GTFO: How to handle Scouts

Don't touch the feelers!

Scouts are the most common enemy that can ruin a mission. Unlike other sleepers, these creatures patrol the rooms they spawn in and occasionally stop and send out a lot of tentacles in every direction to "feel" if anything is around. If for any reason they are alerted, they will scream and summon/spawn an extra wave of monsters.

Also known as the spaghetti monster!

Knowing the enemy is half the battle so here you go:

• Scouts make a particular sound you can hear through doors. Once you get used to it, you'll be hearing them before seeing them.
• If a scout hears you moving, feels your flash light, or hears a door open, it will send out feelers.
• If you bump or injure the scout, touch a feeler*, or it hears a gunshot or something else in the room screams - the scout will be alerted.
• *If you touch a feeler, you still have a second or two to kill the scout before it screams.
• Once alerted, the scout will turn blue and be temporarily invulnerable as it summons a wave of up to 12 enemies.
• A scout will "visit" sleepers in the room. If there are none, it will wander around randomly.
• A sniper shot to the head will kill the scout at distance, but this means alerting the room (and some rooms have more than one scout).
• A fully charged hammer swing to the head of a scout will kill it silently. This is the ideal take down.
  

Even knowing all of that, what you need most is practice at getting in range so here are some tips:

• Position yourself in front of where the scout is walking - you want to be in front of this one.
• Flash light off, unless you are intentionally trying to make send out tentacles.
• Terrain is important, its much easier to get into range if you are higher or lower than the tentacle sprawl. A simple ramp or stairs can greatly improve your odds.
  
• If on level ground, hide behind furniture or pillars until it is within striking range.
• Ideally, wait for the tentacles to be out and follow them back in as the scout retracts them for a head bop.
• At full range, you will not be able to walk the full distance before retraction is complete - so be patient and setup correctly.
• There will be times when the room is just a mess. In these cases it might be better to setup and shoot the scout, then fight the room.
• Advanced players will sprint-aggro these and duck under tentacles for the kill or do a jump smash from a higher floor. Get the basics down first before trying these.
• Multiple people going for the same scout is risky.
  

Now theory is all well and good but what you really need is practice. In Rundown 4, R4C1 - Cognition has a chance of spawning scouts before any alarm doors so that's what I was using, restarting if none were available to solo practice on. And I stuffed up A LOT. Now I stuff up less, and that means saving everyone a lot of ammo. It's worth the pain.