turkey's got the right idea here folks. i read some earlier post about how you need a scout full of dfs to kill a con and nothing could be further from the truth. u can even kill one by just landing 2-4 dfs and all your gat and ur gonna tell me u need racks and racks of dfs??? thats just completely wrong.
anyway, when i command i expect all my opening scouts to have at least 3 or more probes. i aint waiting till the so-called 2nd round of cons to see where to probe. i want all sectors probed, starting w/ the ones mentioned earlier by turkey (9,11,12,7). what else should you have? yes u should have a nan... especially if you are new. it's way easier to sit there and heal something that isnt moving very fast than to take that gamble that you might have enough midichlorian count to kill the enemy before he kills the miner/con you're trying to protect.
i'll tell you a secret. on cc12 core where you can pu tech (treasures enabled). my scout loadout always consists of at least two probes. even if i go miner hunting. more often than not i bring all probes and one nan+gat. and when i get to one of those sectors (9,11,12,7,2,4) THEN i'll start dropping a few probes. i will then proceed to fly ACROSS their home to a diff sector... taking care not to get podded... while dropping a few probes that'll help the team see where the new cons are going or what tech base they launch. once you fly across their home and into a new unexplored sector... you can finish dropping the rest of your probes and go home if theres nothing to kill... then i'll go back to the default 2 probe in cargo config.
Early (beginning) stage in a game
I've always been of the biased opinion that a couple of probes is just not worth it. If you don't have the manpower to get a scout to 1 of two sectors which will be crucial in the next few minutes (hey, hihigher is actually the exception in having 4 acceses from the other guy's home) then the game is almost not worth playing.
And if that scout in one of the two crucial sectors isn't eyeing anything, guess where the stuff truly is crucial: the other sector. Realize the commander will always attempt to be doing something, be it mining, etc, if something is to be done.
And if that scout in one of the two crucial sectors isn't eyeing anything, guess where the stuff truly is crucial: the other sector. Realize the commander will always attempt to be doing something, be it mining, etc, if something is to be done.
One short sleep past, we wake eternally and Death shalt be no more; Death, thou shalt die! 
Best to play offensive and go harass enemy miners, in a usual pickup game as you can tell almost no one goes on miner d early game leaving them vulnerable and forcing the enemy commander out of base to defend them. If he is out of base he can't place cons, can't organise a bomb run, can't advise miner o. Is more likely to $#@! up with tech purchases or be late/forget critical things booster1 or whatever. A good comm will probably handle it np but they are about as rare as good advice on this forum 
Usually a comm will mine behind his outpost which more than likely on hihigher will be going midlow or midhigh. Easiest way to scout to his miners is through his home if you get there within the first 3 minutes you should be in time to see which sector they are going to and ambush them there, try and wait till they are as far from base as possible before attacking them and feel free to run away and hide after the miner starts running, the aim is to disrupt their mining not kill them.
The other useful options for a scout is eyeing the enemy home constantly or eyeing his miners this will give your team good info on the enemy miners/cons. Idea is just to sit low sig out of eye range of the garrison or miners so about 4-5k and make sure you eye the miners constantly and call which direction the cons are heading, if they are ripping (teleporting) they will float or sit still and the speed indicator will flash from say 19-20 or 0-1.
Usually a comm will mine behind his outpost which more than likely on hihigher will be going midlow or midhigh. Easiest way to scout to his miners is through his home if you get there within the first 3 minutes you should be in time to see which sector they are going to and ambush them there, try and wait till they are as far from base as possible before attacking them and feel free to run away and hide after the miner starts running, the aim is to disrupt their mining not kill them.
The other useful options for a scout is eyeing the enemy home constantly or eyeing his miners this will give your team good info on the enemy miners/cons. Idea is just to sit low sig out of eye range of the garrison or miners so about 4-5k and make sure you eye the miners constantly and call which direction the cons are heading, if they are ripping (teleporting) they will float or sit still and the speed indicator will flash from say 19-20 or 0-1.
The type of game is important too *rolleyes*Ryujin wrote:QUOTE (Ryujin @ Sep 1 2011, 06:03 PM) P.S. Noobs, take advice from someone with a command win to lose ratio greater than 1.
Go here: http://leaderboard.alleg.net/
As you can see TurkeyXIII has 45 wins and 53 losses
Whereas I have 218 wins and 120 losses.
I think it is pretty objective to say my advice is better.
I decided to relive the days gone by in my new blog.
---
Remember, what I say is IMO always. If I say that something sucks, it actually means "I think it sucks" OK?
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Remember, what I say is IMO always. If I say that something sucks, it actually means "I think it sucks" OK?
Cookie Monster wrote:QUOTE (Cookie Monster @ Jan 31 2012, 03:09 PM) True story.
Except the big about dorjan being jelly, that's just spidey's ego.
the best answer I can give you is to try and think ahead.
generally, you want to position yourself so that you can fulfille at least two of these functions. For instance, you can place your probes ahead of the constructor, and then come back to defend it at the last leg of it's travel to it's planting site.
My take on this is as follows:
Remember that mostly as a scout you are in a support role. Your main job is to find some other player flying an offensive ship and help him do a deal of damage. Harrassment is very nice and sometimes fairly useful, but generally you should focus on creating opportunities for other players in your team to really hurt the opposition.
That in mind, the first question you should have is where is my commander in need of some extra eyes and ears or some extra defense. The second question is how can I help another player find a decent target?
The fwiffo system works as follows:
When you dock, go and look at the map in base. For 30 seconds, think about what is happening in the game and decide what you are going to do. If you see another player that should be involved in this effort, try and involve him ("Grav, are you going to hit miners in oxyl? wait for me, i bring scout"). Then you go and do what you've decided upon that is most important to the game at that time, and just that.
generally, you want to position yourself so that you can fulfille at least two of these functions. For instance, you can place your probes ahead of the constructor, and then come back to defend it at the last leg of it's travel to it's planting site.
My take on this is as follows:
Remember that mostly as a scout you are in a support role. Your main job is to find some other player flying an offensive ship and help him do a deal of damage. Harrassment is very nice and sometimes fairly useful, but generally you should focus on creating opportunities for other players in your team to really hurt the opposition.
That in mind, the first question you should have is where is my commander in need of some extra eyes and ears or some extra defense. The second question is how can I help another player find a decent target?
The fwiffo system works as follows:
When you dock, go and look at the map in base. For 30 seconds, think about what is happening in the game and decide what you are going to do. If you see another player that should be involved in this effort, try and involve him ("Grav, are you going to hit miners in oxyl? wait for me, i bring scout"). Then you go and do what you've decided upon that is most important to the game at that time, and just that.
I love how this thread started out as helping a newb, and ended up as a furious debate among vets as to how many probes to take as an initial scout.
Globemaster_III wrote:QUOTE (Globemaster_III @ Jan 11 2018, 11:27 PM) as you know i think very little of cashto, cashto alway a flying low pilot, he alway flying a trainer airplane and he rented
Greetings !
I carefully red what you all wrote and I have to thank you all. That is a great help. I learnt I was wrong in many ways.
I red the pros and the cons of everyone, which differ a bit depending the writer and that's great anyway since I'm able to try either settings and find the one that *fit me best now*. Emphasized last few words : I'm new, therefore I'm weak, I must find a Scout loadout that will keep me alive as much as possible AND perform my duty at maximum before being podded. After I learn how to evade those pesky bees trying to kill me, I'll probably change my loadout configuration slightly.
I. ALL-AROUND LOADOUT - Part 1
First, I think Turkey is rather right saying that carrying an all-around cargo may not be that good as you'll be average on anything but not good at a given duty. I heard your voice Turkey and I think it makes sense (I mean, truly).
Don't get me wrong : I'm not saying Turkey is very right or very wrong (some other people has different thoughts) but at least he said something I asked myself already (which I didn't mention in my first post). But more on that "all-around cargo stuff" a little bit hereunder.
II. ONLY PROBES ?
Opposite to what I thought, it seems I shouldn't have loads of probes at very early stages (actually, as I said, I got use to fill in my cargo with probes)(and before someone say anything : I DO have a nan in cargo or equipped. Always. And if I don't have : read previous sentence).
At least, it is now clear to me that probing at early stage of game is not that effective, or I better say, not the proper way to go. Additionally, as Ryu/Cashto stated, I don't know how to probe efficiently. Of course I red all the stuff about that (900 m away from aleph or point of interest, but "not here cause probe will be noticed at once", "try to plant a probe behind that rock because blah blah", "try to put a probe in opponent's pocket", etc.). I totally agree. I do not know, at least in-game, how to probe efficiently (which I'll learn). Right. But there is a "but".
BUT ( <<-- he's here) let me express my point of view here : planting probes even in "stupid" location at beginning, while flying to find aleph or opponnent's cons or miners or base, takes me just the time taken by my finger to hit the "T" key (yeah, "T" as in "Probe"). What I'm telling myself is that a probe quickly launched ramdomly MAY (or not) catch any incoming cons, bombers, whatever ; and that information MAY (or not) be of some interest for everyone, such as alerting teammates that a scout is in a sector next to our miners. It will also show the area to Comm, even a few seconds if the probe is killed quickly, but enough so that the Comm can take proper action.
