Resubbed to try GSF and after 50+ games i haven't found a single reason not to play Flash/Sting. Is there any counter to them? It's really getting boring.

In domination bombers to some extent counter them. Gunships also counter them (although scouts also counter gunships).

I think honestly strikers were meant to be a counter, or at least alternate, to the scout class. Unfortunately the game modes aren't designed to favor multirole starfighters (strikers) over space superiority fighters (scouts) which results in the current meta where scouts are generally superior to strikers in most scenarios.

I think if there is a striker variant that is worth flying as an alternate (but not counter) to scouts it's the T3 Clarion/Imperium. IMO of the three striker variants that comes closest to the ideal of what a striker should be. It gives you the options to be a heavy fighter (focusing on heavy ordinance to take out bombers while maintaining reasonable dogfighting capability) or support fighter (focusing on ordinance like EMP/Ion missiles and other support components albeit less capable of operating independently than a heavy fighter setup).

Pretty much what has already been said. Apart from bombers in domination, another Stingfire is the best bet.

Gunships are a counter in a way, but only from ambush. If a battlescout spots a gunship charging, unless the gunship gets help or manages to get into turret cover/minefield, the gunship will eventually be run down and die, assuming equal pilot skill. Let's not even get into passive evasion stacking/cooldown cycling.

Any ship can do it. We're not playing rock paper and scissors. There is no paper to cover this rock.

I understand that scissors can beat paper, and I get how rock can beat scissors, but there's no way paper can beat rock. Is paper supposed to magically wrap around rock leaving it immobile? Why can't paper do this to scissors? Why can't paper do this to people? Why aren't sheets of college ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class?

I'll tell you why. Because paper can't beat anything. A rock would tear it up in two seconds. When I play rock, paper, scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper, I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, "Oh, sorry! I thought paper would protect you!"

Resubbed to try GSF and after 50+ games i haven't found a single reason not to play Flash/Sting. Is there any counter to them? It's really getting boring.

Maybe Jurg / Condor. But best Ocula.

I think honestly strikers were meant to be a counter, or at least alternate, to the scout class. Unfortunately the game modes aren't designed to favor multirole starfighters (strikers) over space superiority fighters (scouts) which results in the current meta where scouts are generally superior to strikers in most scenarios.

Rather than not favoring multirole fighters, which honestly they are only when building them to be one (my Strikes actually aren't) the game has many coincidental design choices/abnormalities that pull the Strike capacities down, and unfortunately only or mostly theirs.

I understand that scissors can beat paper, and I get how rock can beat scissors, but there's no way paper can beat rock. Is paper supposed to magically wrap around rock leaving it immobile? Why can't paper do this to scissors? Why can't paper do this to people? Why aren't sheets of college ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class?

 

I'll tell you why. Because paper can't beat anything. A rock would tear it up in two seconds. When I play rock, paper, scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper, I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, "Oh, sorry! I thought paper would protect you!"

I am waiting for some one to catch your fist one day with their already open hand, and go See.... Paper covers rock.....

Fly against good gunships - unless CDs are down and the pilots aren't focusing on other people, you're not gonna stay alive for very long

Edit: Let me clarify - even the best pilot can be taken down using proper tactics and performing their role as intended. A coordinated team will trounce an individual. Playing against better players is a given.

Fly against good gunships - unless CDs are down and the pilots aren't focusing on other people, you're not gonna stay alive for very long

 

Edit: Let me clarify - even the best pilot can be taken down using proper tactics and performing their role as intended. A coordinated team will trounce an individual. Playing against better players is a given.

WE HAVE A MESSAIAH THAT SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

For instance when I play against good pilots and they use every cooldown on me I say to my friends to kill them because they're vulnerable.

Several:

Any scout dangerous enough that they can't simply ignore you. You can lead them on a crazy chase and be careful to never give them a good targeting solution, and the minute they quit chasing you, you're back on their tail. Don't attack until they've got someone in their sights and are leveled out to fire, and you're 1-2km behind them. If you're as good a pilot as they are, it's a viable tactic. Rapids+wingman/CF are good enough for this, because most people hear rapids and ignore them.

