Issues with Spire Scout ships

[hullu]

Just wondering if it's only my game that's acting up but these guys seriously don't seem to do as advertised.

The description says they are permacloaked and take attrition damage on planets higher than their mark.

I built two Mark IVs and two Mark IIIs since they sounded like a very nice way to scout around.

Well. Here's what happened. One of the Mark IVs got stuck on the first planet he got to, because there was a black hole gen.

Second of my Mark IVs instadied somewhere where there wasn't a counter sniper. Both of my Mark IIIs instadied, the second I actually watched doing it, it died going through wormhole, it never arrived on the other side - at least not visually.

1) Aren't they supposed to be scouts and immune to black hole?
2) What is instakilling them during wormhole transition?
3) They also do not show in 'ship total' numbers in galaxy map, kept losing them because of that too...

[BobTheJanitor]

I've noticed that they don't have the normal scout immunity to area damage, which means they can plaster themselves on mines. I already posted on mantis suggesting a change to that. I honestly can't figure out a situation the spire scouts would be useful for. When given the choice between a spire scout which dies to anything, or a spire jumpship, I'd always take the jumpship. It can carry (at minimum mark) 5 scouts and it can deposit them safely on the outer edge of a planet without having to run from wormhole guards. Until the spire scout can do something that useful, I don't see the point of it.

Edit: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2348

Looks like that should help a bit. Although I still don't see myself using them ever. Maybe I just don't comprehend how to use them correctly. In my games, scouts are things you put on a corner of an enemy planet, and then just leave them there forever. A scout that kills itself after a bit... why use it?