Ranger Archive

"I pop off a few rounds with old bertha and im sure that would cover the "assigned ham loss"."

I will have to check this...

If special move cost is actually included in the damage, then I'm sure I would have seen my Fire Team lose /maskscent far more often than I observed.

I know that the mind cost of healing does not affect /conceal (my Medic has certainly tested that during the longer battles)...

As a test, I will have him equip a weapon and perform some ranged special moves and see if /conceal does indeed break.

I have the results for you tomorrow.

"Attack one of them and all other would suddenly as well attack me - no more chance to solo such mobs."

That will obviously still occur on social creatures (definitely occurs with gang members ).

I will formally test this issue tonight, and see what does happen when I attack one creature with an non-assistive creature nearby.

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Currently my testing has been restricted to simply calculating failure rates (attacking my targets is not condusive to that).

It's time to branch out and test other things I gather.

Hmmm...

I was thinking abouthow to test non-assistance...

Anyone have any suggestions asto which creatures on Tatooine or Nabooare aggressive but are not assistive?

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NRaas wrote:

"How much damage needs to be taken in order to drop concealment?"

Good question...My suggestion is that a Ranger simply try not takingany damage, orrisk being revealed.

I will test for the actual value on Test Center, for those that are curious.

"if concealment breaks when you attack or are attacked, you *will* be needing more using the kits a *lot* more frequently"

If a Ranger is expecting combat, then why are they concealing in the first place?

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huh?

camo and mask scent giving us those extra shots, being able to crawl into your guns sweet spot range, the camo ability mabe working finaly against assistive mobs? When i apply camo, i must disagree, i will apply it expecting combat, or antisipation of combat. ....it is an ability twords combat styles, and tactics, and just writing it off saying why are you using it in combat is not the direction i would go.

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NRaas wrote:

/maskscent works just as well against the critters, and doesn't incur the added expense of a camo kit.

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Again i'll ask the question. What sort of scale are we looking for in added benifits?Purely a skill that is used for NPC/mabePC's down the line? Or just purely a buffthat only incurs cost for aplying it to others? Or are we looking for something a little more solid than mask scent withmarginal improvement compaired tocost?

Im kinda finding the scale of usefullness beingchiped away a shaving ata time. I guess ill have to agree to disagree with your "tone" twords the skill. The first quotes really frame that you areagainst any sort of combat usefulness to this skill. I think with regards to some tactics (using other things in the ranger line and scout..eg traps/lure traps to come/ hunting blinds to come) there is a viable point that one can apply this to combat,and being in line with the ranger skill tree. All these skills are going to meld together eventualy, overlaying, and interweiving in their usefulness.

Im not trying to push the ranger into the liberal offencive catagory, but i do feel that the passiveness of allot of the skills lend twords offencive tactics at times.

"Run out to Mos Taike"

Yes... The Combat Medic Correspondent clued me in on that hotspot.

That is where I picked up the necessary Wooly Hides for my camo kits...

Though beating up Yellow Con Banthas while evading Dragonets, Dune Lizards, Dune Stalkers, and the like made for an exciting evening.

I however never saw a Feral Bantha near the outpost... Perhaps I did not go far enough North.

"giving us those extra shots, being able to crawl into your guns sweet spot range, the camo ability mabe working finaly against assistive mobs?"

Then that answers my question... Thanks

In those situations, if you can kill the critter before it makes it your position and damages you, your concealment will remain intact.

However, once you take damage, your concealment is blown... It makes reasonable sense to me.

"What sort of scale are we looking for in added benifits?"

Good question. Obviously the ability to conceal against humanoids and apply the effect to companions is not enough of an advantage...

What were you expecting from the skill?

Well, they aren't as common as, say, regular banthas types are. Try heading more to the NW or straight N and less to the NE. Its easterly of Taike where you are going to run into the majority of the "Nasssty lizards". I want to say I was never more than 2 to 2.5km north of Taike, and ran into them no less than 1.5km out.

