Architect Archive
Thread: Top Issues
Actually they don't. They could use arbitrarily high amounts of Avian and Herbivore. They're constantly complaining they can't keep their vendors stocked.
The harvester shouldn't really change the amount we get. It should just be there so we don't have to waste our time getting it.
It would increase the amount you get, because a) you could get what the harvester puts out and what you can harvest on your own, and b) you could have more than one harvester. Even if the harvesters are limited to one per character, (a) would still apply. And if you found an implementation that didn't increase the amount of resources one Ranger could harvest, then it wouldn't solve the stated problem, would it now?
The "lure trap" is basically a restatement of the "hunting blind" camp we were promised Way Back When. The one we're still waiting for.
Hmm.. general herb price is only 50, avian MAXES at 100 and thats on the GREAT stuff, Im getting 80 for avian meat right now.. dont know where you saw 200 bud.
Ok so dont make our "traps" just like miners... good! dont make them ANYTHING like miners. the solution to supply vs demand is making people WANT ranger because we can HARVEST MORE. not because they can lay down traps and go to bed and wake up with 100k wooly hide.
Message Edited by Morik on 03-09-2004 04:15 PM
DFH wrote:
Actually they don't. They could use arbitrarily high amounts of Avian and Herbivore. They're constantly complaining they can't keep their vendors stocked.
They claim to be able to use "arbitrarily high amounts". This is ofc untrue, the 'overall' supply of avian meat and herbivore meat is enough to supply the needs of the (doc-)market (or did you experience a *real* shortage for buffpacks or stimpacks on your server for a longer period of time? The answer is most likely no, and if it is no there can't be a much too low supply).
Morik wrote:Hmm.. general herb price is only 50, avian MAXES at 100 and thats on the GREAT stuff, Im getting 80 for avian meat right now.. dont know where you saw 200 bud.
Eclipse. Inshift Nabooian avian meat.
On the "harvestors"...
I don't want harvestors ether. I want traps. No footprint, just a wp. Number you can deploydepends on your level, not "lots". Not a deed, a device. You have no garentee you will get ANYTHING but you should have a skill that can find areas giving you better chances. You drop it and store a wp. You leave for a period of time and that time is stored. You come back and check and the time diff is checked and a number of rolls are done based on time away, success depends on if you placed the trap right. This is an area effect like the Garages are for vehicles: you get close to the WP and new commands are available.
On the subject of Traps and /track
This is a little different, but might tie into the issues of /track and trapping. The subject of creature knowledge in the game seems a little strange. The higher you go the more you know about all creatures in the game. I think its a good system that works but does little to feed parts of the ranger profession.
My thought is that if you were to acquire creature knowledge by creature level, then you could apply that type of logic to the way /track works. It seems the majority of us feel that a ranger should be able to type in "/track rancor" and it will come up saying that there are rancors 400m SE. Or a list of several different ones and where they are. It would only make more logical sense that we can track specifically what we are looking for. By limiting what you can track to your level of expertise would keep dabblers from grabbing a column just to track kimos, krayts, etc.
The creature level knowledge would work something in the form of starting with novice ranger you can track up to level 20, then it would filter through the skill tree until at master you are able to track level 45 and above, or something along those lines. My main point here is to keep the ability to track the hard stuff at master. NPC's and players would fit into this mix fairly well if you just consider all NPC's to be level 32 and all players to be level 40, this would still give the same effect that we have now where x/x/3/x lets us track NPC's and x/x/4/x lets us track players. You could then take this type of knowledge and apply it to traps. If you chuck a trap at a level 75 creature, but your creature level bonus is at 35 (because you're x/x/3/x) then its like having a -40 to hit bonus with your trap. But if you took the same trap and tossed it at a level 20 creature, you would have a +15 to hit bonus. This would, of course, be figured into your trapping level. Meaning that take the same example but you're x/x/x/3 and have trapping +40, then when you throw at the level 75 you get +0, meaning the trap will most likely not land. But throwing it at the level 20 the trap has a +55 so it will more than likely land.
