I guess that's where we differ.

I will admit I think the strategy is simple, but that's where the beauty of it is. The simplest fleet in the beginning is the best fleet, and with the pace of online play being hardcore rushing, this strategy shouldn't e a surprise.

It doesn't bother me because while it is an extremely early tier (0) fleet, the fact is there is a tier 0 response.

Also all I think it's going to take for this trend to go away is for people (like myself) to actually beat these said exploiters. Most people who do this tend to think they've found the holy grail of strats and will keep using it till they lose with it.

If you're opponent is half decent he'll see the light frig spam you're doing to counter and he'll figure "Ok, better go lrf" at which point you should have the upper hand.

I don't care what tier units are doing the fighting, as long as they're winning the battle for me. While the first step to countering a lf/scout spam isn't above tier 0, eventually you're fleet will go there.

Unless you played someone who teched martyrdom I'm hard pressed to believe this.

let's say 50 disciples, 100 seekers (not an unlikely fleet)

50 * 8 *.5 (50% multiplier) = 200 dps

100 * 3 * .5 (50% multiplier) = 150 dps

vs 60 lrms and 40 flak

60 * 11 * .75 = 495

40 * .25 (only aims front 25% of dps) * .5 (50% multiplier) * 15 = 75

HOWEVER THOSE NUMBERS LIE

Have you ever watched scouts/lfs going after moving targets? They shoot, stop, chase it again, get in position and fire again. They lose some dps because they don't constantly fire (like lrfs do.....no wonder people who like the "kill cap first" strategy are bitching").

But let's say I was targeting you with that fleet, and I was targeting your cap. I'm taking you down twice as slow as a lrf spammer would, meaning you actually have time to get it away and to a repair bay. Unlike lrfs scouts/lfs aren't good pursuit units.

Some of this is just senseless. Regardless, I'll try to elaborate.

How is 'it's the best way to exploit these races' a bad argument? Exploiting race strengths and weaknesses are an important strategic aspect in any strategy game, no? I don't follow your logic here. It's not saying that if I'm TEC on a small map and I discover my Vasari opponent going for some insane early trade port strategy that I'll insist on fortifying and building trade of my own. It's only saying that the three races' tech trees are gearing towards a certain approach by default. You are not going to claim siege frigates are made available to the various races at different tech levels by random chance either, are you? Vasari have two (2!) new ship types made available at lvl 1 military tech. The TEC have none. The Vasari's first empire upgrades are geared towards an aggressive approach and guerilla warfare with options for fleet detection and bounty collection to name two. The TEC's are much more defensive, all geared towards economy. To me this suggests volumes about how the races will most likely be played.

Moving on, do you really feel scouts would have to be completely unarmed to be a 'non-combat' unit? Is the colony ships then a 'combat unit' also? Also, don't you feel their armor/shields are powerful enough already? Last I looked a Seeker basically equals a Disciple which is rather insane.

The talk about how 'they have an armor type they counter' is particularly illogical. What would be the alternative, having no weapon type? If we can for one second assume I'm correct and that scout were never intended for combat, wouldn't it make perfect sense if the devs simply applied one of the exisiting damage types to the scout/colony ship rather than invent an entirely new one, for simplicity's sake? In this case, it would only be reasonable to make the damage type on these light vessels 'light'. 'Composite' damage would on the other hand have looked very odd and precisely have suggested a combat role. Anti-light suggests none or almost none. It's pew pew at a passing enemy colony ship, not constructing hordes of these to be used as a primary weapon sledgehammer. Scout sledgehammer! One must wonder what Team Fortress 2 gameplay would look like if scouts were packing the Heavy's beloved minigun! Which, in fact, is what we see happening on SOASE.

Moreover, isn't it a bit odd that the game's very own AI (which undoubtedly was programmed to simulate a real player's actions, regardless of how awful it is) never uses scouts for combat purposes if they are 'combat ships' and such an all important counter to LRF? The AI's earliest game is LF, LF and more LF. Scouts are solely doing reconnaisance.

To summarize, I'd say your claim scouts are combat units is just as much a 'belief' as you'd say my claim they are (nigh) non-combat units is. The difference is if you look at things from the former perspective you are left with a completely unintuitive scout sledgehammer rush game where defensive races trumph the aggressive combat-wise whereas from the latter perspective the game mechanisms make much better sense, the AI's actions make sense and the race lore is reflected in the game. Take your pick.

I'm not saying don't exploit their strengths.  And i didn't say it was a bad argument, it's just a bit overused and therefore obviously not strong enough because it hasn't detered anyone.  I agree that they have their strongpoints, and you listed them well enough.  But i don't think the devs necessarily had that particular play-path in mind.  I need better evidence to be convinced.

I didn't say it was a GOOD idea to use scouts offensively, only that they are viable.  And as for your argument about making a new weapon type, that's exactly what they would have done if scouts were not meant to be a counter.  There's no reason not to, since it would have taken maybe an hour's worth of programming to do, basing it off the others.  (I'm being VERY lenient on this time assumption.  It would be a basic cut-paste scenario where they removed damage modifiers.)

On a side note, are colony frigs strong against anything?  I assume they use the same damage type as scouts so probably yes, but i don't know.

Well, the game is playable, for sure. Just nowhere near how the developers envisoned it. Which is why it's so odd they're so reluctant to put some decent armor on those fighters, a simple change that would fix so many problems.

On a side note, the developers are recommending using flak for clearing mines, not the scouts themselves.

Lets look at the three strategies that qualify as a 0T ier rush.

They build just scouts, LFs will kill them

They build just LFs, LRM will kill them

They build a mixture, LFs will kill them

See, all these strategies have an easy counter. Even if you're Advent and will find it hard to get your LRM, you can just fight Rock with Rock and build LF to counter LF (hint, Disciples are the best LF anyway)

Now, look at those counters I suggested. If your enemy is stupid, you win with your selected counter. If not, he will build the apropriate counter to you. Once that happens, you both HAVE to tech up! You're going to need your Hoshiko or Ilum to stay alive.

So, we've established there's nothing wrong with an easily killable tier 0 rush.

Scouts are the only counter to LRM. Nerf them, LRM come back into full power and the game becomes rubbish. At least this way people use more than one unit (and Heavy Cruisers, Turrets and Capital Ships counter all three of them!!!). If you want to talk about "what the Gods intentioned", I'd rather believe it was this current state rather than the JOKE it would be if Scouts were removed!

One thing I would say is that currently, the Vasari are worthless early game. Worst Scout (too expensive, weak and too much fleet supply) Worst Frigate (again, too expensive, weak and too much supply!) I'd even go as far as to say worst LRM, in terms of price, armour and damage. So they could use some fixing to make them viable.

Seriouly I personally use soucts as cannon fodder, while my fortress ships takes out the other ones