Karl's own Scout

What makes a good scout? Most would agree it's not kill score. Mining score is a better answer, if you want your scout to be a glorified cave leech. You could say something about supporting the team but we will leave the wishy washy friendship answers to elves. No the correct answer is very simple:

A good scout never dies.

If you can make it through the mission, having put up some lights, mined some nitra, and have not been a liability to the bigger guns on your team, you have earned your pint. It's a bloody thankless job very often, but a necessary one.

Flare Gun

The best support tool in the game. You can't shoot what you can't see, and you can't mine what you can't see. The sooner the team is made aware of a problem the less of a problem it is.

Build here takes Magnesium Core over second Ammo Bags. Flare uptime works out the same and means you have to spend less time shooting flares. You have a lot of jobs to juggle as a scout so save what time you can. I recommend taking the Born Ready to reload your flare gun for you.

Grappling Hook

The reason you should never die. Unless you're traversing the drillers' gapping crevasse you should have enough room to back off from losing fights. Gunners will call you a coward, but you get to bully their granny lift so it's fair game.

This is an infinite get out of jail free card so lets abuse it by reducing its cool down as much as possible. If you are good with the grappling hook, you will be using its momentum to travel rather than grappling to your destination directly. Overcharged Winch provides more momentum so take it.

Learn to not take fall damage.

A good scout never dies (see above), and fall damage kills scouts most often. There are many ways of avoiding fall damage, but the most practical and least costly solution is to just not fall.

M1000 Classic

Bane of spitters, Queen of controversy, and the best reload sound you can find on Hoxis. If you are playing scout as your main dwarf, you should be learning to use the M1000. Your gonna have to land those rapid grunt headshots however otherwise you will find yourself buying the drinks at the bar often.

I'm always going to advocate for a hybrid build between focus shot and hip shooting. So much to gain from versatility. The other standard I hold M1000 builds to is they need to be able to kill acid spitters with a focused body shot (144 damage). Your team mates should be made to think that they can't spawn within a kilometers radius of you.

This build is a low DPS supporting weapon by design. It can clear waves of grunts effectively with hip shooting, Blowthrough Rounds, and Precision Terror for Grunt Guards. It can also deal with priority threats, effectively by utilising Electrocuting Focus Shots. As well as boosting the damage the electricity slow can make or break a mission. You to pin down Bulk Detonator from safety giving the team a ton time to clear the rest of the wave.

You need to backup this M1000 build with a high burst damage secondary to make up for what it lacks against Dreadnoughts and Oppressors. Taking tier one Increased Caliber Rounds over Expanded Ammo Bags can help make up some DPS. Alternatively the other build I would recommend is the Active Stability System overclock with tier one Increased Caliber Rounds and tier 3 Killer Focus. The M1000 is a fairly contentious weapon so play around and see what suits your playstyle.

Jury-Rigged Boomstick

Following up two shells with a power attack and you have damage. The Jumbo shells overclock is gross levels of efficiency as we can easily make the back ammo loss. Tier 2 is Double Trigger here as I plan to only reload this thing with the Born Ready perk. Take Quickfire Ejector otherwise. Swarms are always the biggest threat to the team. Penetration scales directly with difficulty so take Super Blowthrough Rounds at tier 4. Not many great options for tier 5, Fear The Boomstick as it's slightly positive. White Phosphorus Shells makes it harder to kill things frozen with the Cryo Grenades you should have brought.

Lots of dwarves take the Special Powder overclock. It's fun and you should have a play with it. In my experience your trading ammo for mobility that you already have with the grappling hook the majority of the time. For some mission (Point Extraction) It can be worth it, but not the majority. You will miss not having it, but it will train you to be better at grappling.

Perks

Personal preference / playstyle is key here. But here are my recommendations:

• Field Medic - Solid pick, quick gunner rez can prevent a wipe
• Iron Will - Lets you die once, usually your in a good position to grapple to some red sugar
• Berserker - Can combo with Boomstick and cryo grenades for more burst if you want it
• Deep Pockets - You will be grabbing a lot of minerals, enough said
• Sweet Tooth - For the illustrious ceiling sugar, just don't get your tongue stuck. Helps with the not dying plan.
• Born Ready - Lets you weave in flares and Boomstick between M1000 shots and not have to worry about stopping to reload.
• Unstoppable - Mobility is survivability and this lets you keep some