Anything with retros. Optimum firing range for burst lasers is very close. Lead it around the corner, play like you're out of engine power, wait for it to angle toward you, and hit retros. If it has retros of its own, it can follow you through the maneuver. If it doesn't, it has to evade. If the scout is panicky enough, it will fly into something. If you misread the terrain, you'll fly into something.

Killdive/killbolt. Telemetry + wingman + laser cannon means you're very hard to evade, your killzone is very deep and pretty wide, and... yeah. Everybody underestimates this ship, especially when your team is two-ship newbies and/or all the "pros" are in T2 scouts, T1/3 gunships, or their favorite bombers. If you joust against bursters with this setup, don't let the fight stay inside 3km.

EMP + shield disable isn't bad, either: no hah-you-died system ability, accuracy debuff. At tier 5, they don't get to use distortion field for a while, so they're vulnerable.

Minelayer + dense cover. Get the scout inside really tight quarters and use seismic/interdictions, and it's going to be missing hull and as slow as you are. You can try to take it out yourself (still pretty hard to keep a targeting solution, even with a bomber). A smart scout will know better, a crazy scout might follow you. A crazy + skilled scout can get you anyway if you're not careful. Charged plating means you can bounce off walls at almost any angle to make very sudden and sharp turns with almost no damage to your ship. Don't fly into corners, cause you'll never quit bouncing and eventually die.

Interdiction sentry. If you keep the drone in your belly until the scout makes a pass at you (or your buddy), you can drop it when the scout flies by. This doesn't work against coordinated groups, cause there will always be someone hanging back and flying support against exactly that kind of tactic. Fast seekers (T4) can also usually hit the scout, because it's very hard to evade/DF in time against these.

If you have a friend with a bomber, one uses interdiction mines, one uses drone. If you can hit the scout with both, it's totally stuck for 15-20 seconds unless it uses its engine ability.

Remote slicing. I'm sorry, did you just try to pop distortion field? Didn't work + you're losing shield strength + you can't regen. If you instead disable the target's engine ability, it's really nasty against strikers.

Gunship + buddies keeping it distracted. The distracted part is essential, cause if the scout chases you, you're usually dead.

Gunship + feedback. If you manage to take out its forward shield while it's coming for you, wait for it to get close and hit feedback shield.

Several:

Any scout dangerous enough that they can't simply ignore you. You can lead them on a crazy chase and be careful to never give them a good targeting solution, and the minute they quit chasing you, you're back on their tail. Don't attack until they've got someone in their sights and are leveled out to fire, and you're 1-2km behind them. If you're as good a pilot as they are, it's a viable tactic. Rapids+wingman/CF are good enough for this, because most people hear rapids and ignore them.

Anything with retros. Optimum firing range for burst lasers is very close. Lead it around the corner, play like you're out of engine power, wait for it to angle toward you, and hit retros. If it has retros of its own, it can follow you through the maneuver. If it doesn't, it has to evade. If the scout is panicky enough, it will fly into something. If you misread the terrain, you'll fly into something.

 

Killdive/killbolt. Telemetry + wingman + laser cannon means you're very hard to evade, your killzone is very deep and pretty wide, and... yeah. Everybody underestimates this ship, especially when your team is two-ship newbies and/or all the "pros" are in T2 scouts, T1/3 gunships, or their favorite bombers. If you joust against bursters with this setup, don't let the fight stay inside 3km.

EMP + shield disable isn't bad, either: no hah-you-died system ability, accuracy debuff. At tier 5, they don't get to use distortion field for a while, so they're vulnerable.

Minelayer + dense cover. Get the scout inside really tight quarters and use seismic/interdictions, and it's going to be missing hull and as slow as you are. You can try to take it out yourself (still pretty hard to keep a targeting solution, even with a bomber). A smart scout will know better, a crazy scout might follow you. A crazy + skilled scout can get you anyway if you're not careful. Charged plating means you can bounce off walls at almost any angle to make very sudden and sharp turns with almost no damage to your ship. Don't fly into corners, cause you'll never quit bouncing and eventually die.