Moreover, a poorly probeb location MAY (or not
) divert an opponent scout for a few seconds as (s)he's wanting to destroy it (so easy to kill !). See the rate here : it takes me 1/10e second to launch and it takes 10 s to kill (time spent to divert route, be close enough to hit, fire, kill). Should (s)he doesn't want to kill because it would be a loss of time, great ! my probe stay here still eying the area.
Even more good thing : a poorly planted probe may be more prone to actually divert opponent : ok, I'm not taking you Vet for what you aren't but don't you never ask yourself whether or not you better go kill that probe 2 or 3 k away from your fly path ? Mmmh ? No ? Ok, never mind. I bet some are re-routing to kill that probe, "loosing" seconds here.
See ? I feel (but I may be wrong) that randomly probing as you try to find your way to inner opponent's territory is just a bonus as it could buy a few seconds in early stage. If it's not very good, it cannot hurt. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just explaining what I thought.
Edit : I red your post afterward Fwiffo : more on all-around loadout just ... below. However if you ask me to carry full probe loadout, I'll do it.
III. ALL-AROUND LOADOUT - Part 2
Pod. If any fresh newcomer is gonna read that text, read that word twice, three times, tell it as a mantra "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm pod !" and tell it endlessly till your brain hurts (you have a brain, don't you ?). Advice : grab a pack of beers, put it behind that cooling pipe in pod's cockpit, grab a book as well : the book is called "F1:Help" (and yes, to answer the question : I do read it over and over).
Why am I saying that ? It doesn't seem to be related with stuff I was asking before. Wrrrrrrrrrrrong ! Most of the time, I find myself being podded during my first launch trip (Wot ? Who said "Bwahahahaa" over there ?!). It's a fact, I can't escape that at the moment. I know I WILL be podded during my first run.
The point here is that often I can't use all my probes. I can't use my probes because I'm podded and I'm podded because I have no distraction toy for that Evil Bee on my tail. Being podded is expected, but being podded while there was 3 probes remaining in cargo, I have the strong feeling it's a waste. To be honest, I found myself so much "wasting" that full probes loadout that I thought I may be wrong to only load them on first run, and that was a kind of a trigger to start that thread (amongst other points).
As a result, and following many pieces of advice here, I tried recently that mixed-loadout (probe/prox, that is. I can even find a new word : Probx -- which has nothing to do with that pr0n movie you're currently downloading !) and found it to be more efficient. I faced the reality, Turkey, I couldn't evade a @#(! and the result is 80% of time, I'm podded before I can release my 5 probes. (again : I thank you for writing about one of my hidden question). So, at the moment, and seeing my skills, full probe cargo is not the way I should go. Not now at least.
Now, for last couple of days, I grabbed less probes and more prox (2 probes in cargo, 1 equipped, 1 nan + filling remaining slots with prox), at least for my very first launch. Now, I can fart prox as it's raining mines if any opponent suddenly want to raise his/her PK (and damnit, what poor skills I have on releasing those prox efficiently! :/ ). Ok, I know , I still hear that evil "Bwahahaha !" but time to time I hear him farting too (for "her" it's not possible : everyone knows ladies are never farting), press the break key, which give me a bit of distance.
Dropping a few prox might save me (read : "at least I have a liiiiiiittle chance to escape") while I fly away to next sector as a kamikaze, in hope to catch/eye miners, cons, tech, whatever usefull for my more skilled teammates or even warp back home. Then, even being podded far away is far less painfull. See ? With prox I lower my PoddedRate from 99% to 85%. Huge gap for me.
IV. MISSILE AND AMMO ?
I do not take any additionnal ammo, and no additionnal missiles (only the equipped ones) and I won't do that in the few next days. They would use up the space dedicated for my safety (prox) and for eye-ing (probes).
Moreover, I am not a miner killer at that moment. I mean : not only I can't use yet efficiently prox/missiles but my first run has no other purpose than eye-ing sectors, find aleph, find miners, etc. (correct me if I'm wrong). Should I find Miners area, my more skilled teammates/Comm will catch it immediately and perform accordingly and far better than me. Also, I tried in a solo game to kill one of my miner : it takes damn loooong with a scout with low level weapons. I had to load my scout with more ammo + missiles to be able to kill it, which is not an option.
Scenario 1 : "Yaaaaaa !"
