find recruits that fit my plan.

at all levels always wise to look to see if there are recruits who you would want IF they have good potentials - no reason to buy it where no one has a realistic chance to be of interest

I think you have to either use FSS or scouting trips.

I also think it is usually much cheaper to buy a state's FSS than it is to scout the individual recruits you are interested in ... especially at D3.

You absolutely have to use potential to recruit if you want to have consistently good teams.

I have a slightly different take on the D3 budget. I think if you have multiple players in a single state, it can be useful. But in the end, it doesn't give you any more than your scout trip does *if* you know how to read the scouting report, which I think is a much more valuable tool.
An example: I had a big class this season (8 open schollies) and two states with multiple recruits. I bought those two states from FSS. Saw the pretty blue numbers and went, "whee"!. I blew off the scouting reports. For one player, the blue changed to black after two lousy points of improvement. Whoops! For another, two blue categories went black after about the same. For the first player, that category that went black to early was a point guard's passing category. He went black at--get this--18. Had I mad my decision off the scouting report, I would have never made that mistake.

I just think the price is to high in D3 relative to what you actually get. Those blue numbers can be traps.

Posted by tcplotts on 5/14/2014 8:37:00 PM (view original):
I have a slightly different take on the D3 budget. I think if you have multiple players in a single state, it can be useful. But in the end, it doesn't give you any more than your scout trip does *if* you know how to read the scouting report, which I think is a much more valuable tool.
An example: I had a big class this season (8 open schollies) and two states with multiple recruits. I bought those two states from FSS. Saw the pretty blue numbers and went, "whee"!. I blew off the scouting reports. For one player, the blue changed to black after two lousy points of improvement. Whoops! For another, two blue categories went black after about the same. For the first player, that category that went black to early was a point guard's passing category. He went black at--get this--18. Had I mad my decision off the scouting report, I would have never made that mistake.

I just think the price is to high in D3 relative to what you actually get. Those blue numbers can be traps.

If the category is blue, he is going to gain at least 20 points. (Assuming he has enough WE)

Certainly the scouting reports are better than FSS (at least more detailed) ... BUT .. it is much more expensive to get all the info with scouting reports, and you might not EVER get every attribute.  If you need to send 3 scouting reports per recruit and if 3 of the recruits are in the same state and also close, you likely spent $1000 on just 3 recruits for info.  You didn't get any info about anyone else.

What if another team gets one of those recruits ... you don't know anything about any other recruits to maybe pick a replacement.

FSS is just way too valuable to pass up.