In Defense of the Garthan Scout: A Small but Potentially Dangerous Ship

Happy (belated) New Year to my fellow Infinite Space Adventurers! This time, I would like to share my thoughts on one of the most underrated ships in the Infinite Space trilogy: the basic Garthan Scout. Not a Garthan Corvette, Light Carrier or even a Frigate, just the smallest scout model. Like almost every other similarly sized ship, it comes with one front-mounted turret and four equipment slots. However, unlike other ships, if you acquire it, you will not have any chance to trade it in for a larger Garthan ship if you are playing on a map in which the Garthan home system (which is always a white star) does not appear. So why am I considering it one of the most underrated ships not just of its kind (or size, for that matter), but also in the entire game?

A heavily (but not fully) upgraded Garthan scout - more of a threat than most players realize.

Well, for starters, it has one attribute no other scout-sized capital ship has: sheer speed. It doesn't have the the easier availability of a Terran scout, the extra armor of a Muktian scout, or the space-folding agility of a Zorg scout (to say nothing of the extra turrets of a Calatian destroyer, which might as well be in an entirely different league), but in combat, (sub-light) speed is vital, and skilled players often use strategies that treat speed as armor - a faster ship is always going to be harder to hit than a slower one. With the extra speed, you can more easily distract opposing ships, thereby giving yourself a better opportunity to ambush them using your other capital ships.

There is one build in particular that stands out for its effectiveness: the Garthan Nova Scout. It basically involves fitting a Nova Cannon (which can only be obtained from a Timeless Bauble in normal gameplay) to a Garthan Scout, along with high-end thrusters (at least an Ion Impulse Thruster), strong shields, (a Proton Matrix Shield at the very least, although a Meson Lattice Shield or better is preferable), and an advanced targeting computer (either an Eidetic Matrix Bubble, or a Sardion Optimizer/Maximizer if either of them are available). The result is the interstellar equivalent of a fast, light, agile and very hard-hitting artillery piece. In fact, if you equip it with a Plasma Coil Cloaker in addition to the three items mentioned above, you will have one of the most overpowered anti-capital ship builds in the game.

The Garthan Nova Scout with fully upgraded equipment.

Taking on a Kawangi Dreadnought with a fully upgraded Garthan Nova Scout.

The superior speed of the Garthan Scout compared to other similarly sized ships makes it easier to perform evasive maneuvers with.

The end result: a Garthan Nova Scout successfully destroys a slow, lumbering Kawangi dreadnought. Presumably the scout's crew must be celebrating such an unlikely triumph.

If the Nova Cannon is not available, other long-range weapons such as the Multi-Missile Launcher or Particle Vortex Cannon can be substituted. Neither of them is as powerful as a Nova Cannon, but both are more easily obtainable, and the Multi-Missile is also purchasable from the Terran or Muktian home systems (from 4600 AD onwards at a cost of 575 credits and 4595 AD onwards at a cost of 4 coins, respectively).

In short, the Garthan Scout may seem like either fodder or an early trade-in candidate at first, but as with all other scouts, its speed is a key asset in combat, and it can serve as a fast, agile sniper when fitted with powerful thrusters and a long-range weapons. However, as one of the fastest scouts, it is more than a match for any other similarly sized ship, and can even threaten much larger ships when fitted with the right equipment.