Have scouts become too powerful?

You know, I haven't had those kinds of problems against scouts in the past.  Yeah, I've been on the receiving and delivering side of the scout rush (as Advent and TEC) but it's not by any means unbeatable.  The problem isn't mass scouts (because carriers and/or flaks will rip them to shreds) but rather scouts with a large and balanced army backing them up.

Now, scouts are only good against long range frigates.  I don't know why you're losing to scout-based armies when you're pursuing other unit types.  Gardas shouldn't be able to completely suppress your fighters early game (and if they continue to invest heavily in gardas this just opens the door for you to get more light frigates), and your own flaks can deal a number on scouts.  I don't know where you're having your issue, so I can't comment further, but usually when I win or lose on a scout rush it's because someone was unprepared or outplayed the other player.

I say scouts arent that strong either. Its really only effective in really early game when each players are working their way up to LRM. But once you see an army of scouts. Its too easy to counter.

The problem isn't mass scouts (that's usually not hard to counter), but rather scouts with a balanced army to back it up.  They counter long range frigates quite nicely, which covers for your light frigates and leaves the enemy in a bad position to deal with your own LRF as well.  I honestly considered scouts part of a balanced early game army.  I don't necessarily lean on them as heavily as described in the original post, but I definitely use them.

IMO, the only thing scouts should rightly counter is Fog of War and Mines.

It's never even struck my mind to use them in a combat role that doesn't involve mine-sweeping. Why the hell is a scout countering LRF when they are in theory sporting less armor and firepower than a regular Frigate? Something is wrong here.

Oh, scouts are exceedingly weak and fragile.  The thing is, they can easily outnumber most LRF 3:1.

How could I not be drawn to this post?

What truely seems to be lost is that scouts are ONLY good against light armor. A good early game balanced fleet is scouts mixed with light frigs.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Scouts can be countered by just about anything that has medium armor and up. Skirmishers and flak will take a little bit longer to do the job (skirmishers are pathetically weak compared to their counterparts even with reintegration).

Bring out some fighters if your opponent is massing scouts, or even some of your own ( they counter themselves ). Fighters absolutely maul scouts. So he brings flak to counter the fighters? Make light frigs. Light frigs aren't the world's best counter to scouts, but they work. Also, try some turrets. Turrets absolutely screw scout rushes.

One arguement about scouts that I feel is truely lost is that you can make them from the beginning, so the fleet will be bigger provided you never stop making them. Yes Scouts are tough, but they do pathetic amounts of damage.

Scouts lose to:

Fighters ( no question, scouts can't destroy carriers for shit )

Other scouts

Light frigs ( Skirmishers need reintegration but otherwise all light frigs win )

Flak (so tough that scouts do almost nothing noticable )

HC's ( obviously )

Look. If you see massed scouts that means your opponent is being aggressive. You're going to need a big fleet too. Take a look at how big his fleet is and get a rough guess for how big it is in terms of ship slots and try to get one at least 3/4 the size (preferably equal in size). Honestly I'd like a look a replay or two where you say you've seen this happen to you. 

I don't think scouts are imbalanced, however I think seekers could use a slight nerf (about -10% health), but other than that leave 'em alone.

Countering massed scouts never has and never will be hard imo. It's like any other strategy in the game. There are advantages, but there are also counters.

I'll admit I've never been on the recieving end of a scout army. Normally I'm the one using them.

Oh, one last thought. Here's what I see scouts as. Specialists. They are good at only one thing: raping lightly armored frigates.

What I would be curious to see is how big your fleet is compared to the scout user. I can tell you from experience that I have been repulsed using scouts by SMALLER fleets.

Map set-up also can factor in a lot. Someone who likes to scout spam will only be more lethal if he has say a several asteorid start or a lava/ice with 4 mines close to the homeworld. These are the games where my tactic gets most lethal.

The founder of the Scout rush has spoken.

Without replays I guess the rest of us have a hard time believing you got owned that bad with a decent fleet for countering scouts. Perhaps we'd be able to give better advice with one of them.

People who lose to scout rushes don't lose because they build the wrong ships necessarily.

What I see is people not scouting their enemy and getting caught with their pants down. They are struggling against an early scout spam with a much smaller fleet and eventually getting all their ships killed. At that point it doesn't really matter what ships the attacker has.

