Does anybody use the Spire Teleporting Leech?

[Wingflier]

http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Spire_Teleporting_Leech

I'm trying to figure out if or when I'd ever want to pick one of these.  It doesn't seem like a good bonus ship to start with - maybe as a pickup on an ARS Hack?

They're fairly expensive, and their bonuses (Refractive/Composite) are too rare to be of any use from my experience.

On the wiki it says they'd be good against long-range ships like snipers and bombards.

Does anyone here use them?

[zoutzakje]

I don't really use them (because randomizing bonus ships simply doesn't give them to me very often), but they can be deadly in the hands of the AI. Whenever you're playing against an AI that has teleporting leeches, make sure your fleet never gets wiped out entirely. Always retreat before you die, or you'll suddenly find yourself dealing with a lot more enemy ships. The same thing goes for an AI with regular parasite ships, but teleporting leeches are definitely the most annoying in my opinion.
I guess you could use them the same way. I once used them as an extra defense for waves. Worked great and gave me quite a lot of extra ships during the game.

[Hearteater]

About the only plus on them is they are about the only thing that can reclaim Bulletproof Fighters because unlike nearly every other reclaimer,  STLs don't have Shell ammo, but Minor Electric.  Not that Minor Electric is really a step up (you can't assassination Warp Gates for example, because they are immune).

[Cyborg]

We just did…

http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10589.0.html

[Wanderer]

I'm not a fan.  They're definately not something I'd take as a starter bonus ship and if I get them later they're relegated to the whipping boy(s) with a rally point to collect me ships that I don't already have.

That said, the AI tends to drive me nuts with 'em.

[barryvm]

I got them as my random starting bonus ship and used them on my defensive planets.
In combo with a turret ball they reclaimed large amounts of ships from each waves.
I just set them on free roaming defender under a force field (the ship AI is intelligent enough for them to gang up on targets) with a shipyard on continuous FRD build next to them so they do not need any micromanagement.
The behave essentially as reclaiming turrets and I found them surprisingly effective: after a few waves I had a nice defending fleet.
That said, I certainly wouldn't pick them as a bonus ship since there are tons of better choices available (not to mention botnet golems).

[zoutzakje]

I agree that there are plenty of better ship choices, but for a reclemation ship type, these are one of the best in my opinion. The botnet is not something you can chose to start with. You can play with golems on, but that doesn't guarantee that there actually will be a botnet in the galaxy, as I dreadfully discovered back in my 9/9 crosshatch game.
I wouldn't pick these for starters, but I wouldn't mind seeing the leech show up as a random ARS unlock