Skitter spam is annoying and can slow down early expansion. The same can also be achieved with fireflies to a lesser extent. Early game only!
I don't usually scout spam Like I used to, Radar covers so much ground that its better to just build a radar tower in good spacing.
Firefly spam can be a fun troll move. They're very fast and in large groups can kill fabricators and even metal extractors surprisingly quickly.
Dead server. Dead hummingbirds. Seriously. Those fighters have 15000 dps vs 300 Fireflies. I.e. 50 DPS per firefly. The fireflies have 25000 DPS. 80 DPS per hummingbird. The hummingbirds need 17 seconds to kill every firefly. The fireflies need 1-2 seconds
firefly spam is effective very early game but in later early game bombers are very good for sniping expanding fabricators and even fabricators in the base.
This was a 4 person FFA that I eventually won (mostly because people left/lagged out), but this was several months ago. They are much weaker now. Towards the end I had upwards of 100 factories pumping them out.
I wish I'd taken some screenshots of them actually attacking stuff. It was quite hilarious to watch them devour things.
Skitters and scampers are more reliable for damaging things at a distance and running away if need be. Fireflies can snipe fabbers but die in droves since they need to get close up. If you pump them out en mass they can do a bit of damage, but they'll miss moving targets. If you scout someone near the water you can quickly harass them with a few skitters and peck at their metal/energy until they're forced to come over and deal with you. Lately I've been using more vehicles fabs to start out with. Scampers can poke at fabbers and metal deposits while avoiding commanders and bots easily enough. You can sometimes keep someone distracted enough that you sneak a small catapult base somewhere else. It's only moderately effective in the first three minutes or so, and sometimes requires too much micro when your attention could be at your base building other things.
You've obviously never been assaulted by a microed 350 strong Skitter army at ten minutes. Some losses are just too embarassing to think about.
No I didn't forget. 5000 shots per second - a few misses are ok. You have 17 seconds until the hummingbirds kill all of them. Assuming you're not being killed in the meantime. My first 1v1 game the only viable tactic I had for survival was using fireflies to break up tank attacks before they hit my base. I am well aware of the limitations of the firefly, believe me. Their worst is that two fireflies, 1 chasing the other - the one chasing dies. The one being chases will always survive with very little health lost. Are they? Their stats are the same. The ratio of fireflies to hummingbirds is higher?
Their weapon velocity/accuracy was lowered so that they don't always hit like they used to, and with the extreme (too extreme IMO) presence of AA AOE, its impossible to spam them in any significant number now.
And unit target aquisition. And getting all those into range at once. Basically, it is possible for those numbers to likely kill 1/3 the fighters, but the fighters would probably win since the closest you can get fireflies will get them killed before they can fire.
Their weapon velocity is 150. Just as it was in 58772. And if there's that much AA AOE, why are you scout spamming XD? The speed of a scout is 110, and they have 20 less range than a hummingbird, which means they cover the distance in 1/6th of a second. The missile has to fire, which takes 1/15th of a second, but then you have an entire second before the missiles can fire again, which means the scouts can fly into range from 190 away from the hummingbirds. Range isn't a differential.