The exact zone you are looking for is probably:

- less than 3km North of Taike

- more than 1km north of Taike

- Less than 1km East of Taike

- Less than 2km west of Taike

You should net some results within the zone with those borders. Alternatively, You can sometimes find Ferals on the run from Bestine to the Sarlacc pit, or NW of Entha(but is less quantities in both locations than Taike).

But yah, I've had nights where I havn't seen a single Feral, but then I've had nights where its nothing but non-stop ferals. It pretty much seems luck of the draw, but You should probably be able to find some in the zone I gave ya.

"Its easterly of Taike where you are going to run into the majority of the "Nasssty lizards""

Easterly is a pretty relative term on Test Center.

200m from the outskirts of Mos Taike I found:

• 2 Desert Squill spawns


• 1 Kreetle Spawn


• 3 Bantha Spawns


• 1 Dune Stalker Spawn


• 1 Tusken Commoner Spawn


• 1 Tusken Captain Spawn


• 1 Untitled Humanoid Spawn


• 1 Giant Worrt Spawn


• 5 Dragonet Spawn


• 4 Dune Lizard Spawn

Each spawn had at least 5 creatures in them...

And all these spawns were in the game space at the same time!

The Spawn Rate on Test Center is absolutely insane... So you can see I had my hands full.

Forgot to mention:

• 1Cannibal Dewback spawn


• 2Swarming Lesser Dewback spawn

Test Center is a madhouse... A madhouse!

Now if I could get that sort of spawn rate on the Live servers, I would be ecstatic.

"Must be that lovely low population rate out there"

Well the spawn rate is pretty consistent the whole trip from Mos Entha... I had plenty of reason to remain concealed for the duration.

I suspect thereason the rate is so high, is because there are so few players on Test Center.

With fewer players, the system can put more stuff into the system per player without overloading the server.

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In general the entire Test Center seems to have a higher rate of spawn than the Live server...

Even farther out from town, where most Rangers agree the spawn is few and far between on Live...

The Test Center has an incredible spawn rate everywhere.

I wonder if that has to do with how the system balances. I'm begining to think that the way they have the system set up is each planet, or maybe portion of the planet, can only have up to "blah" numbers of spawns. The system also, to keep things more interesting, over time shifts the spawns towards the higher concentrations of players. The result:

On live, with so many people taking missions, and people so clustered heavily around the cities, the balancing and spawn limits cause spawns to become slim out in the wilderness. Alternatively, on test center, with its lower population, that means spawns not only don't shift as much, but it also means there are less missions "drawing off" from the spawn pool.

So you're not really seeing "more" spawns, your seeing a perfectly balanced distribution of spawns planet wide...so it seems like more, but in fact, overall, the total number of spawns is general is probably about the same as a live server.

Doesn't mean it doesn't make things any less harrowing for you though lol

I don't want conceal to break every time I take damage.

I don't really understand this change. We asked to have conceal be more cost-effective. They have made it more effective, that is great. They have made it slightly less costly in one way (the flora resources are the least expensive part of the kit--flora goes for about 2-4 cpu, harvested items can go for 5-20 cpu easily) and then made it quite a bit more costly in another respect (you have to reapply it every time you take damage!). So in my opinion, they have actually increased the costs overall.

So does the increased effectiveness balance out the increased cost? Not really. They also made maskscent more effective as well. That's fine. I think maskscent should be a good skill. But when I am deciding whether or not to keep the Wayfaring line, I compare it against simply using maskscent and sparing myself the 19 skill points and the resource costs. The kits are costly, especially if you burn through charges all the time.

I don't know if this is something that is possible to debate very well. Either you think the group/humanoid advantages balance out the high cost of the kits, or you don't. I don't think its worth it, especially if I have to reapply conceal frequently. I don't really know if they can make it effective enough for me to consider it worthwhile, but I definitely think making it break with damage is a step in the wrong direction.