Scout ships are small light ships that are easily overlooked, but play a vital role in the fleet. Most won’t be taking on battleships or nuking cities, but they are still very important ships. Even if they don’t seem to be all that impressive. All factions have at least one ship that fills the role of scout. While these ships come in different breeds, and can have a variety of different features they do have a few key things in common.

Scouts are typically small, and lightly armed. Their key features are powerful engines, and a healthy sensor array. Some scout ships even feature powerful stealth devices to aid in their mission. Most scout ships are cheap, easily replaced, disposable units. Also of note is that these ships tend to be fragile, and poorly equipped to hold their own in a fight. As such their chief defense is their powerful engines often allow them to outrun most aggressors. However there are exceptions to this rule. Now let's take a look at a few actual scout ships.

Cylovan Faction Scouts:

Scout Four: The Scout Four is actually on the large side as scout ships go with a diameter of 160 meters. Lightly armed with eight ultra light disruption rays it often struggles against most opponents. Its key features are a powerful Twin Plasma Impulse drive that allows it to reach lightspeed in under a minute. This makes the ship very fast on sublight, and a powerful sensor array. Being cheap, these ships are often employed in large numbers to recon neighboring systems, and are often the first ship most races encounter from the collective. Its larger than normal size allows it a small fighter bay that it uses to carry smaller scout fighters.

The ship however does have a few shortcomings. Most notably is its lack of hyperwarp capability. The ship is too small to mount even a basic hyperwarp drive. Another is its inability to enter atmosphere.

Scout Swarmer: The Cylovan scout fighter is a short range recon craft, often carried by the Scout Four. These tiny ships are poorly armed with only a single ultralight beam cannon. Unlike the Scout Four, these ships can enter atmosphere, and help counter that shortcoming when entering atmosphere is required.

Mydorian Union Faction Scouts:

Emika Class Scout Cruiser: This light ship is approximately eighty meters in length. Lightly armed with maser cannons, and a good sensor array. The Emika actually has some ability to hold its own in a fight, and can often beat other corvettes and light ships in battle. As such it is often fielded as light police cruiser, and is often sent on pirate hunting missions in addition to its primary role as a scout ship. The ship however does struggle against ships bigger than it, but it can often escape thanks to its powerful sublight engines.

Nomads of Sol Faction Scouts:

SF-1204-A Recon: This variant of the Twelve O Four starfighter has been optimized for recon duty. As such the missiles have been offloaded, along with half the cannons in favor of a secondary computer and additional sensors. A number of auxiliary modules have been removed, and extra thrusters and fuel tanks have been added. The overall result is that in exchange for most of its teeth, there is a significant increase in speed, range, and sensor capability. The 1204 Recon is often sent into a system ahead of the fleet to scout things out, and locate any potentially missed threats not found by long range sensors. Its chief drawback is its lack of FTL capability.

LPC: This newly designed corvette is a multirole ship designed primarily for scouting and policing mission profiles. It is well armored, fast, and has a decent weapons array. Unlike most scouts its ability to carry high yield explosives allows it to threaten even capital ships. Its chief drawbacks are its short range, and cramped interior. Also of note is that due to an emphasis on performance the LPC costs a good deal more than equivalent vessels employed by other factions. Its most notable feature is its integrated beam array. Which is designed to punch through light overlord armor.

Rykoni Raiders Faction Scouts:

Makeshift Scout ship: The Rykoni aren’t big on uniform ship classes. Most Rykoni clans simply makedo with whatever they managed to scrape together. Often made from several hulls welded together, with sensors, fuel tanks, and engines slapped wherever they can fit them. The overall result is a very cheap but fragile ship. Its ability to actually do its job is also questionable, but a good one is built every once in a while. On the flip side, a decent number never make it out of drydock.

Slave Built Scout: Designed and built by slaves, these scouts are actually half decent ships. Unfortunately they are also built with scrap metal. These ships are cheap, but fragile.

Sylnari Remnant Faction Scouts:

Automated Scout Cruiser: The Sylnari Scout Cruiser is a masterpiece of advanced engineering. These small ships are lightly armed with a twin Proton Cannons, but while these weapons are considered light by the Sylnari other factions struggle to obtain similar firepower on their capital starships. Being small, its limited space forced the designers to discard shields in favor of an advanced cloak. As such it's only protections are its stealth, and the limited armor plating it is outfitted with. However it doesn’t really need more than its cloak. Only the Cylovans have proven able to detect these ships, but their spotting of these unmanned vessels has been sporadic at best. Usually these ships can escape when spotted, but if necessary they have been known to take on Cylovan Cruisers with limited success.