Scout
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Scout is a small, speedy ship, whose outwardly weak appearance masks a weapon of great and devastating power.
This ship is the workhorse of the Shofixti, but is of Yehat origin: this ship was originally one of the Yehat's older scout ships. The Yehat gave this ship design to the Shofixti when they uplifted them with starfaring technology. The Shofixti were quick to learn how to pilot these ships, but they also enhanced the design with a piece of their own technology: the Glory device. The Yehat were horrified to see the Shofixti use their technology in this fashion, but could not deny the fact that the Shofixti were able to inflict horrendous damage to other ships.
The Scout is a small, fast, and maneuverable ship with excellent acceleration. Gravity wells do not affect it much, but collisions with asteroids can knock it wildly off-course. It is especially susceptible to the Chmmr Avatar's tractor beam attack.
Armament
Primary
The Scout is equipped with the Mendokusai Energy Dart, a weak, forward-firing projectile with a short-to-medium range and a fast firing rate. This is held in check by the puny combat batteries aboard the vessel.
Mendokusai, rather appropriately, translates to 'annoying' in Japanese.
Secondary
When faced with defeat, each Scout vessel can use its ultimate weapon, the Glory device: a powerful bomb capable of inflicting massive damage to an enemy vessel at close range. Unfortunately, detonating the Glory device is fatal to everyone aboard the Scout vessel when the device is activated. To prevent accidental activation, the secondary weapon must be pressed three times. A series of switches is visible in the melee screen so that pilots may see if the bomb is ready to detonate or not.
Tactical Overview
Against a VUX Intruder, this vessel is all but unstoppable. It can outrun the Intruder and its limpets, and the Scout's Energy Dart has a greater range than the Intruder's laser. Circle the enemy, raining fire upon it, until victory is yours.
The Glory device is effective against the Chmmr Avatar because it can destroy two zap-sats if activated at short range.
Against many other ships, the Scout is weak, but proper use of the Energy Dart and Glory device can sap the strength of the enemy ship so that others may have an easier time destroying it. Ships with a small crew complement (either from battle damage or with a normally small crew complement) can instantly be killed with the Glory device. Strategically, this means that the cheaper Scout can kill a more expensive ship simply by activating the Glory device. Slow ships with a small crew complement are particularly vulnerable to this tactic because they cannot escape a Scout that wishes to activate the Glory device.
Undamaged ships that the Glory device can instantly destroy at short range include the following: