Bio Engineer Archive

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Tathace wrote:

i disagree that you say a fighting class can get novice scout and harvest more then a ranger. why? because a ranger can still be a master tka or pistoleer or something along those lines.

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I have no problem supporting this. As far as putting it into the smuggler revamp, well that may be a problem. Two things you need to keep in mind at this point. One, we're still trying to find out what points have really hit home with the devs on proposed smuggling changes/fixes. We still have a long way to go with the smuggler issues, but if they can throw it in along with, no problem. Two, TH and Caylin are wrapping up all the issues and proposals to take to the devs, so I'm not even sure if this can be put in with it at this point.

If there's a problem with others resisting putting a "minor" change in (that won't take more than aquick change of coding,since everyone and their brother has an issue they want fixed), then you'll have my support there as well.

The only thing I would like you to consider is this. Please do not push for a huge boost in resource harvesting. If the changes are to more adequately reflect skill level you've got 100% support from me. If this is going to further imbalance the game economy, well then there may be a problem. I already have a problem with the fact that anyone can place harvesters and survey for those places with little to no skill investment, but that' just me, and it's another argument for another thread.

Zane

PS- Why is it that I now sense a storm brewing everytime I see a blue name other than Caylin's posting in this forum?

I'm not against it.. but I take issue with the strong use of Skill Points as an argument base. I am Master Rifleman, have been since before it was "flavor of the day", and I later mastered Ranger and kept Master Rifleman. The point is, you CAN have a combat profession and have Master Ranger also... so I'm not sure I see the point here. Are you saying you want Master Ranger, a good combat profession, AND something else? Wouldn't we all like lots of Masters at the same time?

If they have chosen Ranger in order to harvest and make money, what is preventing Rangers from acquiring combat skills to do just that? I apologize if I missed your point, original poster.. I'm not flaming... I just want to understand the complaint fully...

Yes asMaster Tailor and former ranger (dropped halfway through after realizing how many points I was ploughing into an effectively broken profession) I would love to see the rangers given some love and to see and end to the horribly inflated hide prices (especially trying to get good wooly hide for wookie armour segments)

Kego Boya

Master Tailor

Organics have always been somewhat hard to aquire. Before I started working on armorsmith here I was a master ranger, that said the best resource quantity I ever recieved off one dead beast on endor was 200 hide. Quite frankly this is upsetting to say the least. The real problem is that rangers don't get rewarded for their time investment and they take a much larger risk than a surveyor does.

For example:

Lets say that a master TKA/Ranger requires aproximately 20 seconds to kill a rancor. For which he recieves an 1000 hide reward. While he's fighting the rancor a master artisan plops down 8 BER 13 harvesters on a 90% vein of steel. In the 20 seconds it takes the TKA/Ranger to kill the rancor the master artisan has 1872 steel in his harvesters. not only that but the master artisan won't need to return to the harvesters for a few days because he's paid maintenance and power and while he's off doing something else the extractors are still going. Mean while the ranger's throwing traps, healing himself and destroying a single rancor for an 1000 hide reward. This just doesn't equil out.

What needs to be done is simple:

If there is no intention of ever adding something like a slaughter house which would be used to harvest organics like hide meat and bone. A master ranger should be able to extract as much resources per second as novice artisan with 9 ber 13 harvesters. You can use the creatures difficulty level to determine the "ammount of the resource" to be harvested.

There are no creatures in the game other than perhaps the kryat which is higher than level 50. Therefore, all creature levels will need to be multiplied by 2. So if you are harvesting a level 10 durni it would equate to placing 9 ber 13 harvesters on a 20% vein of some mineral. The ammount of time it takes you to defeat the beast will be how long you "extract for". So heres the formula:

( ( 9 (harvesters) * 13 (BER Rate which is dependant on your skill level in ranger and scout) ) * time it took to kill the animal ) * ( (animal level * 0.01) *2) = amount of resources harvested.

so if it took 20 seconds to kill a level 50 rancor

( ( 9*13) *20) * ((50*0.01)*2)) = 2340 units of resources collected.

Just my 2 cents on the issue.

Amen! got my vote everything Calculus said makes sense. Pretty please Dev's

Hmm, let me try to clarify a few things:

• We are not trying to cut in front of anyone or do anything similar. The devs have stated that their timetable has room for things like correspondent fixes. The problem is, the Devs refuse to believe that this is really an issue. They have been telling us for many months to put forth a reasoned argument for it and they'll see what they can do (as I'm sure you have seen). Even after giving them all the information they could want, they still tell us this. Add to this that they actually promised several changes for us back in August and you can see that Smugglers are in a similar position to us (GreenMarine was working on them before he got put onto vehicles and cities--he was meant to get to Smugglers right after he finished with us but he never finished ).