I know : I could damage a bit a miner, I could make it fly away back home with no or little HE3 in cargo, that's true. But first, since I'm on SCOUTING duty I should scout and not attack (unless Comm order it, of course). And second, here are my thoughts : if I attack, it'll put the opponent red light on, and within a few seconds I'll hear the welknown evil laugh "Bwahahahaha!" resulting me being podded by swarm of pesky warflies (just do assume that till I get used to attack an Interceptor/fighter with simple scout and bare hands, I'm podded as soon as opponent pop in my area) (and "no", I don't know what the hell could be a "warfly" but that was sounded nicely to me).
Scenario 2 : ** hiding in the dark **
Look that demonstration and tell me if I'm wrong : I eye miners in a sector. I don't attack miner. Opposite to the above scenario, there is a little chance opponent will come since there are no threat (Again : don't think I'm taking you Vet for being stupid but frankly, would you come *at once* if 1. your miner are being eyed and not attacked AND 2. you know where the opponent's miners (or Cons) are ? You to tell me, by the way, what is the most common choice here but I assume there is AT LEAST a little chance no one is dispatched AT ONCE to miners if they are just being eyed)(I re-red myself and thought : why on earth am I writing such long sentences ? Never mind ...).
All right, let's follow my thinking. Assume no opponent comes in to check (not *at once*). I guess there is a reasonable high chance that one of my skilled teammates will, first, say "Yummy ! Miners ! Hehehe ..." (my teammates never say "Bwahahaa !", they are more civilized) and, second, boost to the opponent miners' area. As a skilled player (s)he will be better than me at quickly kill the miner.
Right or wrong thinking ? It all depends I guess, but I bet I win 60 % of the time.
For any Comm reading that, feel free to order me to attack miner anyway as you're more aware of the whole situation than I am but keep in mind my above thinking (if applicable, of course).
V. WHERE TO EARLY SCOUT ? (there is one more short paragraph after that one so you may want to grab a beverage)
Again Turkey answered another hidden question of mine (* quickly checking if there are any camera & mic at my place -- seems not -- I'm puzzled ... *). I was actually trying to find out whether it'd be better to scout nearby area, namely 10,1,5,6 and at maximum 2,3 and 4 (so that miners + cons are deployed in good area) or, oppositely, trying to find as quick as possible opponent's mining/cons area (still speaking about very early stages of game here).
One could say that in order to go to 9, 11, 12 and 7, you MUST go through nearby area first. True and wrong. I already played many (*ahem* ... relatively speaking, of course) games where I started to 5/6 -> 4/7 -> 12/8 then (8)/11/9 (although I'm podded before reaching 11 and 9 usually) and no one got into 10/1/2. It seems to happen a lot since I saw many times "Go Low !" or "Go High !", meaning that one should totally forget about opposite direction (or am I wrong here ?).
Any Comm I played with usually direct me time to time to the location they want me to go (and be assured, Dear Comms, that if I don't press <INS> at once, it's because I'm checking minimap thoroughly or I have a strong reason to not do it such as grabbing a nearby podded teammate, opening a bottle of beer or trying to find my fingers) but I must say I often have no clue how the map is revealed. I mean, why scouting low/mid but not high ? What's the purpose to reveal 9 and 11 when 10/1/2 aren't ? Obviously, revealing 9 and 11 will take long time if we have to start in 5/6.
And what if opponent has already invaded 1/2/10 and we are not aware of that ?
Well, I guess I'll learn in the coming weeks.
VI. PROBING IS BORING
Ryu stated that much probing is boring. Not at all. Not for me at least. I can be (or try to be) good at spotting areas (and trying my best to nan successfully). I'd say that once one know a scout is worse to drive than a flying bathtube, it would ease to learn dogfighting with interceptor or any other attack ships. Just a guess (ye, can't remember what faction my scout was today but it was almost not turning ... AAAW !).
So I'll carry on the probe/eye/nan duty with happiness and it won't be a single second a trigger for me to quit the game.
You can wake up, wall-o-text has ended ^^
Later all, and thanks again for good advice.
I carefully red what you all wrote and I have to thank you all. That is a great help. I learnt I was wrong in many ways.
I red the pros and the cons of everyone, which differ a bit depending the writer and that's great anyway since I'm able to try either settings and find the one that *fit me best now*. Emphasized last few words : I'm new, therefore I'm weak, I must find a Scout loadout that will keep me alive as much as possible AND perform my duty at maximum before being podded. After I learn how to evade those pesky bees trying to kill me, I'll probably change my loadout configuration slightly.