Interdiction sentry. If you keep the drone in your belly until the scout makes a pass at you (or your buddy), you can drop it when the scout flies by. This doesn't work against coordinated groups, cause there will always be someone hanging back and flying support against exactly that kind of tactic. Fast seekers (T4) can also usually hit the scout, because it's very hard to evade/DF in time against these.

If you have a friend with a bomber, one uses interdiction mines, one uses drone. If you can hit the scout with both, it's totally stuck for 15-20 seconds unless it uses its engine ability.

Remote slicing. I'm sorry, did you just try to pop distortion field? Didn't work + you're losing shield strength + you can't regen. If you instead disable the target's engine ability, it's really nasty against strikers.

Gunship + buddies keeping it distracted. The distracted part is essential, cause if the scout chases you, you're usually dead.

Gunship + feedback. If you manage to take out its forward shield while it's coming for you, wait for it to get close and hit feedback shield.

For the most part I agree with you except on a few points.

1. CF should never be considered a substitute for wingman. They're entirely different utilities. Typically against scouts CF is the worst thing you can use because a match between 2 good scout pilots will last longer than the duration of CF.

2. The "they're targetting someone else" strat only works against bads.

3. Remote slicing is super duper situational, a good pilot will just take asteroid cover and wait it out.

4. As much as I like rapids, they're bad against scouts. They're pretty much just good for when the enemy team has 9824795273979467239167 bombers on their team and you just need to hold down the left mouse button for dear life.

5. 1-2k behind them is simply false. That actually makes you vulnerable to retro users, because unless you're in a bomber, you're able to die in the time it takes for the retro to reach its zenith. Good scout pilots have the reflexes to deal with that.

6. The most effective scout pilots are the crazy ones. Don't use the "this guy is probably not crazy" line of thought.

Rather than not favoring multirole fighters, which honestly they are only when building them to be one (my Strikes actually aren't) the game has many coincidental design choices/abnormalities that pull the Strike capacities down, and unfortunately only or mostly theirs.

I didn't mean to imply that strikers can't be built for space superiority. However, it's my impression they were meant to be more of a multirole starfighter than the scout class. It's kinda like how the T1 scout has all this stuff for performing recon but the maps are too small for it to truly maximize that potential. It's not that strikers or T1 scouts can't be equipped to be good in space superiority, just that they aren't as good at it as T2 scouts that were designed to excel in space superiority which is the bulk of the meta.

But I do get what you're saying, a T1 striker with LLC or BLC would become a very formidable in the role of space superiority but design choices pull them down. (I'm sure we could pick out other design flaws for T2 & T3s but I don't want to derail the thread too much).

XapM, as you have surmised battle scouts are overtuned. They are definitely the best at their role, and many ships seem to want to play at that role. It's a longstanding balance issue, and not one you'll likely see addressed soon.

But... there's PLENTY of reasons "not to play a Flash/Sting". The most important one is that these ships cannot fill all roles. If your team needs a gunship, or a bomber, a battle scout cannot be that thing. If your team needs some heals and ammo, a battlescout can't be that either.

As has been pointed out, the game isn't rock-paper-scissors. You might be forgiven for thinking that, as flashfires are a pretty hard counter to several ships, but that's really them just being very good at the dogfighting and burst roles.

If you are frustrated by enemy flashfires, I would suggest building a nest as a girl bomber, or simply laying mines as a boy bomber. If you go the first route you'll need seeker mines and defensive flying, if you go the second you are in a bit better shape. Scouts of all sorts have a hard time breaking into fortified positions alone, after all. If you want to dogfight, go with the baby bomber. Many of the powers of a strike fighter, plus concussion mines to push enemy scouts away.

So of the ships in the game:

The Type 1 scout is the only one with shield to engine converter. It's the speed/sensors scout for a reason. It can boost the most, scout the hardest.

The Type 2 scout is a melee supremacist. He has burst, decent sustained, and is very slippery. He is overtuned, and one of the top ships in the game, as he has pretty much every good component. BLC/Clusters and Quads-n-Pods are both solid builds.

