I've done this for the first time and thought I'd make a thread about it. A few of the commanders here at SimHQ have yet to do this, so perhaps this could help if they do.

Only two things are needed really, a good ship suited for the purpose and to be where the Thargoids are. So what sort of ship? I think there are many that would work well. The keys I think are a combination of speed, agility and the ability to stack integrity. The scouts shoot at you, and they will hit you, and it will cause damage. It cannot be avoided, and their attacks partially ignore shields. They also shoot caustic missiles which apply a caustic effect that will continue to eat at your hull until it's removed, and when a scout dies, it explodes in to a cloud which will apply the caustic effect if you fly through it.

In the end I chose to take one of my Kraits. It's a really good ship for this (and everything else too!). It is fast, agile and has plenty of internals to stack HRPs and get the integrity up. I had removed the military grade armor I had on the ship prior to doing this, but armor is a great help on scout missions and for a dedicated anti-xeno ship I'd recommend it. But if you can stack enough HRPs it can be done that way too. My Krait has 3,100 integrity in scout mode with HD stock alloys. I could have done more with complete engineering (and armor!), but I found this was plenty.

The ship should also be fast and agile, which is where some options fall out. The scouts are fast and zip around and you need to be able to track them and keep the weapons trained. That's why I was thinking about the DBS. It is very fast and highly agile. After doing some scout hunting I think I will follow through and build that ship out. The scouts are not hard to kill with the right weapons, and I think a ship that's a little less capable than the Krait would add an edge to the whole affair and make it more fun. It does have limited internal space and smaller hardpoints and would be a build challenge that seems fun. I think ships like Vulture, FAS, Krait, Chieftain, Viper, Cobra, DBS, FDL, or even a Dolphin would be well suited to the role. Fast, nimble and slots, those are the keys.

As for outfitting, heavy duty engineering on armor and HRPs is what you want. Resistances do not matter, and shields are partially ignored. So for that reason I think fast-charge bi-weaves make the best choice. Get mj up through boosters, and don't worry about resists. Get your integrity however you can. Heavy-duty HRPs are great for this of course, so load the slots up. If you can add armor and engineer that too, it should be fine.

Additionally, you need some specialized equipment to do this efficiently. For scouts, any weapons will work, AX weapons are not required, but even highly engineered standard weapons do far less damage and will make the scouts harder to kill. I recommend AX weapons and found the AX multi-cannons did a fine job and can kill the scouts quickly. These are not sold everywhere, and you do not need to unlock them, just find a station selling them. Each class is sold in a different station. For example you can get class 3 turreted AX multi-cannons in Shinrarta, but they do not sell class 2. So use EDDB to find the size you need for the ship you choose. There is no gimballed version, so either fixed or turrets. Turrets can help track the nimble scouts so I went that route. Gauss cannons are also a good choice. Further, you are limited to mounting four AX weapons at most.

In my Krait I mounted three AX turrets and filled the other two hardpoints with thermal vent beams. I knew I would need a way to remove the caustic goo. One way to do this is to overheat your ship. At 150% heat the goo starts burning off. This heat can be built by silent running, or by weapons. I mounted the beams to have a way to build heat, just by firing in to space. The thermal vent could be useful for removing that heat. In practice though I found that all that's needed is a decontamination limpet controller and some limpets. As long as you have these, the heat method isn't needed, and if I do more scout hunting I will swap the beams for more multi-cannons or something.

I also mounted a xeno-scanner, which takes a utility slot. This scans the thargoids and reveals their type. It also shows their remaining health, so you can see when they are about to pop and avoid the cloud. So it's very useful and I recommend it, but it isn't necessary to kill scouts. And of course you should also mount the decontamination limpets. For builds without this the heat method can be used, but the limpets are easy and automatic. Because you find these scouts in signal sources, once all are dead, you have time to chill, send out a limpet to remove the goo while you scoop the unique thargoid mats they drop. Once you're done then you low-wake to find a different signal source. So there's always time to use the limpets. In a pinch the heat method could be used during combat, so probably a useful fall-back option.

So where to find them? Without incursions in the bubble at the moment I think the two best places are the Pleiades or Witch Head. I chose Maia because it's closer. But I did notice that the new engineer Chloe Sedesi is near Witch Head, so I plan to do some more scout hunting there and get her unlocked at the same time. The scouts are found in NHSS, which go from threat 3 to 9 I think. I only dropped in to threats 3 and 4. Threat 3 has two scouts, and threat 4 has three to seven, plus a couple of friendly NPCs who look to jump out at the first opportunity. Don't count on them for much help. Above threat 4 bigger thargoids begin to appear, with Cyclops at threat 5 and Interceptors at threat 6. So if you just want to hunt scouts, stick to threats 3 and 4.

Apparently there are also AX Combat Zones, but I saw none labeled as such and did all of my scout hunting in the NHSS. I jumped back and forth between Maia and neighboring Asterope, and there are dozens of NHSS and you can easily rack up a score. Scout kills count as combat bonds, and pay 10k. All are Elite so it can be good for combat rank. I'm at Deadly and it's about 17 scouts per point. There are four types of scouts but in the NHSS I only saw the low level Marauder type. In the AX combat zones there are three additional types of scouts that make it more challenging since they can heal, coordinate attacks and boost damage.


No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!