I. ALL-AROUND LOADOUT - Part 1
First, I think Turkey is rather right saying that carrying an all-around cargo may not be that good as you'll be average on anything but not good at a given duty. I heard your voice Turkey and I think it makes sense (I mean, truly).
Don't get me wrong : I'm not saying Turkey is very right or very wrong (some other people has different thoughts) but at least he said something I asked myself already (which I didn't mention in my first post). But more on that "all-around cargo stuff" a little bit hereunder.
II. ONLY PROBES ?
Opposite to what I thought, it seems I shouldn't have loads of probes at very early stages (actually, as I said, I got use to fill in my cargo with probes)(and before someone say anything : I DO have a nan in cargo or equipped. Always. And if I don't have : read previous sentence).
At least, it is now clear to me that probing at early stage of game is not that effective, or I better say, not the proper way to go. Additionally, as Ryu/Cashto stated, I don't know how to probe efficiently. Of course I red all the stuff about that (900 m away from aleph or point of interest, but "not here cause probe will be noticed at once", "try to plant a probe behind that rock because blah blah", "try to put a probe in opponent's pocket", etc.). I totally agree. I do not know, at least in-game, how to probe efficiently (which I'll learn). Right. But there is a "but".
BUT ( <<-- he's here) let me express my point of view here : planting probes even in "stupid" location at beginning, while flying to find aleph or opponnent's cons or miners or base, takes me just the time taken by my finger to hit the "T" key (yeah, "T" as in "Probe"). What I'm telling myself is that a probe quickly launched ramdomly MAY (or not) catch any incoming cons, bombers, whatever ; and that information MAY (or not) be of some interest for everyone, such as alerting teammates that a scout is in a sector next to our miners. It will also show the area to Comm, even a few seconds if the probe is killed quickly, but enough so that the Comm can take proper action.
Moreover, a poorly probeb location MAY (or not
) divert an opponent scout for a few seconds as (s)he's wanting to destroy it (so easy to kill !). See the rate here : it takes me 1/10e second to launch and it takes 10 s to kill (time spent to divert route, be close enough to hit, fire, kill). Should (s)he doesn't want to kill because it would be a loss of time, great ! my probe stay here still eying the area.Even more good thing : a poorly planted probe may be more prone to actually divert opponent : ok, I'm not taking you Vet for what you aren't but don't you never ask yourself whether or not you better go kill that probe 2 or 3 k away from your fly path ? Mmmh ? No ? Ok, never mind. I bet some are re-routing to kill that probe, "loosing" seconds here.
See ? I feel (but I may be wrong) that randomly probing as you try to find your way to inner opponent's territory is just a bonus as it could buy a few seconds in early stage. If it's not very good, it cannot hurt. I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just explaining what I thought.
Edit : I red your post afterward Fwiffo : more on all-around loadout just ... below. However if you ask me to carry full probe loadout, I'll do it.
III. ALL-AROUND LOADOUT - Part 2
Pod. If any fresh newcomer is gonna read that text, read that word twice, three times, tell it as a mantra "Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm pod !" and tell it endlessly till your brain hurts (you have a brain, don't you ?). Advice : grab a pack of beers, put it behind that cooling pipe in pod's cockpit, grab a book as well : the book is called "F1:Help" (and yes, to answer the question : I do read it over and over).
Why am I saying that ? It doesn't seem to be related with stuff I was asking before. Wrrrrrrrrrrrong ! Most of the time, I find myself being podded during my first launch trip (Wot ? Who said "Bwahahahaa" over there ?!). It's a fact, I can't escape that at the moment. I know I WILL be podded during my first run.
The point here is that often I can't use all my probes. I can't use my probes because I'm podded and I'm podded because I have no distraction toy for that Evil Bee on my tail. Being podded is expected, but being podded while there was 3 probes remaining in cargo, I have the strong feeling it's a waste. To be honest, I found myself so much "wasting" that full probes loadout that I thought I may be wrong to only load them on first run, and that was a kind of a trigger to start that thread (amongst other points).
As a result, and following many pieces of advice here, I tried recently that mixed-loadout (probe/prox, that is. I can even find a new word : Probx -- which has nothing to do with that pr0n movie you're currently downloading !) and found it to be more efficient. I faced the reality, Turkey, I couldn't evade a @#(! and the result is 80% of time, I'm podded before I can release my 5 probes. (again : I thank you for writing about one of my hidden question). So, at the moment, and seeing my skills, full probe cargo is not the way I should go. Not now at least.