• We are posting this same thread on every board that uses organics in any part of their profession. Smugglers do need organics for spices and so we posted here as well. We are not asking in any way for you to change any of your current plans. We are just asking for a show of support for the idea of increasing our skill mods.


• I have Mastered Smuggler so I do know of your problems. Even so, it was one of my favorite professions (I would be a Master Smuggler/Master Ranger if the skill points existed). We don't want to hurt you in any way.


• Most Master Rangers are also Masters of a Combat Profession. The problem is not from single combat masters. It is from the people going for optimum combat templates. Someone could go TKA/Comando without too much trouble, easily out killing someone like a Master Rifleman. And those people can get Novice Scout and currently outharvest a Master Ranger. We just want there to be some benefit from spending our skills in Scout and Ranger instead of a combat profession.

I hope this clears things up a bit more. Don't hesitate to ask questions. Just realize we are not trying to take anything from you. We are just trying to show the Devs that the resource problem is larger than they think. There are 10 professions that use organics (if you don't count scout/ranger traps, camo, and camps) and only 2 that can harvest them. And Rangers are less common than Jedi on my server.

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

Calc here's the thing:

1) the tailoring community, I believe, sees no such resource shortages. For the most part we use leathery (rancor) hide for 90% of our items, and thank god for that because we are able to buy it cheaply (3cr/u - 6cr/u) from scouts. If we had to deal with rangers for hide we'd be paying 50cr/u like everybody else and tailor margins don't permit that, but rangers are natoriously insensitive to such issues.

2) Tailors have probably gotten no more attention than rangers since launch. I have one character who is each so I'm sensitive to these issues.

I hope rangers do get some help, for their sake and for my ranger character's sake, but I have no illusions whatsoever that the crafting community would see any benefit from such a change. Rangers are a small group of specialized hunters who demand premium (read outrageous) prices forwhat they harvest, andare going to set their prices on "what doctors will pay for avian"no matter what, which hoses all other crafters. Tailors will be buying hide from scouts, not rangers, as always.

Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 04-07-2004 10:43 AM

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:

Dear Smugglers:

The current availability of organic resources is very limited. This has led to crafters needing to offer insane amounts of money for resources they need to produce the best goods. As it stands now, a combat oriented character with Novice Scout is able to harvest more than a Master Ranger. This isbecause they can kill creatures much faster and the harvesting bonus gained at Master Ranger only allows a player to harvest about twice as much as a Novice Scout. This means that the person who would like to sell you resources on a more regular basis (and is therefore likely to have invested more skill points into a Scout related profession) is unable to provide you with the resources you need.

The Ranger and Scout communitiesare asking for your help. We realize that developer time is extremely limited and are therefore only asking for minor changes at the present time. To this end, we would like to know if your community is willing to support us in a push to increase the effectiveness of the harvesting and trapping skill mods to help us supply you with the resources you need. This is not a solution to the problem but it should help until a proper pass of the Ranger and Scout professions can be performed. Nemo0 will attempt to follow this thread and answer any questions you might have. Please support us in this push.

The following points attempt to summarize the situation as it stands:

• Crafters need high quality resources to continue their businesses. Because of a lack of resources, crafters are forced to pay enormous amounts of money for these resources.
  
• The lack of resources is largely due to the professional harvesters (mainly high level scouts and rangers) getting very little benefit from their skills.
  
• Currently, a Master Ranger gets about twice the resources of a Novice Scout (with a 125 skill point cost difference).
  
• Currently, a Master Ranger gets about 30% more resources than a Master Scout (with a 63 skill point cost difference).
  
• Spending skill points in Scout and Ranger means that the Scout or Ranger can not spend those points on combat skills.
  
• Someone that spends most of their skill points on combat skills and relatively few on a Scouting related profession can harvest much more than a dedicated Scout or Ranger because they can kill larger creatures much more easily.
  
• Trapping skills are designed to assist the Ranger or Scout in killing their prey. Some of the traps do provide useful effects but they hit very rarely on any target for which most Scouts or Rangers would need them for.
  
• If the effectiveness of the Trapping and Creature Harvesting skill mods was increased then Scouts and Rangers would be better able to supply crafters with the resources they need.
  
• Such a change should be easy and quick to implement as it only requires changing the way the skill mod is checked. As the Creature Harvesting skill mod only appears to apply when attempting to harvest a creature, this should be easy to change. As the Trapping skill mod only appears to apply when throwing a trap at a creature in combat, this should also be easy to change.
  
• Given the extra supply provided by such an increase, it is likely that crafters would no longer need to offer such high bounties on organic resources in order to get what they want.
  
• Such a solution is only a partial fix. Scouts and Rangers will still have many problems but these changes should help increase the general supply of resources and help to mitigate the inflation present in most servers' economies.

Sincerely,

Calculus_Entropy and DeltaXi65

The Ranger and Scout Correspondents

Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 04-07-2004 11:16 AM

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