This is already being discussed on 2 other threads.  Why are you starting a third?  First of all, the problem is not necessarily with scouts but their combination of scouts and LF which negate most of their early counters.  It is a no lab thing to do.  All you have to do is put up more frigate factories and sell crystal to do it.  LF kill the flak and carrier counters to scouts and scouts kill the LRF counter to the LF.  It leaves you with little option other than spamming LF yourself or SBing up.  Vasari are SOL because both their LF and scouts suck.  LRF already have many counters which I have already mentioned in the other threads.  It is unnecessary to have scouts in this postion.  They already have 2 main jobs, scouting and mine sweeping along with secondary things like martyr and timed explosives.  Having to build flak as a counter to fighters is not a terrible thing.  It leads to a mixed fleet which is sorta the goal.  Allowing scout/LF spam does not open options, it closes them because you are left to do LF spam to counter.

[_]-Greyfox

Scouts are now up on the PSCF come cast a vote now

People who have tried LRMs as a counter in game have been thumped down and players with recent experience have learned that there's no need to make LRMs to counter enemy LRMs when you could just save money on military labs and make scouts yourself.  Of course you do need LFs to counter your opponents LFs and his scouts.  Seriously, I have seen huge, intimidating fleets of nothing but scouts and LFs in many games lately.

the real problem is not scouts or light frigs.

I agree most scouts should be left alone. except the advnet ones. Right now, if you look at it they have the best LF, best scout, best Early game carreir (due to the 2 labs), and the best Long range frigate.

That is not the problem though. THeir scouts have more than 2x the sheilds of TEC (im keeping Vasari out of the comparison because we all know that Vasari Scouts suck for fighting), and almost the same Hull. Basically they are tanks early game. Advnets Lf with Scouts cant be countered by anyting except Sbs or pure LF spam which is easily controlled by LRFs.

Advnet can scout and LF rush and counter absolutley everything in the early game.

What needs to happen is Advent scouts be made the same, or weaker than TEC scouts. That way they can be easily controlled quickly by the units that counter them.

Now i am not saying that Scouts arnt countered properly its just that advnet scouts are so strong that they can take out long range frigates before an equal investment in LFs or fighters can take them out.

I think as long as Advent scouts are knocked into line with the others there will be no problem any more. and scout and LF spamming will be considerd a counterable stratagy just as much as any other one.

_|~Uber

Top Vasari just expressed my opinion on the matter pretty much.  Buff the Vasari LF/scout to make them comparable with the other factions, nerf the Advent scout to about the level of the TEC one, and things are looking pretty good.

i think the problem is people are playing with a tickbox style approach.

as in: first second third

regardless of what the enemy is doing

people used to spam LRF because they were hard to counter

now, there is a unit that effectively devastates an LRF spam, and is exceptionally cheap to create.

so (the 'immature') people are crying because their step by step guide to winning doesnt work anymore, instead of changing their tactics.

like others have said, there is no rule to say you cant spam the same units as your opponent and then hope to get some sort of advantage, be that numbers, extra research, defending home turf etc.

send scouts out to neutral GW's and other places where a scout can sit without being attacked between you and your enemy, and when the enemy fleet comes into one of those GW's, you can then see what sort of fleet he has and how to counter it. im not saying its perfect, but its better than crying about your plans being screwed when you didnt bother to gather intelligence beforehand.

to be quite honest, a mixed fleet of scouts, LF, LRF and maybe even a few carriers and DUC's (Defensive Utility Cruisers), even if you only have 1 or 2 of the latter 2, would be much more effective and versatile than simply spamming a unit or a unit synergy.

you just have to hope you get lucky and can build a sufficient fleet before the other guy, and thats how it should be, because guaranteed winning methods are what kill a game

I disagree.  As far as I know (someone correct me if I am wrong) ADVENT SCOUTS HAVE BEEN THE SAME SINCE THE GAME SHIPPED.  Yet no one ever complained about them before.  Never.

Some other game dynamic changed, but the Advent scout did not change.  So if there is a "problem" and you want to fix said "problem," hone in on the dynamic that changed, not the Advent scout.

Darvin3 said that it was buffs to light frigs (which ironically enough were demanded by players) that caused scouts to seem so powerful.

Obviously there is always going to be a fine line between Scout/LF spam vs. LRF spam and trying to balance that between 3 races whilst keeping each race individual and unique.