Now, for last couple of days, I grabbed less probes and more prox (2 probes in cargo, 1 equipped, 1 nan + filling remaining slots with prox), at least for my very first launch. Now, I can fart prox as it's raining mines if any opponent suddenly want to raise his/her PK (and damnit, what poor skills I have on releasing those prox efficiently! :/ ). Ok, I know , I still hear that evil "Bwahahaha !" but time to time I hear him farting too (for "her" it's not possible : everyone knows ladies are never farting), press the break key, which give me a bit of distance.
Dropping a few prox might save me (read : "at least I have a liiiiiiittle chance to escape") while I fly away to next sector as a kamikaze, in hope to catch/eye miners, cons, tech, whatever usefull for my more skilled teammates or even warp back home. Then, even being podded far away is far less painfull. See ? With prox I lower my PoddedRate from 99% to 85%. Huge gap for me.
IV. MISSILE AND AMMO ?
I do not take any additionnal ammo, and no additionnal missiles (only the equipped ones) and I won't do that in the few next days. They would use up the space dedicated for my safety (prox) and for eye-ing (probes).
Moreover, I am not a miner killer at that moment. I mean : not only I can't use yet efficiently prox/missiles but my first run has no other purpose than eye-ing sectors, find aleph, find miners, etc. (correct me if I'm wrong). Should I find Miners area, my more skilled teammates/Comm will catch it immediately and perform accordingly and far better than me. Also, I tried in a solo game to kill one of my miner : it takes damn loooong with a scout with low level weapons. I had to load my scout with more ammo + missiles to be able to kill it, which is not an option.
Scenario 1 : "Yaaaaaa !"
I know : I could damage a bit a miner, I could make it fly away back home with no or little HE3 in cargo, that's true. But first, since I'm on SCOUTING duty I should scout and not attack (unless Comm order it, of course). And second, here are my thoughts : if I attack, it'll put the opponent red light on, and within a few seconds I'll hear the welknown evil laugh "Bwahahahaha!" resulting me being podded by swarm of pesky warflies (just do assume that till I get used to attack an Interceptor/fighter with simple scout and bare hands, I'm podded as soon as opponent pop in my area) (and "no", I don't know what the hell could be a "warfly" but that was sounded nicely to me).
Scenario 2 : ** hiding in the dark **
Look that demonstration and tell me if I'm wrong : I eye miners in a sector. I don't attack miner. Opposite to the above scenario, there is a little chance opponent will come since there are no threat (Again : don't think I'm taking you Vet for being stupid but frankly, would you come *at once* if 1. your miner are being eyed and not attacked AND 2. you know where the opponent's miners (or Cons) are ? You to tell me, by the way, what is the most common choice here but I assume there is AT LEAST a little chance no one is dispatched AT ONCE to miners if they are just being eyed)(I re-red myself and thought : why on earth am I writing such long sentences ? Never mind ...).
All right, let's follow my thinking. Assume no opponent comes in to check (not *at once*). I guess there is a reasonable high chance that one of my skilled teammates will, first, say "Yummy ! Miners ! Hehehe ..." (my teammates never say "Bwahahaa !", they are more civilized) and, second, boost to the opponent miners' area. As a skilled player (s)he will be better than me at quickly kill the miner.
Right or wrong thinking ? It all depends I guess, but I bet I win 60 % of the time.
For any Comm reading that, feel free to order me to attack miner anyway as you're more aware of the whole situation than I am but keep in mind my above thinking (if applicable, of course).
V. WHERE TO EARLY SCOUT ? (there is one more short paragraph after that one so you may want to grab a beverage)
Again Turkey answered another hidden question of mine (* quickly checking if there are any camera & mic at my place -- seems not -- I'm puzzled ... *). I was actually trying to find out whether it'd be better to scout nearby area, namely 10,1,5,6 and at maximum 2,3 and 4 (so that miners + cons are deployed in good area) or, oppositely, trying to find as quick as possible opponent's mining/cons area (still speaking about very early stages of game here).
One could say that in order to go to 9, 11, 12 and 7, you MUST go through nearby area first. True and wrong. I already played many (*ahem* ... relatively speaking, of course) games where I started to 5/6 -> 4/7 -> 12/8 then (8)/11/9 (although I'm podded before reaching 11 and 9 usually) and no one got into 10/1/2. It seems to happen a lot since I saw many times "Go Low !" or "Go High !", meaning that one should totally forget about opposite direction (or am I wrong here ?).