Ok, first thought is that what I've done is just made it much harder to trap. Well, yeah, I intended to do that. The reason I intend to make it harder to trap is to tie this in with making traps better. Aside from a bigger, better, mother of all trap we should get at master (I think it should be a shovel and a tarp, let the krayt fall in the hole and we blow it away with cdef pistols for the 30 minutes it cannot climb out) the traps will have to go through a serious revamp. I think the scout traps work fine though, to be honest.
What I think is broken is that when you get into ranger, the ranger traps do little more than the scout ones. So if you take the ranger traps, make their effects last considerably longer. They should apply some sort of damage and not just an effect. And I think that we should get a DOT bleed, disease or flame. The DOT poison is great that we get if you can't handle those gubbers, but to apply poison to a hanadak that ticks for 6pts every 15 seconds for a duration of 30 seconds is about as useful as a cdef pistol with a 5% damage slice.
Trap construction experimentation could work in the form of experimenting on the min or max damage, the effectiveness of the DOT or quantity. The DOT is something I am a big fan of, I think its realistic for us to be able to build a trap that sets creatures on fire. The way I would like to it done is that you take a basic trap (wire mesh for example) and in the schematic is an extra, not required, slot for a component. In this slot you can add sarlac bile, rancor bile, or any number of things to provide a DOT effect. So that its not like we have a Fire DOT specific trap, we have a trap that we customize the end effect of. I'm not sure what you would add for a fire DOT, but my gut suggests it would be something that a weaponsmith would craft, like a napalm grenade of sorts.
What would happen is you will end up with rangers that specialize in making these DOT traps and sell crates. Like weaponsmiths, you will end up with a handful of master rangers known for their amazing traps. And all us rangers will want to shell out 10k for a crate of 25 of them. Maybe even 100k for a crate of flame DOT wire mesh that have a DOT that is 200 in strength, 75% pot and 240 second duration.
Same goes for traps designed to inflict damage. Traps from the 1800's used various spikes and poisons. Apply this thought and if you craft a specific trap it should nail the creature for a couple hundred damage to their action pool. But again, its important that these damage levels are lousy unless you experiment.
Just my thoughts on ranger after spending yesterday hunting on dantooine and yavin. I threw some traps, but for the most part I didn't bother. I was buffed for part of the day so throwing them didn't cost me 150 action but I didn't need them. When I wasn't buffed I couldn't really afford the 150 action damage. I just have a hard time understanding why a huurton can bite me for 150 action pool damage and throwing a wire mesh trap can inflict the same on me, essectially doubling the damage the huurton did to me.
wickedHangover wrote:
A lovely proposal...
Calculus_Entropy wrote:
(Ranger Calc here) Interesting idea, but how would it affect Scouts? You can't have 2 trapping systems, so you woul have to apply the system to the Scout profession. That would kind of hose them if you get to Trap CL 20 at novice Ranger. These are just my thoughts...
It would be only 1 system, but scouts would not be landing as many wire mesh traps on rancors as rangers would. They would do fine trapping pretty much anything on the starting planets, with the exception on krayts, peko albatross and the like.
I guess my main issue is that a scout wearing the "Trapper" tag should not have even the most remote chance of hitting an ancient bull rancor with a lycopene trap. (I leveled scout trapping and ranger trappingusing this methodology, it was cheap and should not work that way). If the to-hit bonus is adjusted into a figure using your level of creature knowledge as well as using numbers that are in the game, it makes a revamp of this nature much simpler for the dev team to consider. This was my main focus in writing this type of proposal. Like many others here on these boards, I'm a programmer by profession and tend to think about changes to this game from th standpoint of "How can I get the most bang out of the least amount of code".
But to answer your question I'll give some hard numbers to consider. (I'm using a char generator program written prior to jedi, so if my numbers are wrong it wasn't intentional). I'm also using Corellia for my starting planet example.
The trapping bonus works like this:
Trappingminus (Creature Levelminus Creature Knowledge)equals Trapping Bonus
Scout:
Novice
Creature Knowledge +5
Trapping +5
This means that a novice scout would have a +5 chance of trapping a level 5 creature or +0 chance on a level 10. Basically saying that they could run around and use their lecopine trap on whatever static spawns are outside starting cities, like a durni. They will probably trap half of them. If they try to trap a bloated gugger or crazed durni, they will fail most of the time. Just as a novice brawler armed with a survivaly knife will most likely fail to kill one.