The Type 3 scout brings unique buffs and some support components. He's one of the weakest ships, but he's not terrible. Tensor can swing a whole match in a tight game, very easily, and point blanking a thermite with the help of your own distortion field is quite excellent.

The Type 1 Strike can take decent punishment, but his special isn't amazing. Mostly he is commendable for having retros. He is undertuned, but you can do well with him.

The Type 2 Strike is probably the weakest extant ship. The barrel roll nerf really hurt him pretty badly, both directly (he kind of has to use it) and indirectly (enemies used to barrel roll into space, taking the chance that their enemy wouldn't be a Pike who could instantly begin locking another missile- now the correct play is LoS versus almost all ships).

The Type 3 Strike is the strongest strike. The systems components are all superior to swapping weapons, and having both armor and (edit: originally listed armor twice) reactor components is very important. Repair probes are game changing, and can keep you alive. It's not a bursty ship.

The Type 1 Gunship is a very strong ship, and could still be overtuned. This ship is slippery and absolutely devastating at range. Damage that ignores evasion is a problem, but a gunship normally doesn't have to deal with much of that. These ships, and all gunships, would run rampant if the flashfire was overnerfed.

The Type 2 Gunship is generally the worst gunship and a middling ship overall. The ability to switch to a ghetto strike fighter isn't that amazing, though it isn't bad. It just doesn't compete with ion railgun or interdiction missile, and the lack of a distortion field makes this ship stand a distance away from the other gunships.

The Type 3 Gunship can perform very solidly in melee, plus retaining a sweet railgun. A very strong ship.

The Type 1 Bomber was likely overnerfed, but remains a force at a node. Because the mines don't care about evasion, you can spam them and drive enemy scouts (and eventually enemy anythings) away. If you are looking for a counter, this is the best bet towards that.

The Type 2 Bomber is much more vulnerable to scouts, but has some seriously long range options. This ship can support multiple roles, and even brings heals. interdiction mine, interdiction drone, seeker mines, and servo jammer, and a scout that gits within 3k of you is in a bad spot- though most won't do that.

The Type 3 Bomber is easily my favorite for a dogfighting ship that doesn't flip out when scouts come by. Watch your shields, a very thin resource, and hold mines to push enemy scouts back. This is my recommendation to you, since you seem kind of into the whole 1v1 thing.

Tips against scouts:

1- Ion a target near a scout, and the scout will lose some shields and energy.

2- If a scout is not on you, spam a missile lock against him, and don't release until you are point blank. This will waste his time as he has to blow cooldowns and move to get away.

3- If a scout is on you, find an object you can use to orbit tightly, and vary your speed tremendously. Your goal is to build up enough engine and defensive cooldowns to escape to allies. This will waste his time as he will be unable to do his full cycle of damage, but still stays near you.

4- Anything that modifies an area is a great idea, as a scout can't dodge that.

5- Wingman is really imporant for nailing scouts.

Countering a Sting:

Basically most Stings will fly with Burst Lasercannons and Clustermissiles. So you don't want to dogfight them cause they'll crit you to death while they harrass you with their missile lock. Keep them 5000+ meters away.

There is one of his "weakness" if you want to call it that. Even with Blizz as a crewmember he runs out of enginejuice pretty quickly. So if you are in a gunship and see him boosting around towards you, you can barrelroll out of his range and then use your own enginepower to get away from him. At some point he has to stop chasing you according to his lack of enginepower and that would be the point were you stop, turn around and kill him. Gunships have an ability to instantly turn towards their target, yet I don't know how commonly it is used.

Another huge advantage of a Sting is, that it has up to 2 missilebreaks on different cooldowns. So for a strike with protontorpedos or concussion missiles, it can be really challenging to lock on to a scout without gaining his attention. So...yeah...I don't really know what kind of tip I could give you here, but when all my cooldowns are refreshing and I am in open "space" like on Kuat on the upper or lower satetlite, just keep locking me on until you can release your payload.

