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Seeker Ships, scouts? Or the Next complaint.

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Seeker Ships, scouts? Or the Next complaint.

from Sins Forums
Seeker ships, the Advents scouts. Weak, and fast. No crystal nor' metal required to build. No antimatter. But 3 Damage a shot. So what happens when you spam them? Make them into a large group. They don't take much command points, then you research the " Kamakaze " (Forget what the name is) Military research and it makes them into great weapons, instantly doing the amount that they're worth in Damage. I admit to finding out this tactic, and sending a sucicide fleet of 10 and a Battleship, to aid my Human partner when he needed it, to another star.  10X200= 2000, and near instant 2000 Damage to a capital ship is brutal, that with the battle ship and the bombers, another Advent's Prognetor Mothership was down for the count in other thirty seconds. I found this tactic encumbersome, as you have to direct each one, but I also found it helpful, when using scout frigates to hold off Purge Vessels.

But, people who hate LRM Spam, Light frigate spam, Siege Spam, and  The carriers. Is Seeker spam the next thing to complain about? As I mentioned before,  you have direct each one, and it takes them a while to get there. But when done choreographed well, it could mean near instant loss of a Capital ship caught of gaurd. There is some ways to avoid this.( Hey 'Pa! Look at' the big'ol ship flying a'l round our planet, I wonder what he up' to.((Exageration)) )

  I personally think that it brings for a interesting and unique reason to be the Advent, I also think it would be great coupled with lingering Presence, anyways. Has anyone been/have Scout Spammed?
strategy
12,114 views 34 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top
Maybe putting a scout somewhere it can stay perminatly cloaked somewhere to provide unlimited intelligence?
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Ding ding ding ding, we have a winnah! TEC get this via the probes, the Advent through the lingering presence, and the Vasari through phase cloaking. So the Vasari are still a little "screwed" since all they have is the colonization ability, which the other races get on their colony ships.
Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top
i think im now going to mod advent scouts to do 1000 damage on their suicide....:P
i wonder if 9v1 hard AI would fare...........AWAY WE GO BATMAN AWAY WE GO
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top
Ding ding ding ding, we have a winnah! TEC get this via the probes, the Advent through the lingering presence, and the Vasari through phase cloaking. So the Vasari are still a little "screwed" since all they have is the colonization ability, which the other races get on their colony ships.
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The TEC Arcova Scout gets this via it's Probe ability, yes - 15 minutes of reconnaissance for 2 minutes of cool-down. It can keep tabs on multiple planets this way and still be able to drop bombs, move around, etc.

Unfortunately for the Seeker Vessel, both it's special abilities - Martyrdom and Lingering Presence - require it to either kill itself, get killed, or both. The Seeker works best when dead.

The Vasari's Jikara Navigator scout pays for it's Capture Neutral Asteroid ability with it's increased cost: 225 cash + 25 metal + 3 supply vs. the 200 cash + 2 supply required for the Arcova and Seeker. It has more firepower than the other scouts(4 DPS vs. 3) but the Seeker is by far the most durable and thus also the most combat-worthy. And while Phasic Cloaking means it's much harder to lose a scout during reconnaissance operations, it doesn't quite compare with the ability to suicide-ram the opponent or crush their infrastructure with time bombs.
Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, but JIkara navigator's ability to capture Neutral Extractors is -extremely- powerful and can turn games if the map has enough neutrals.

That said, TEC Bombs while nice aren't really all that effective, with a 15 minute cooldown you're waiting for a -really- long time for anything to happen after the second use. You're really better off tossing 5 LRMs or something into the fray than 10 Arcovas. The real strength is the innocuousness and speed of scouts. No one actually pays attention to them.
Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, but JIkara navigator's ability to capture Neutral Extractors is -extremely- powerful and can turn games if the map has enough neutrals.That said, TEC Bombs while nice aren't really all that effective, with a 15 minute cooldown you're waiting for a -really- long time for anything to happen after the second use. You're really better off tossing 5 LRMs or something into the fray than 10 Arcovas. The real strength is the innocuousness and speed of scouts. No one actually pays attention to them.
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Well, if the target isn't TOO far away, you could scuttle the scouts after the attack and build a new batch with new bombs and go for another round of strikes with less delay but more cash/micromanagement input.
Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top
Used a group of arcovas last night to take out a military lab as part of a strike. Fun, but a little underwhelming:

1. The delay before the explosion means they don't take the structure down quickly.
2. 900 seconds of cooldown makes it a one-shot strategy, and then you've got a small clot of underpowered ships for 15 minutes (I sent them off gathering updated intelligence.)
3. Hard to justify the research expenditure if you have something else a little more critical to research at the time.

That said, an arcova strike might be a very useful one-shot deal in the right circumstance:

1. Simultaneously taking out broadcast stations in a couple of gravity wells that are preventing you from colonizing/about to deprive you of a colony through culture; or

2. Taking out the labs of a rival who is overly dependant upon advanced technology for some key feat, right at the beginning of the pivotal battle.

And a little pack of 5 arcovas running around in someone's back lines could be annoying and provoke a response (building hangars everywhere, chasing with much larger fleets) that ties up way more resources than the cost of the arcova pack.

Reply #32 from Sins Forums Top
Arcovas are generally not very effective on their own, but the psychological response they can provoke by attacking structures and builders can be devastating. Not only that, having a roaming pack of arcovas means you're getting intelligence.
Reply #33 from Sins Forums Top
Apart from using bombs on existing structures, Arcova Scouts can also take down queued up structures with their laser-guns alone and kill constructor/trade/refinery ships in the area, and then drop Probes to keep a watch on the gravwell before making a run for it. The Probes last 15 minutes, so when the vision is cut, you know the bombs have been re-loaded and it's raiding time again.
Reply #34 from Sins Forums Top
Let me point out that timed explosives can be really nice as a addition to the scouts scouting duties. I. E. don't use them for the explosives, use them to scout... and drop the occasional explosive where it hurts. (Mines are great, since IIRC you can "one shot" them)