DUST Search - [Guide] The Scout/Infiltrator's Guide to Bastardy

(Replaced by SMG) wrote:

Light weapon: shotgun. Quality matters minimally unless you're up against a heavy.

...

* the shotgun is a backup and emergency weapon rather than primary ordinance. Its firepower is high enough to seem to invite direct confrontation, but the suit's weak defenses make that a risky tactic. Also, and never, ever, forget this: it's powerful enough to be feared and its sound is both highly distinctive and LOUD. You have very few shots before everybody in close proximity starts looking for the shotgunner.

(Rendered obsolete by increased hostile deadliness in 1.4) wrote:

Fox Hunt

Ingredients:

Advancing hostile offensive force
Scout suit (easiest with Minmatar)
Biotics for speed and endurance
Decent navigational sense
Abundant chutzpah
(optional, but desirable) Remote Explosives

You remember how I said not to throw your body on a problem? Well, there are exceptions to everything.

Say there's an intense battle for the objective you're at, and your side looks likely to lose. If the red dots keep advancing in force, their victory is inevitable, so ...

Red dots, generally (dots in general, I suppose) have a bad habit of developing tunnel vision when they think they've got an easy kill. This can work to your advantage (or your team's, anyway). Find the middle of the battle and just dash right through the middle of the hostile line. If you get a good opportunity to drop an RE in the middle of their position as you run, take it, but for God's sake keep moving. Attract all the attention you can and just keep running and evading for as long as possible.

Every second every individual enemy spends shooting at the evasive will-o'-wisp bobbing around in front off them and presumably off to do something nefarious is a second that same enemy isn't shooting at your side, which means a second your team has to respawn, reinforce, regroup, retaliate-- whatever it needs to do. Don't even bother shooting at people. Keep the reds busy for as long as possible; make them pay for every shot they take at you with additional seconds that null cannon will be firing on their MCC.

This can also work offensively, drawing hostiles out of cover by giving them a target to shoot at that's relatively irrelevant to the push.

Obviously, this move is usually suicidal. If only a couple pursue, drop an RE in a bottleneck and blow them into their next clones. If you get a full squad (or two-- it happens!), just keep going as long as you can and try to take as many of them with you as possible if and when they corner you. Remember, RE's can be triggered while on your way to the ground, mortally wounded, and HMG's will fail to kill you outright about two thirds of the time.

Boom.