Any Comm I played with usually direct me time to time to the location they want me to go (and be assured, Dear Comms, that if I don't press <INS> at once, it's because I'm checking minimap thoroughly or I have a strong reason to not do it such as grabbing a nearby podded teammate, opening a bottle of beer or trying to find my fingers) but I must say I often have no clue how the map is revealed. I mean, why scouting low/mid but not high ? What's the purpose to reveal 9 and 11 when 10/1/2 aren't ? Obviously, revealing 9 and 11 will take long time if we have to start in 5/6.
And what if opponent has already invaded 1/2/10 and we are not aware of that ?
Well, I guess I'll learn in the coming weeks.
VI. PROBING IS BORING
Ryu stated that much probing is boring. Not at all. Not for me at least. I can be (or try to be) good at spotting areas (and trying my best to nan successfully). I'd say that once one know a scout is worse to drive than a flying bathtube, it would ease to learn dogfighting with interceptor or any other attack ships. Just a guess (ye, can't remember what faction my scout was today but it was almost not turning ... AAAW !).
So I'll carry on the probe/eye/nan duty with happiness and it won't be a single second a trigger for me to quit the game.
You can wake up, wall-o-text has ended ^^
Later all, and thanks again for good advice.
So you went with the loadout I suggested and will customize your own as you get specialized. Good.
As a scout you are a util pilot. At the beginning there is multiple @#(! that you can do or that can go down. Hence my generic/allround suggestion.
You are not there to Excel at one particular task,, thats retarded(yes im talking to you Turkey). You are there to do any and every job, until the time comes where you do go miner hunting,, tp2 running or on another adventure.
Carrying more probes, does not make you excel at probing, it only takes 2 good probes to see what you need to see. Carrying more prox allows you to harrass; cons, miners and other pilots. A hat can piss off the same objects and a nan can be the difference between life and death.
So no a specific loadout on opening wont help you excel, but it might mean you miss the opportunity to do something great.
Good luck
As a scout you are a util pilot. At the beginning there is multiple @#(! that you can do or that can go down. Hence my generic/allround suggestion.
You are not there to Excel at one particular task,, thats retarded(yes im talking to you Turkey). You are there to do any and every job, until the time comes where you do go miner hunting,, tp2 running or on another adventure.
Carrying more probes, does not make you excel at probing, it only takes 2 good probes to see what you need to see. Carrying more prox allows you to harrass; cons, miners and other pilots. A hat can piss off the same objects and a nan can be the difference between life and death.
So no a specific loadout on opening wont help you excel, but it might mean you miss the opportunity to do something great.
Good luck
It's always good to harass enemy miners, you don't have to kill the miners but if you stop them from mining then that is good enough, and as Sheffwill pointed out that you can cause commanders to be forced to launch from base where they become much more ineffective at commanding.
Pretty much any action you take depends on a lot of factors that really only experience can teach you, it's possible for scouts to solo kill miners but it's more efficient to have more then 1 person attacking the miner so teaming up with a partner is always good when miner hunting, not only can you kill the miner quicker you have more chance of finding enemy miners with more then 1 person looking for them.
The ultimate number 1 rule in Allegiance you should always do to help your team win is........ not get podded (or spend minimum amount of time in pod). If your by yourself then its good to harass the miner but once you see the miner moving off the rock to get back to base then it's a good time to go do something else, whatever you do don't take unnecessary risks and get podded because you are useless , perhaps harass another miner, one scout on miner harassing duty can be more effective then a group of people miner hunting if the miners are alive but not mining anything, and a lone scout especially a newbie is so little a threat that it will be a while before they come and hunt you down which is when you make your timely escape and then head back to harass again, another handy addition is that if you do get podded by any miner defence that happens to show up that you can quickly kill your pod on the miner so you can go be a nuisance again.
There is so much more to being a useful player then by just eyeing stuff and probing (not saying that those are unimportant), if you pick up a podded team mate you save them time to getting back to base and they become useful.
To be honest as a newbie your probably going to have more fun and be more useful by going on the offensive in terms of scouting rather then babysitting miners, a newbie scout "protecting" a miner is going to hardly be a hassle to a veteran player, your less likely to spend time in a pod if you aren't stuck around defending some slow moving object so you should only defend a miner when ordered to. Also you should learn to fly in other craft so try not to be stuck in the scout the whole game, you will need to learn how to fight in all craft because although the number 1 rule is not get podded you should know that you are useful in turning your enemy into useless pods. It's no surprise that many of the top players on the leaderboard are excellent fighters because it doesn't matter that the enemy can see your miners or your incoming bomb run if they are all floating home in pods.