Ironclad's (in my opinion) not so bright decision of making a basic unit (LFs) counter 4 types of ships (Flaks, and 3 Cruisers) meant that they needed a heavy counter to keep them in check:  Enter the LRF.  However, the LRF would be TOO specialized if it countered only LFs, so they also made it counter cap ships as an added bonus.  Well the problem then becomes the fact that LRFs can rule early game because LFs and Cap Ships are really all you have until mid-game.

So the devs decided that Scouts could temporarily counter LRFs until players get the ability to unlock other techs to do the job.

The question is:  Just how powerful should Scouts be to fill their one combat role - early counter to LRFs?  Obviously this is up for debate and the delicate triangle between LFs, Scouts, and LRFs is never going to be easy to solve.  What I can tell you for sure that removing Scouts from the equation would turn the "equation" into a one-sided massacre.

Wingflier, what has made you an instant expert here?  On the first of this month you were admitting that you had played your first entrenchment game and made several posts asking how to counter things and now you are here talking like you know everything there is to know about counters and what is OP or not.  It is not the scouts alone that is the problem.  The problem is LF and scouts together spammed without the need for any labs or research.  I will respect raging amish and JJs opinion despite them disagreeing with me because they have the experience to know about unit balance without talking out of their asses.  Get some experience before you start talking about how imbalanced or not something is.

[_]-Greyfox

Thats because they dont know what they are talking about.

Basically lets make stats of all ships to be the same .As I said before I think the scouts were balanced by race and their abilities which advent basically have none(martydom sucks).

I was thinking the same thing; it's hard to take a guy's opinion seriously if he doesn't have a lot of experience playing it in online multiplayer (and in the case of this issue, recent experience).

I can live with the scout/LF spam and contrary to what TheRezonator suggested, I and other skilled players HAVE adapted to it and now you see lots of LF and scout spam.  In fact, I have modified much of my early game strategy to adjust to it.  A humiliating butt-raping or two from one of JJ's smurfs against one of my smurfs was all it took for me to reevaluate and appreciate the value of scouts and the new light frigate.  It's not that skilled players can't adjust, it's just that some of us think that it's ridiculous for the game to be played with huge fleets of scouts and LFs.

No matter what is buffed or nerfed, someone is going to find something to exploit and spam. Spam isnt going to stop. And its surprising how much buffind and nerfing has gone on yet no one has learned their lesson yet. Eliminating one sort of spam, is only going to start another spam. The game is balanced ALOT more then it has been in the past. But...if you guys want to keep goin in this broken cycle of buff and nerf, go ahead, but next time the Devs go to "balance" the game with an update. Ill make sure not to update.

The only reason I think people are so upset about the LF/Scout Spam is because of how early on it can come at you. But im willing to bet, everyone here whos upset about it, have done it themselves in the past. But what their really upset about is the fact the other guys are better at it and get around to spamming before you can.

Maybe if the "Pros" agreed to stop spamming (which I think is a pathetic strategy, no thought in it, all you need to know is what counters what) when they faced off then maybe that would set a president in the MP community. Its called an unspoken law, its not against the rules but its frowned on. And the next time the person (the spammer) wants to play you and you refuse, theyll know it was because of their actions. Eventually when they have enough people refusing to play against them theyll agree to not to spam anymore. Everyone seems to follow the leader aka the Pros. I get it, it takes away apart of a strategy...but its an annoying strategy that everyone seems to be upset about. Even those that participate in it. You cant outright stop spamming entirely by changing the stats. Its just not possible. You can curb it by agreeing as a community its to be frowned upon. And those that actively spam will either have to agree to no longer spam or just play each other. Even then it wont be stopped entirely, But if the Pros set the example. Im sure the communty will follow.

Think if modern scientists had your attitude:  "No matter what kind of medical breakthroughs we make or what new type of medications we come out with, people are still going to die eventually.  There is no way to make someone live forever, so why even try?"

See what I mean?  Just because the balance will never be perfect, doesn't mean that perfect balance shouldn't always be strived for!  If the devs had taken your attitude after the game was initially released, Siege frigs (so I'm told) would still be the spammable unit and the game would be horribly imbalanced.  It is only BECAUSE of us and because of our commitment to the game balance that it has come as far as it has.  I think asking the devs to stop balancing the game is very counterproductive.