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Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 205	Posted - 2013.08.29 01:42:00 - [1] - Quote Currently, the scout is widely regarded as the most underpowered of suit types. We have fewer fitting options and weaker defenses than any other dropsuit class, and there are those who claim that we have no remaining advantages at all. These people are fools, and should be made to die on your knives as often as possible. This is a guide for survival and success in this most underestimated, yet exhilarating, of roles. I will be starting with my own preferred tactics and fit, and invite other veteran scouts to do likewise. Basics: Many will argue that the scout's role has been almost subsumed by the logistics suit. It's not true, but it's close. The single great, nigh-unique advantage that scouts possess is a potent skill-based stealth modifier. In all else-- firepower, speed, whatever-- we can be matched, or nearly matched, by something else, usually in the form of a logistics suit. (Technically, we can also be nearly matched in stealth, with the right fit.) And yet, for my money, the scout/infiltrator is the single most entertaining role on the field. The scout/infiltrator is the "go there, get stuff done" suit. It's fast, it's quiet, and that's about all it really has to be. The rest is all gravy-- delicious, delicious gravy. So, let's get to it. 1. Much like Garrett of the "Thief" games, "YOU ARE NOT A TANK." This cannot be emphasized enough. Unless you get lucky and run into a logi who's fitted a sniper rifle, every fight you get into will be a desperate one. It doesn't matter that you have a shotgun or that the hostile is in a militia assault fit; at best, that just puts you on roughly level ground, which you still don't want. It DOES matter if you can down them in a couple hits and have an automatic weapon-- but that's not really a fight, is it? As a scout, that last is exactly the sort of fight you want: the sort that's over, in your favor, before it begins. Everything else is to be avoided-- which is a problem, because redberries tend to be damned persistent. As a rule, if you are spotted, your top priority should be escape. "Escape," in this context, often will have to just mean that when you strike, it is with impunity for as long as it takes to make the target dead. This can mean looking straight down the barrel of a pursuer's assault scrambler, so long as the next sound out of your speakers is your remote explosive detonator saying, "beep." You are not a front-line fighter, ever. If you need to throw your body on a problem, you'd be well-advised to switch to an assault suit first. 2. "Deaths for all ages and occasions!" ... or malicious pranks, at least. Somebody who's going to be going all over the map, which a good scout should be, needs to be prepared for what's out there. Sometimes that means fighting off a roaming LAV hell-bent on running you flat. Sometimes it means sneaking up on a sniper. Sometimes it means teaching a heavy some humility. Sometimes it means throwing caution to the wind and rushing to flank the guys who have the combat elements of your squad pinned down. Sometimes it just means scaring the hell out of a high-end tank. What I'm getting at is that you cannot usually afford to have a lot of highly-specialized fits, except for your primary role, which is "mixed-media troublemaker." If you die out in the boonies or deep in enemy territory, it's going to be a long walk to get back. Try to give yourself a fighting chance against anything you can't run away from. 3. Stealth is your all. Do not give yourself away lightly. Again, what can see you can probably kill you, so try not to reveal your position when you don't have to. Simple and problematic as that. Especially, when somebody stops and offers you a ride in their zippy but oh-so-obvious LAV? Don't get in. Same with dropships. 4. You're a scout. Act like it. A scout/infiltrator is a scout, not a lone wolf. Have a mic and relay interesting stuff you notice, whether it's in your vicinity or not. The rest of your squad is likely too busy killing people to notice, but tips like "Enemy hacking the eastern CRU; too far away for me to stop it" is pretty crucial information, as is "blaster Gunnlogi entering the city south of Alpha." 5. Skirmish is your bread and butter. It's also your oxygen. You don't really want a match type where everybody is always concentrated in one area or where they have nothing better to do than look for stragglers to shoot (you're not technically a straggler, but you'll do just fine for target practice). You DO want a match type where you can make your sneaky self useful, and where people have important things to attend to that will have them turning their backs to the rest of the world for several seconds at a time.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 205	Posted - 2013.08.29 01:42:00 - [2] - Quote Sample fit: "Minja" scout This suit is the best example of the "mixed-media troublemaker" strategy I've been able to come up with to date. It's all about being able to cover a lot of ground quickly and quietly, and make a menace of yourself once you arrive. Dropsuit: basic (if you can get it fitted satisfactorily) or advanced Minmatar scout. Light weapon: shotgun. Quality matters minimally unless you're up against a heavy. Sidearm: nova knives, advanced Grenade: standard or packed AV grenades, whatever level your skill, fitting, and budget will bear Equipment: remote explosives, advanced High-power slots: shield extenders (this may change if CCP starts making these affect your profile) Low-power slots: biotic upgrades - kinetic catalyzer x1 for sprint speed, cardiac regulator x1 to maintain it, advanced for preference Strengths: scary-fast, gets everywhere before anybody expected it to be there. Quiet enough that few will see it coming, but hits tremendously hard. Able to give all infantry and most vehicle types a hard time at close range. Weaknesses: weak against opponents it can't reach. Enemies on rooftops and in dropships are a problem + will generally have to be baited into descending. Notes: * the shotgun is a backup and emergency weapon rather than primary ordinance. Its firepower is high enough to seem to invite direct confrontation, but the suit's weak defenses make that a risky tactic. Also, and never, ever, forget this: it's powerful enough to be feared and its sound is both highly distinctive and LOUD. You have very few shots before everybody in close proximity starts looking for the shotgunner. * nova knives are a very powerful but somewhat tricky-to-use weapon. DUST's movement mechanics allow clone soldiers to backpedal nearly as fast as you can advance, so a backpedaling assault suit with an SMG will gun you down before you can close range. Also, the hit detection on retreating targets is dubious. However, they have a nice, wide attack that seems to cover at least a 90 degree arc in front of you; don't worry about that paranoid hacker zig-zagging away in front of the console. * the knife attack is a very quick, but not instantaneous, one-two; you can hit one target with both, hit with one and miss with the other, or hit two separate targets. The results are occasionally hilarious. * use advanced knives, charged, for best balance of economy and power. There's a huge difference between the tiers. Standard are too weak to bother with, advanced one-hit most targets if they're charged, and Ishukone (prototype) are overkill for most purposes unless you're using them uncharged. This may change with the coming armor upgrades. * the nova knife is a true stealth weapon-- the only one in the game. Everybody turns towards the sound of a shotgun, but nova knives are all but silent. Few opponents will even understand what killed them for a few seconds if they get nova knifed from behind. Hackers and snipers are favorite prey. You can cut down whole sniper teams cozied up on a ledge, one after another. * in planetary conquest matches, do not attempt to use nova knives if you have teammates within reach unless you want the most embarrassing team-kill ever. * all of the above said, about half of your kills will come from the remote explosives. Using advanced cuts down their time to go "live" to about two seconds, which means you can use yourself as bait for a charging hostile rather than being restricted