Droid Engineer Archive

Hello - I'm a longtime Ranger with a proposal for a fellow neglected profession.

The posted Ranger revamp states that "area tracking" will be discarded. If you've never played a Ranger, it's a handy command that generates a list of animals, NPCs, and players in a large area around you. As you progress from Novice Ranger up the Tracking tree, you get more information over a greater distance:

1. Novice Ranger = animals, 256m range
   
2. Tracking I = direction, 320m range
   
3. Tracking II = NPCs, 384m range
   
4. Tracking III = distance, 448m range
   
5. Tracking IV = players, 512m range

So first you can detect what animals are in range, then their direction from you, then add in NPCs, then the exact distances, and finally other players. I'm actually guessing at the ranges, but it increases to a 512m maximum as you progress.

It's easy to see how this would turn into a droid module. A droid with one or more "scanning modules" could give that same list to its owner. The module could have two lines of experimentation, distance for scanning range and resolution for how much information. Like harvest and trap modules, these ratings stack with multiple modules, so that five perfect modules add up to a 100 rating. The cumulative rating would correspond to the former five levels of Ranger tracking:

1. 0-19 = animals, 256m range
   
2. 20-39 = direction, 320m range
   
3. 40-59 = NPCs, 384m range
   
4. 60-59 = distance, 448m range
   
5. 80+ = players, 512m range

Frankly this should have been possible with droids all along. Ranger didn't offer many unique skills, so no one was in a hurry to share it around, but in a high tech setting like Star Wars it should be possible to scan the area without looking at scents and footprints.

Thanks for your consideration!

Realistically this would probably be easier to impliment than just "giving" the skill to the CH folk. At least this way it'd just be a module to a droid that can be used by a Ranger/CH/Bio-Eng, and I guess scout, now. I think they wanted to remove it because it wasn't working as well as it should. What with the spawn rates all randomized and things popping in and out of your line of sight or radar, it's a lot harder to track down animals post-cu than it used to be. Players work pretty well as do Npcs, but obviously the range is broken because of server boundaries or something similar.

We can actually reach 1km away at Master, but it almost never happens because of the spawn rates. I'm for the idea, seeing as other professions are in need of this skill and if it's just being thrown away when CHs and BioEngs definitely need it, might as well give it a new way to be used.

You'll get no complaints from me.
If it were to be a stacked module for droids, I'd like to see the Probot get an innate bonus.

Would also be a chance to see that thing pop out of an R2s dome, because it's in there (maybe not the mini radar dish, but the eye).

Hmmm this is a great idea . I'd certainly by a droid with it for my BE/CH/Scout/Ranger ( only the tracking line in Ranger )

Love it! Maybe we can even make it interestign to craft by having several different types of modules... one for animals, one for sentient species. Or maybe a module for each planet, since each planet (except for Rori) has a fairly unique ecology.

/sign

i would like to see it added as well. this would be added boon for DE's to help make droids needed.