Does anyone have advice on how to take out the battlepods before they radio the Zentraedi?

i do!

basically from the start, as a battleoid boost up the cliff on your right and then turn to face your left. you should be overlooking all the scout pods.
basically press y for sniper mode, hold down zoom and charge at the same time and then fire a FULLY CHARGED shot at the scout pod to make sure he is definatley killed. then press y to come out of sniper mode, and y again to zoom into the next target. use this method to deal with all the pods. if you stop auto targeting and haven't killed all the pods, morph into guardian, fly over to the hill in front of you and snipe all the remaining scout pods. easy!