to using them as pre-set traps. Use them freely, ruthlessly, and creatively, and try to have some member of your squad carry nanohives so you can resupply if the supply depots get blown up. * LAV drivers are arrogant so-and-sos. The AV grenades should let you kill the weak and drive off the strong without having to dodge around for more than a few seconds at a time (and you should develop dodging them to an art form as a matter of basic survival). Always remember that an AV grenade on the ground is still active for several seconds, so you can bait aggressive drivers into running over them. You can use RE's this way, too, but the blast is hard to time manually. * in combination, the AV grenades and remotes are potent against tanks. The forge gun may be the game's premier AV weapon, but nothing beats the shock value (or the alpha strike) of three remote explosives going up under a tank all at once. They can one-shot a militia tank, and even experienced players are often astonished at the damage output. If you use them to supplement other AV an advanced tanker was just shrugging off, and then start hucking grenades, you may find yourself with a kill WAY above your weight class. Comments and critiques are, of course, welcome. I will be modifying and adding to this topic over time.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 205	Posted - 2013.08.29 01:46:00 - [3] - Quote [reserved for future entry]
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 205	Posted - 2013.08.29 01:54:00 - [4] - Quote [reserved for future entry]
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 208	Posted - 2013.08.29 14:54:00 - [5] - Quote Thank you for your input, gentlemen. I'm interested that I've got two of the exact same suggestion-- and that it's to use a sidearm as my primary. On the nova knife skilling suggestion: that's pretty much exactly my skill pattern (that. and I'm working on perfecting my Minnie scout suit skill for the damage boost). Thank you for reminding me that I need to do a "character build" section. I'm aware the shotgun and knives combination is unorthodox, but I find that I use them in entirely different ways. I may give the SMG a try. Historically, I've found its difficulties penetrating shields frustrating. My loadout used to pair an AR with the knives, but I found myself losing too many close-range fights, which tended to be the most common sort I got into. Due to the difficulty of aiming and ease of avoidance, I only count the nova knives as a "close range weapon" under either surprise or desperate circumstances; otherwise, they're a highly-efficient stealth-kill weapon. Basically, I favor the shotgun for fighting, the knives for murder.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 210	Posted - 2013.08.29 22:42:00 - [6] - Quote New entry: a couple scout-specific dirty tricks. BARDAS wrote: I can't speak for all of us, but I pack Flux Grenades for this reason. My current favorite fit costs 26.6k ISK each as seen below on an ADV Minmatar Scout suit. If you wanted you could drop the SMG down to a STD and up the Novas to Proto and it would only cost $3k more each suit. I do plan on eventually going and snagging the shotgun tree though. I forget names but I have seen some very very very skilled Minny Scouts just absolutely dominating everything with a Shotgun with speeds in excess of 11 to 12m/s it looked like(I go almost 10 and they were sprinting way faster than I was going). I'd probably be more interested in flux if I didn't use the AV so much. Explaining to people with Blood Raider Sagas that trying to run people over isn't nice is one of my favorite things to do between objectives. As for shotguns: yes, those fits are very effective. The Minnie scout's speed works very well with anything that needs close range to work well. I personally prefer endurance to pure speed; it's not often that I end up trying to chase down another scout, but I spend a lot of time doing cross-country.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 265	Posted - 2013.09.18 17:40:00 - [7] - Quote Making a couple of alterations now that I've gotten accustomed to the ins and outs of 1.4. I'll move most of what I edit out down below in case someone might still find it useful. (Replaced by SMG) wrote: Light weapon: shotgun. Quality matters minimally unless you're up against a heavy. ... * the shotgun is a backup and emergency weapon rather than primary ordinance. Its firepower is high enough to seem to invite direct confrontation, but the suit's weak defenses make that a risky tactic. Also, and never, ever, forget this: it's powerful enough to be feared and its sound is both highly distinctive and LOUD. You have very few shots before everybody in close proximity starts looking for the shotgunner. (Rendered obsolete by increased hostile deadliness in 1.4) wrote: Fox Hunt Ingredients: Advancing hostile offensive force Scout suit (easiest with Minmatar) Biotics for speed and endurance Decent navigational sense Abundant chutzpah (optional, but desirable) Remote Explosives You remember how I said not to throw your body on a problem? Well, there are exceptions to everything. Say there's an intense battle for the objective you're at, and your side looks likely to lose. If the red dots keep advancing in force, their victory is inevitable, so ... Red dots, generally (dots in general, I suppose) have a bad habit of developing tunnel vision when they think they've got an easy kill. This can work to your advantage (or your team's, anyway). Find the middle of the battle and just dash right through the middle of the hostile line. If you get a good opportunity to drop an RE in the middle of their position as you run, take it, but for God's sake keep moving. Attract all the attention you can and just keep running and evading for as long as possible. Every second every individual enemy spends shooting at the evasive will-o'-wisp bobbing around in front off them and presumably off to do something nefarious is a second that same enemy isn't shooting at your side, which means a second your team has to respawn, reinforce, regroup, retaliate-- whatever it needs to do. Don't even bother shooting at people. Keep the reds busy for as long as possible; make them pay for every shot they take at you with additional seconds that null cannon will be firing on their MCC. This can also work offensively, drawing hostiles out of cover by giving them a target to shoot at that's relatively irrelevant to the push. Obviously, this move is usually suicidal. If only a couple pursue, drop an RE in a bottleneck and blow them into their next clones. If you get a full squad (or two-- it happens!), just keep going as long as you can and try to take as many of them with you as possible if and when they corner you. Remember, RE's can be triggered while on your way to the ground, mortally wounded, and HMG's will fail to kill you outright about two thirds of the time. Boom.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 265	Posted - 2013.09.18 18:01:00 - [8] - Quote Fox Gaden wrote: I think Fox Hunt can still be done, you just need to adjust for changes in 1.4. Instead of running through the fight, fire at them from the edge of the fight. Pick a spot where cover is available so you can duck behind it as soon as you get their attention. Make sure they know you are there, but donGÇÖt give them a clear shot to kill you. If they give chase, run from cover to cover. These corners are also good places to drop remote explosives. Agreed, but (1) that's always been good advice for staying alive when pursued and (2) it used to be that you could keep half a team occupied for tens of seconds even when surrounded and pursued across open ground just by dodging like a mad fool. Now? Not so much. Also, hostiles tend to be less enthusiastic about pursuing someone who ducks behind cover if they're being shot at from elsewhere.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 265	Posted - 2013.09.18 18:55:00 - [9] - Quote Added section on specific equipment, in no particular order. May organize it at some point.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 268	Posted - 2013.09.20 02:08:00 - [10] - Quote Reav Hannari wrote: It's so satisfying to be an infiltrator bastard, sneak behind the enemy, hack and uplink, and then watch the tide of battle completely shift. Oh, right-- uplinks. Thank you for the reminder.

Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 271	Posted - 2013.09.22 16:01:00 - [11] - Quote Turtle Hermit Roshi wrote: i think i know enough hit me up in game via msg ill get **** together cus im down Actually, my drop uplink skills bite rocks. You're probably better off with someone who actually runs the damn things. If you get to try it out, do let me know how it goes, though!
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 277	Posted - 2013.09.24 19:08:00 - [12] - Quote Quil Evrything wrote: Yun Hee Ryeon wrote: Active Scanners Extremely useful if you're spotting for a squad; pure evil if you're trying to stay hidden. Their users are almost never alone, so if you're attempting solo infiltration of hostile territory and get pinged by one of these, you may either find somewhere else to be or consider yourself functionally deceased. Profile Dampening 3 and Scout Dropsuit (of your choice) 4 is enough to drop your profile below the ability of advanced scanners to detect (scan resolution 36); this should be a training priority. Suggested tweak: dampening is a x3 skill. suit is x8. If stealth is the goal, anyone sensible would aim for dampening 4, scout 3, rather than the other way around. 'course, there are other bonuses to the suit skill. But still... I think you should at least mention that either way is viable. Sure, I gather that also works. Although, dampening also only drops profile 2% per level....
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 278	Posted - 2013.09.25 01:47:00 - [13] - Quote Quil Evrything wrote: Can you "throw" them at all? How abut dropping them from above? Yes and yes ... sort of. The RE placement mechanic is subject to a strange sort of ... debate, is the only way I can seem to describe it ... between the client and the server. It makes exact placement a bit tricky, especially when edges are involved. With the mechanic in its present state, the RE doesn't go active until the debate resolves. And it often resolves with the RE someplace entirely different than the client showed it was. Setting traps at your own feet is easy. Precise placement at range or over the edges of things is ... dicey, especially on a time limit.
Yun Hee Ryeon Dead Six Initiative Lokun Listamenn 329	Posted - 2013.10.17 01:17:00 - [14] - Quote Update: added a few notes on effective inflitration techniques. Critiques and comments welcome, as always.