As a bomber: Lay a mine carpet, use railgun and interdiction drones and I won't be able to get through to you without getting blown up or at least not without a serious beating. Even with range capacitors on the Burstlasers, I won't have the time to take out one mine after another without you or one of your teammates killing me.

Against the Sting's ridiculously high evasion (basic 33% +different skills) use ionweapons. Ionrail of a gunship doesn't even need to be fully charged to debuff my movement and I am not sure, but I think Ion missile is doing the same trick. Sabotageprobe takes too long to lock on and again you have to wait until all missile breaks are on cooldown. Or you try your luck with a fully charged up slugrail or plasmarailshot. If they hit, I'm dead. If not,either switch to your own burstlasercannons and finish me off or take another shot if I am busy looking for you.

At least these are the things that make my life hard as a Sting pilot. Best advice I could give is, to keep locking me on while I am dancing with one of your teammates.

The problem is, if there are more than one or two T2-scouts and if they know what to do, it really is hard to counter them.

Myself, iI am big fan of Flash... but T1 and t3 gunships are great counters. Of course in a DM and 1vs1 duel Flash will fare better (assuming both pilots have really good - and equal skills, both ships mastered). However Flash that is struck by an ion rail is already half dead. With T3 GS you have pretty good dogfight capability, enough to survive for a while with falling back towards friendly lines (where scout will have more than one ship to think about).

A T3 bomber with clusters and interdiction drone (+ power dive) can also do pretty well.

Countering a Sting:

 

There is one of his "weakness" if you want to call it that. Even with Blizz as a crewmember he runs out of enginejuice pretty quickly. So if you are in a gunship and see him boosting around towards you, you can barrelroll out of his range and then use your own enginepower to get away from him. At some point he has to stop chasing you according to his lack of enginepower and that would be the point were you stop, turn around and kill him. Gunships have an ability to instantly turn towards their target, yet I don't know how commonly it is used.

You can not use barrel roll and rotation thrusters at the same time and rotational thrusters will make you vulnerable to missiles & prevent you from running away unless you have a buddy playing bodyguard with you.

I would agree that t3 gunship with feedback, power dive, burst laser and interdiction missile has the best chance as a gunship counter.

Yea mean "sting counter", but tbh I dunno about that.

I really think that the problem with the battlescout being so good is a meta issue more than a scout issue.

Specifically, I think the strikes need help, at least the type 1 and type 2, as they mostly do the same job as the battlescout, but are worse at it. I think with that addressed the rest would mostly shift around.

Oddly, one of the two things this patch changed was a nerf to ion missile, a component rarely seen outside of the type 3 scout.

I'm a Sting pilot almost exclusively. I've been experimenting with other ships lately, but when I start to feel like all I do is get shot down, I go back to my Sting. Until last week, it was the only ship I had mastered after about 8 weeks of fervently GSF'ing.

The components and crew I use, I figured out on my own through trial and error. I use Rapid Fire Lasers, with the increased hull damage option. I use the Plasma Warhead option on my cluster missiles. I know they're not the "best" options... but they're what I'm used to, and I like the way they look and feel (burst laser cannons look ridiculous on a Sting, the guns are bigger than the damn ship!). So I use the "best build" for me.

There is one of his "weakness" if you want to call it that. Even with Blizz as a crewmember he runs out of enginejuice pretty quickly.

I don't run out of engine power. Even if someone hits me with a drain... my entire MO is based on constantly moving at high speeds and using Blizz. Blizz is also my copilot, for hydro spanner. I want people to chase me or try to run away.

Fly against good gunships - unless CDs are down and the pilots aren't focusing on other people, you're not gonna stay alive for very long

 

Edit: Let me clarify - even the best pilot can be taken down using proper tactics and performing their role as intended. A coordinated team will trounce an individual. Playing against better players is a given.

This is true. Against a good gunship pilot, I either get shot down or just end up in an endless dogfight. Again, I don't use the "best build".

Leggogurl.... I heard you left Jung Ma? It was fun to group with you the other night. If you really are gone, the Jung Ma Imperials will miss you piloting.

Strix, put 20 games each on the BLC/clusters and the quads/pods. At your skill level, you'll master both p. quick.