Pretty much any action you take depends on a lot of factors that really only experience can teach you, it's possible for scouts to solo kill miners but it's more efficient to have more then 1 person attacking the miner so teaming up with a partner is always good when miner hunting, not only can you kill the miner quicker you have more chance of finding enemy miners with more then 1 person looking for them.
The ultimate number 1 rule in Allegiance you should always do to help your team win is........ not get podded (or spend minimum amount of time in pod). If your by yourself then its good to harass the miner but once you see the miner moving off the rock to get back to base then it's a good time to go do something else, whatever you do don't take unnecessary risks and get podded because you are useless , perhaps harass another miner, one scout on miner harassing duty can be more effective then a group of people miner hunting if the miners are alive but not mining anything, and a lone scout especially a newbie is so little a threat that it will be a while before they come and hunt you down which is when you make your timely escape and then head back to harass again, another handy addition is that if you do get podded by any miner defence that happens to show up that you can quickly kill your pod on the miner so you can go be a nuisance again.
There is so much more to being a useful player then by just eyeing stuff and probing (not saying that those are unimportant), if you pick up a podded team mate you save them time to getting back to base and they become useful.
To be honest as a newbie your probably going to have more fun and be more useful by going on the offensive in terms of scouting rather then babysitting miners, a newbie scout "protecting" a miner is going to hardly be a hassle to a veteran player, your less likely to spend time in a pod if you aren't stuck around defending some slow moving object so you should only defend a miner when ordered to. Also you should learn to fly in other craft so try not to be stuck in the scout the whole game, you will need to learn how to fight in all craft because although the number 1 rule is not get podded you should know that you are useful in turning your enemy into useless pods. It's no surprise that many of the top players on the leaderboard are excellent fighters because it doesn't matter that the enemy can see your miners or your incoming bomb run if they are all floating home in pods.
Three probes, 2 prox, a nan and a gatt is a perfectly reasonable loadout, for reasons you have rambled on yourself at length. Stick with that.
Personally I switch one of those probes for an extra rack of dumbfires, but that's only because I know how to kill miners in a scout. If you want to learn that skill, start with Sheff (SpkWill)'s advice: just harass/disrupt undefended miners, but plan to rip out at the first sign of enemy resistance.
Except for TF scouts (which are really miniature fighters in disguise), there is never, ever, ever a reason to carry extra ammo. You will die before you use it all. The default loadout of 3 extra racks of ammo is comical.
Learning how to avoid dying in a scout is an important skill. First of all, don't ever dogfight in a scout. You see an agent, you do what we do: run. The simplest thing is just to ripcord out as soon as you see an interceptor undock. An interceptor can close 2000m in the ten seconds it takes for you to rip out. If it's a fighter or scout chasing you, your chances of proxing it are better (they can't go as fast as an interceptor, so they tend to make a beeline straight for you. Put them at your 6 o'clock and prox prox prox).
Lastly, if you're far from a source of eye, learn how to unmount MISSLES and SHIELDS as quickly as possible. This puts your signature at 100% or below, and ints (and to a lesser degree, figs) are fairly blind, and they can't kill what they can't see. In fact on pure probing runs, I don't even take missles or shields, just so I can carry more probes.
Personally I switch one of those probes for an extra rack of dumbfires, but that's only because I know how to kill miners in a scout. If you want to learn that skill, start with Sheff (SpkWill)'s advice: just harass/disrupt undefended miners, but plan to rip out at the first sign of enemy resistance.
Except for TF scouts (which are really miniature fighters in disguise), there is never, ever, ever a reason to carry extra ammo. You will die before you use it all. The default loadout of 3 extra racks of ammo is comical.
Learning how to avoid dying in a scout is an important skill. First of all, don't ever dogfight in a scout. You see an agent, you do what we do: run. The simplest thing is just to ripcord out as soon as you see an interceptor undock. An interceptor can close 2000m in the ten seconds it takes for you to rip out. If it's a fighter or scout chasing you, your chances of proxing it are better (they can't go as fast as an interceptor, so they tend to make a beeline straight for you. Put them at your 6 o'clock and prox prox prox).
Lastly, if you're far from a source of eye, learn how to unmount MISSLES and SHIELDS as quickly as possible. This puts your signature at 100% or below, and ints (and to a lesser degree, figs) are fairly blind, and they can't kill what they can't see. In fact on pure probing runs, I don't even take missles or shields, just so I can carry more probes.
Globemaster_III wrote:QUOTE (Globemaster_III @ Jan 11 2018, 11:27 PM) as you know i think very little of cashto, cashto alway a flying low pilot, he alway flying a trainer airplane and he rented