Hound hit it.  you must scout the enemy and know where he is, what his ship makup is, and where the tech level of the enemy is. 

Read Amish's Defender post on how to hold out if you don't want/can't make a good fleet to counter.... a scout fleet loses to a defender with starbase.

So it's moot and there's nothing to worry about if you pay attention and play well... gotcha.

Was worried for a sec there... methinks I need to do more multiplayer to see what people are up to these days.

*attaches a photo of Jixra's bust smiling like a used car salesman with a sparkle on his teeth and flashing a thumb's up (Jixra's Multiplayer Seal of Approval - someone so needs to photoshop that up!)*

-Itharus

Personally, I am averse to using scouts as a main combat unit.  They are scouts and are supposed to scout.  They shouldn't compromise the bulk of someone's fleet(which some do).  They shouldn't be a factor in a battle period outside their primary functions.....scouting and mine sweeping.  I think they should be nerfed in damage to anything other than scouts.

[_]-Gryefox

Just cuz they give them the title scout doesnt mean they cant have combat worthyness. Hell some consiter snipers, scouts. And I think they can do more than just watch people.

I always love to battle scout fleets....easy xp.

a tip - try to counter more with flak/carriers,they are usefull later.

Advent Scout armies backed by other ships are actually pretty hard to fight.....the Advent scout is about 30% tougher than the other scouts ....about as much health as a Disciple, but cheaper.  Scouts are pretty worthless attacking defenses and fold easily against developed late game fleets, but someone who builds a scout army immediately and uses it aggressively will prevent you from massing up a late game fleet.  As Vasari, the best way to fight it is with an aggressive SB strategy, but it is very challenging for TEC.

I've never understood why people get so scared of a scout fleet. Build a fleet of light frigs and the scout army is done. That is the early game answer. And don't give me the "but he will bring Illums then" arguement. If he's reeeeally investing hard in scouts, that means he hasn't invested in Military labs yet. 

You want to know what my most recent tactic is? Use a fleet of mixed disciples and scouts. The scouts can stop an Illum spam. The light frigs can stop a starbase rusher. The fleet is overall powerful, cheap, and can be brought out early to be effective.

You want to know how you can push me back if I'm doing that? Get a fleet of pure light frigs.

Course, I'm probably watching you if you're doing that ( scouting, as in legit sending scouts behind enemy lines,  is the most powerful think you can do early )

Scouts never have been too powerful, however I could understand if Advent scouts were nerfed about 25% in health. They are just a smidge too tough.

My point is I have pushed back scout spammers easily. Don't believe me??? Try my own tactic on me and see what happens.

My parting Point:

With the recent buffs to light frigs, scout rushing now has a very successful counter for VERY early in the game. Light frigs now tear apart scouts more than ever because they're even tougher. Carriers have always been the best counter, but now light frigs do the job better than light frigs did pre 1.04.

while I understand that people are going to use tactics that are out there when it comes to combat. it just still surprises me that scouts have any ability to smash an enemy. Ive never tried to use a scout rush. Im sure it wouldnt work as I do kindof spam LFs in an attempt to field as many units as possible within the first 15 minutes to 30 minutes into game play.

25% is not really a "smidge".  At 825 health, for 200 credit / 2 fleet they are one of the most health efficient units in the game for cost and fleet points.  I never said I had a problem with scout fleets...I said ADVENT scout fleets.  Especially when someone gets some feed (which NEVER happens, right?) ....it can be tough to build LF fast enough, especially if you are Vasari.  People who know what I'm talking about know how effective this strategy is.....later in the game a scout army is just fodder.

No intelligent player would keep building scouts if they saw a LF-based army.  You'd see them very quickly switch to LRF and hit you with that.

In the spirit of this thread, I'd recommend you mix scouts into your fleet.  A massive LF fleet is very vulnerable to a LRF rush (and once the enemy sees what you're doing, they WILL start pumping LRF), so you really need to preemptively prepare yourself for that, and scouts are a great unit for doing so.

If it's a well-fed Advent scout rush, you probably should put up some turrets and try to wait it out.  Even Advent scouts, for all their strength, have nothing on turrets and will quickly go obsolete as higher end units take to the field.  That said, I do have to agree about the Advent scout, but it's not really a problem unit right now.  The only person I've seen absolutely dominate with it is RA himself.  Smoked my team so badly on his front that I actually told my allies not to feed me even though I was taking a 2v1.

