Scout Rifles are a primary weapon class, available only to Infiltrators. Semi Auto Scout Rifles are precision weapons with good mobility, and they focus on taking out enemies with several headshots at medium-long range. Full Auto Scout Rifles are medium range ambush weapons, and handle like weak Assault Rifles. 

Despite looking different, Scout Rifles are perfectly mirrored between factions. 

You can find general tips on using PlanetSide 2 weapons in the Gunplay Guide and some Infiltrator-specific tips in the Infiltrator Guide.

Semi Auto Scout Rifles

SA Scout Rifle Mechanics

Scout Rifles follow the same Weapon Mechanics as other weapons. Semi Auto Scout Rifles are overall similar to Semi Auto Sniper Rifles, but with these differences:

• Deal less damage per shot, and require more bodyshots. However, they still kill most targets in the same number of headshots.
• Higher effective Rate of Fire.
• Larger magazines and faster reload. 
• Can mount Flash Suppressors.
• Higher Projectile Velocity, much better ADS Moving and Hip Fire accuracy.
• Less Vertical Recoil.

SA Scouts suffer from the same Tap Firing Issues that plague Semi Auto Sniper Rifles, albeit to a lesser degree:

Refire Time: 0.235 seconds.
Cone of Fire Recovery takes: 0.25 seconds after a shot
Recoil Recovery takes: 0.243 seconds.
With Compensator: 0.225 seconds.

Source of the numbers: Toolbox. Assuming no Forward Grip.

To put it into words, it takes SA Scouts longer to recover CoF Accuracy than to move crosshair down after a shot. If you fire while the crosshair is moving, or right after it stopped moving, CoF will not have time to recover, and your shots will have reduced accuracy. 

It also means the Compensator is a trap certification and it should be avoided. 

You can find some tips on how to play with a SA Scout Rifle in CQC Sniping Guide by Davregis.

Scout Rifles play a bit differently to CQC Bolt Action rifles, but only in the way you move and fire. Both reward hit and run play and quick headshot takedowns. If you can’t reliably get your headshots – avoid 1v1s and float around a fight, using cloak to find and pick off stragglers and wounded enemies.

– Unknown redditor

NS-30 Vandal

NS-30 Vandal is a cross faction scout rifle. It is very similar to faction-specific SA Scout Rifles. In many cases, it has slightly worse base stats:

• Has a Recoil Angle
• Lower Velocity
• Longer Reloads

However, it has a larger magazine, and most importantly – it has 0.75x ADS Movement Speed Multiplier, which arguably makes Vandal the best SA Scout rifle, as it often operates at ranges where having higher ADS Speed gives a crucial advantage. 

Vandal is the best SA Scout for leveraging their main advantage over SA Sniper Rifles: mobility and ADS accuracy.

Full Auto Scout Rifles

FA Scout Rifle Mechanics

Scout Rifles follow the same Weapon Mechanics as other weapons. Full Auto Scout Rifles are overall similar to Assault Rifles, but aside from low damage degradation, they have absolutely unimpressive stats. 

Artemis has 20 m/s lower velocity, but doesn’t have any bullet drop. Artemis is also incredibly silent when used with a Suppressor.

NSX Tomoe

NSX Tomoe is a cross faction automatic scout rifle. It has a slew of unique features:

• Low bullet damage without any damage degradation.
• Increased headshot multiplier, to ensure that despite low damage per shot, Tomoe kills standard infantry in 4 headshots at all ranges.

Overall, NSX Tomoe is a unique case of an automatic precision weapon with high Rate of Fire. Tomoe’s weaknesses include horrible Hip Fire accuracy, low damage per magazine and long TTK with bodyshots. 

Tomoe kills very fast with headshots at medium range, but suffers whenever it’s not possible to easily get multiple headshots.

You can learn more about Tomoe in its Highly Technical Weapon Guide.

It’s worth noting that Tomoe doesn’t count towards Scout Rifle Directives, and instead counts for Nanite Systems Exports directives. Kills with Tomoe will count as Scout Rifle Kills for Infiltrator Directives, though.