Scout 0/1/0/0
Creature Knowledge +5
Trapping +20
Notice that the creature knowledge did not increase, this requires a different column. So what these numbers mean are that now they will get a +20 on trapping those low leveldurni around the starting cities. If they try to trap a level9 Vynock their bonus would be +16.or the equation 20 - ( 9 - 5) = 16.
skipping up some parts of the skill tree...
Scout 0/3/4/0
Creature Knowledge +25 (adjusted downfrom +40)
Trapping +20
This is where the current Creature Knowledge numbers would need a slight adjustment. At this level it should be alot lower to continue my equation, but since we are working with a value that currently only affects the amount we know about a creature, it would not be game breaking to lower these numbers.
Now with the scout at this level he would have a +41 trapping ability to trap a Swamp Humbaba (CL19): 20 - (19-25) = +26. This means that almosta quarter ofthe time they will trap it. There are also a variety of lower animals on the advanced planet that they can trap as well at this level. I see it that by this point in a players career that they are probably high enough in another profession to be hunting on Endor for example and should be able to trap CL21 Lantern Birds (with a +25 chance to trap).
skipping to rangers
Novice Ranger
Creature Knowledge +30 (adjusted down from +55)
Trapping +50
At this level the novice ranger is able to trap nearly any animal on any starting planet. Some will not always land in success, but for the most part they are worthy trappers. When fighting a voritor tracker on Dantooine (CL30) their equation works out to a trapping bonus of 50 - (30-30) = 50. I think a novice ranger should have basically a 50% chance of trapping a voritor dasher.
skipping up the tree again
Ranger 0/0/2/2
Creature Knowledge +40 (adjusted down from +70)
Trapping +70
Now the ranger is trapping 90% of anything on a starter planet (again, subtract krayts and such). They are trapping voritor dashers with a bonus of +80 so they are landing almost all their traps on them. If they hit Dathomir and try a Rancor (CL50) their bonus is 70-(50-40) = 60. This bonus will land traps on rancors fairly well. Not as good as we land them now at the same skill level, but as good as one should expect.
skipping to near master
Ranger x/x/4/4
Creature Knowledge +70 (down from +85)
Trapping +90
Now you are trapping rancors with a trapping bonus of +110, this pretty much states that you will trap any level 50 and lower creature. Traps themselves will ultimately have a failure rate as well, but the to-trap bonus will be high. As for trapping an Ancient Bull Rancor you're looking at a +62 which means you might trap one.
Master Ranger
Creature Knowledge +100 (adjusted up from +95)
Trapping +100
You are basically trapping anything under level 100 all the time. But are not always going to land traps on the real bad guys. Your Canyon Krayt will be 100 - (275-100) = -75 (negative 75). Chances are you will not be trapping krayts. You will be able to handle a juvenile canyon krayt (CL122) as 100 - (122-100) = +78. I think having a 78% shot at trapping a juvi is fair at master ranger. I also think that as good as master ranger is, trapping full blown 400k HAM dragons is not realistic.
Ok, so now for the traps. I've already made us not want to throw traps cause it looks like we're never going to land one. So The traps must be improved.
In order of when you get them, I'm not suggesting changes to where on the skill trees, but the last trap is definitely Master Ranger. It's also important to note that I am working with base stats, experiments will give better results on damages.
Lecepene Dart:
min: 5 max: 25 health
Stun: 5 seconds
Sharp Bone Spur
min: 10 max: 30 action
DOT Bleed Health: 15%, str: 6, duration: 30 seconds
Noise Maker
no damage
Stun 20 seconds
Stink Bomb
no damage
Dizzy 20 seconds
Phenacine Dart
min: 25 max: 40 health
Intimidate 20 seconds
DOT Bleed Action: 25%, str: 10, duration: 60 seconds
Glow Wire
Min: 30 max: 45 action
Dizzy 30 seconds
Adhesive Mesh
no damage
Intimidate 30 seconds
Stun 20 seconds
15 second delay for next attack (like the old warcry)
Slot for extra component (see below for chart)
Flash Bomb
min: 50 max: 110
Blind 30 seconds
Stun 30 seconds
Sonic Pulse
min: 75 max: 210
Dizzy 60 seconds
Stun 60 seconds
Slot for 2 extra components (see below for chart)
new trap - Master Ranger
min: 110 max 310
Blind 120 seconds
Dizzy 90 seconds
Stun 30 seconds
Slot for3 extra components (see below for chart)
Extra Components:
Each component is listed with the base/max experiment possible. These numbers could be tossed around and I am undecided if they are too weak, or too powerful. I used to collect DOT weapons and am largely basing them on those. Extra components would not be crafted by Rangers, probably weaponsmiths.
