Quick Scan

nmap -T4 -F <target>
Scan faster than the intense scan by limiting the number of TCP ports scanned to only the top 100 most common TCP ports.

Quick scan plus

nmap -sV -T4 -O -F –version-light <target>
Add a little bit of version and OS detection and you got the Quick scan plus.

Slow comprehensive scan

nmap -sS -sU -T4 -A -v -PE -PP -PS80,443 -PA3389 -PU40125 -PY -g 53 –script "default or (discovery and safe)" <target>
The scan can be said to be a “Intense scan plus UDP” plus some extras features. It will put a whole lot of effort into host detection, not giving up if the initial ping request fails. It uses three different protocols in order to detect the hosts; TCP, UDP and SCTP.

Intense scan

nmap -T4 -A -v <target>
Should be reasonable quick, scan the most common TCP ports. It will make an effort in determining the OS type and what services and their versions are running.