For the longest time I thought Advent scouts only did 2 dps, which if you think about it would balance the seeker, but it does 3. Same as TEC. One less than Vasari.

When I said 10% health, I meant the actual health i.e. hull. So that'd be a 12.5% nerf in total toughness. I wasn't very clear when I wrote that, so my bad. I agree 100% that they're tough little bastards, but even with that I still stand by my statements 100% that scouts are counterable.

Oh, and to the "what if he's fed arguement" I say well.....if someone is fed, his tactics will be stronger regardless of what tactic he's using. You feed an Illum rusher. He's going to get more Illums and be a more effective Illum rusher. You feed a garda spammer, same thing. Diplomacy is thankfully going to change that a good bit. I'm going to guess that you'll have to get civ labs if you're going to try to either recieve or give money, which would be a dynamic change in online multiplayer.

End of the day, I still think scouts aren't too powerful, but rather fit a role like every other ship in the game. The devs obviously intended for scouts to have some sort of combat role, because they gave them abiltiies and made them the ship to counter mines.

Stop saying the fact that a scout can fight is bogus. There are games like rise of nations where the scout does nothing but scout and games like Age of Empires where the scout is a fighthin unit. Scout to me translates to lightly armed, and that's exactly what scouts currently are.

Oh, and Darvin, I remember that game. That was a wierd one. No asteroid. Two Ices. An Illum spammer on the other side of the Ices. I had to hit him, so I went scout/lf rush and it worked. I saw you were doing a damn good job on your side of the map. We'll have to play on the same side one of these days.

I was doing just fine until those bombers showed up...

speaking of which the new jam weapons didn't do me a whole lot of good.  To be honest, I think the old jam weapons would have served me better.  I'll have to do some more testing, but my opinion currently is that jam weapons was nerfed.

Scouting IS an important combat role.  It is one of the most important.  Knowing what your enemy is doing is crucial to knowing what to do to thwart your enemy.  I just don't think scout armies should be a viable thing to do be it as a counter to LRF or not.  There are other counters to LRF.  Scout armies are just cheezy.

[_]-Greyfox

You know what Grey, I think I get where you come from. The only real answer I have is that people are going to fall into two different spectrums of thought. You're either going to be frustrated that the scouting unit can fight, or you'll never give it a second thought.

The game I played that broke me into RTS games was Age of Empires II. I don't think it's a coincidence that in AOEII the light cavalry (scout) was the counter to the long ranged unit (archer).

I should also point out that I only use scouts extensively on long range frigate spammers. I've always used scouts in the beginning just because they're cheap and help clear pirate wells faster (good against the lrm and seige frig pirates). What's different between when I'm fighting an lrf spammer and when I'm building them early just as my starting fleet is that against the LRF spammer I'll have 30+ scouts, but if left to my own devices I probably won't exceed 20+.

Call it cheezy if you want, but because carriers are expensive and at tier 2 or 3, I have a hard time arguing against the fact that scouts are WAY more cost effective EARLY in games than fighters are.

Try dropping a starbase on a scout rusher. Or some turrets. Or light frigs. Or anything with medium armor up. They all work.

TBH we've never heard the devs comment on scouts. I always wanted to know if they felt this was a legit tactic or an exploit. All we've really got to go by is the abilities given to the unit when the game was developed, and the fact that they recently made scouts the counter to mines. These two facts combined tell me that scouts were intended as combat units, albeit in a very specialized role.

The devs were aware of the issue, and did nothing about scouts in the patch.  That's comment enough for me.

To be fair with Age of Empires, the Scout was upgrading in Age of Kings to become a combat unit, especially with upgrades to Light Cavarly and Hussar. The original Scout in Age of Empires was worthless at just about everything but scouting until the Bronze Age, where Chariot Archers became the most viable scout. Age of Kings really did turn Scout Cavarly into the Feudal Age Knight.

But yeah, the developers for SOASE definately intended Scouts to be a combat unit. Look at the TEC upgrade Timed Explosives, for example.

Also, Scout rushes are very easy to counter. Really, just hit a Scout with anything but LRFs, and they'll die. It just seems too many people are preoccupied with LRF spamming to actually consider other units.