DOT Fire component: 50%/80%, str: 25/200, duration: 10/200 seconds
DOTAction Bleed: 40%/90%, str: 50/150, duration: 30/500 seconds
DOT Poison: 30%/100%, str: 20/210, duration: 30/500 seconds
DOT Disease: 20%/60%, str: 10/190, duration: 30/500 seconds
DOTHealth Bleed: 40%/90%, str: 10/300, duration: 30/500 seconds
DOT Action Bleed: 40%/90%, str: 10/300, duration: 30/500 seconds
DOTMind Bleed: 40%/90%, str: 10/300, duration: 30/500 seconds
2 things I missed with my above post on traps, one I did not realize there was another trapping discussion going on, I hsould have written all this there.
Second, I did not include any explanation as to which traps are area traps. The sonic pulse, flash bomb and master ranger traps would affect all creatures within a specific area.
Hey Calc - Any chance you could easily move my post to the right discussion board?
I wouldn't know. I don't use those products. If they say they don't have enough supplies, I see no reason to doubt them, though. I simply argue that they're not supposed to have "enough" supplies in any case.
This is currently the only real reason to be a Ranger, and it's weak. If nothing else gets changed, this needs to be boosted right away. This should be of primary importance.
We need to have the features from the SotP wishlist added. Camps need to have all of the features we can imagine, and right away. A +1.3 healing modifier on the HTFB, BF healing, /makeTender, /campPrivacy, /campPublish, no disband in combat, creature repelling, etc. The works. Camps are worthless right now, adding these features to them is not going to overpower them in any way.
This is my second most important issue. My primary concern with traps is success rates and effect potency. Traps need to succeed 99% of the time against CL20 creatures. They need to fix the bugs that result in traps having no affect and returning no message, and the last trap in the stack missing most of the time. All trap affects need to last much, much longer, and some affects need to be stronger, such as the glow wire.
This is also plagued with success rate problems. It should never, ever fail against creatures under CL15, and it should be reliable against even some of the toughest creatures. Right now it's barely any better than /maskscent.
The interface for this needs to be updated. It is very user unfriendly.
love the trapping idea too, cept for one thing: everything in the game is doable. Not everything is doable by yourself, but with a good group, you can do anything you want and succeed. Trapping a Krayt Dragon, including canyon krayts, is a skill I would hate to lose. Hardly any of it is realistic, a massive critter like that wouldn't feel a thing from 100 people beating it to a pulp, yet a krayt dragon can be solo'd by even melee chars (who you'd realistically expect to be stomped to death in half a second)
Forget about realism in a sci-fi setting and consider whether you want to have things in the game that are simply impossible for anyone to do, no matter how big the group or how strong your skills and equipment. I could live with a canyon krayt being only trappable if two MR's did it at the same time, but I'd be even happier if we could keep our ability to trap them on our own. It's not like we'd be overpowered 
and bilbho, ease up bud. The Outdoorsman is a proposal the Rangers have worked long and hard on for a long time to get into shape. It's not perfect because everyone has different ideas, but it's by no account the complete crap you make it out to be. With our new correspondent we're trying to get everyone on the same page again regarding our major issues, and the outdoorsman is something the dev's have stated 'try again later', so we have plenty of time to improve it.
Bihlbo wrote:
Outdoorsman - What's the status?
"Outdoorsman" is a poor name for a profession and isn't even equal to "Ranger". Even if everything else about this proposal were to get adopted, the name needs to go. The status? It's out of date and the SotP document is more complete. The modular camping system in this proposal is a nightmare that needs to be scrapped. We need to abandon this or write a new one without calling it "The Outdoorsman".