Rapids are extraordinarily pleasing to look at and listen to, and playing them properly requires a great deal of skill. The reason I'm so acidic on this topic- constantly- is for the coolest component that ALSO is the hardest to use to give no reward is just so offensive.

Plasma warhead is a fine choice for clusters. You can point blank a plasma (or the first shot of the double volley), but the second volley has enough delay that even at point blank it can be immuned or escaped. Plus you don't take the -10 to it. I prefer double volley because it's more damage and I normally go for attrition of cooldowns with my hits, not guaranteed hits, and I count on refills from allies. The lesser damage from plasma has a lot to recommend it, and I actually think that tier choice is a lot more solid than most.

However, I can't believe you:

1)- Can listen to Blizz. Erglglglgl. On Empire side, I personally find it hard to choose any pilot except for Scorpio, whose voice actress is apparently Robot Murderess Aphrodite. But there's several excellent choices on empire side, but any of the chitter-squeek guys can eat sand.

2)- Use hydrospanner. I think anyone using hydrospanner outside of type 1 bombers is PROBABLY acting on a meme (in the actual sense) about not wanting to be powerless versus attrition. With hydrospanner, you can tell yourself that even if the rest of your team is morons, you can eventually heal back to full. But the healing is so insubstantial and infrequent, and the other options so important and meaningful, that I always pretty much hound on people who use it. The real healing options, such as repair probes and repair drone, outheal a whole match worth of hydrospanners in a couple ticks. Hydrospanner could be safely doubled, or the total healing could be tripled and spread over the whole cooldown (aka, fully passive). As it is, it's a huge trap, but I know why you, who are often solo and carrying, like it.

As a note, hydrospanner is pretty expensive for Republicans, but it's an easy grab for Imperials.

The Type 1 Strike can take decent punishment, but his special isn't amazing. Mostly he is commendable for having retros. He is undertuned, but you can do well with him.

The Type 2 Strike is probably the weakest extant ship. The barrel roll nerf really hurt him pretty badly, both directly (he kind of has to use it) and indirectly (enemies used to barrel roll into space, taking the chance that their enemy wouldn't be a Pike who could instantly begin locking another missile- now the correct play is LoS versus almost all ships).

The Type 3 Strike is the strongest strike. The systems components are all superior to swapping weapons, and having both armor and hull components is very important. Repair probes are game changing, and can keep you alive. It's not a bursty ship.

I think you meant both armor and reactor components here. Which is as you said very important since it gives the T3 synergy with all of it's shield choices (the T1 only synergizes well with Directional or Quick Charge because of the reactor component; Charged Plating is less useful since it lacks the armor component. On the flip side the T2 only synergizes well with Charged Plating thanks to the armor component but has less synergy with Directional or Quick Charge due to the lack of a reactor).

Correct. The Starguard lacks the armor, and the Pike lacks the hull. This means that the Starguard can't use Charged Plating without it taking TRIPLE DAMAGE compared to similar builds, not generally worthwhile. Meanwhile, the lack of a reactor doesn't deny the Pike any components, but it makes it very dangerous to use Quick Charge and generally just makes the ship have poor defenses compared to what it should have.

Ex: A Sting with directionals (which is obviously worse at defenses than distortion, which they always take) and large reactor weighs it an 1820 per arc with the crewman. The Quell comes in at 2160- a very similar number, given that scouts have poor shields and strikes have good shields. The reactor is a pretty solid component, because you use that extra buffer over and over again normally, lacking it is really painful. The only ships lacking it are the Type 2 Strike and the Type 1 Scout, and the Type 1 Scout can pick distortion or shield to engine, distortion granting a different and solid defense, and shield to engine offering a +25% passive shield boost (ending at 1755 shields).

The net effect means that the Strike Fighters- which advertise big hit points and clearly pay for them- are lacking some core defensive components and I really do feel this hurts their balance. The type 3 strike, while giving up real components to get where it is, at least has these two important ones.

I am waiting for some one to catch your fist one day with their already open hand, and go See.... Paper covers rock.....

LOL! Well played.