Ranger Archive

I was surprised the other day to hear someone shouting that they wanted to buy traps or camp kits in factory crates. Is there actually a market for this or was that an anomoly?

Would you buy traps/camp kits/camo kits in bulk quantity if the price was right? (And further.. what would you pay?)

Goober.

I can see where there could be a market for this. I currently can't make camo kits but if I could (and they worked). It would be nice to be able to buy crates of conceal kits for the harder planets, rather than going there and gathering the resources needed to make the kits myself. As for a fair price, I will have to wait until I can actually make them myself to answer that.

ILiado Master Scout/Novice Ranger, Tyrena

I've thought of this too. I love making crates of traps for myself when I go out on expeditions, so I thought others would certainly like them too. However, I've found a few problems with selling factory crates, as I made some 32.5%/16% powerups in crates a while back. The main problem, I think, is that people don't often check the bazaar listings for factory crates. This is a buyer-education issue. Maybe it's gotten better, I don't know. I found that I had to remove one sample from the crate (essentially rendering it useless for sale and forever a "display item crate"), put that up for sale for an astronomical price, then direct buyers to the factory crate section to buy crates. They sold well that way, but it was a hassle. Plus I had to bust a crate of each type I was looking for.

Again, these are probably bazaar issues. Powerup crates (capacity 10) could be sold for under the $3k bazaar limit. Crates of traps/tents (capacity 25) probably couldn't - you'd need to get more than $3k for it for most traps. That means a vendor, which means a house, which means no more nomadic wandering, means yada-yada-yada. Maybe get a merchant friend and work out a consignment deal, but get ready to mind inventory and money. Your best bet on this front is a ranger-specific store, which I've heard rumors of now that rangers need such specific resources. I've yet to see one up and running.

Generally speaking, there're still some issues with scout equipment in crates - traps especially. They really don't save inventory space, just time. Remember, with a crate, you've got to have inventory space for the crate, plus the item you're pulling from the crate. Therefore, you need two spots for each trap. I use 4 traps regularly - P dart, ad mesh, glow-juice, and bone spur. That means 8 inventory spaces are used. Of course, you dont need to carry the ingredients, right? But I could carry the ingredients I need for those 4 traps in only 2 additional inventory spaces (hunk of polymer and hunk of metal). You're going to be toting around the bone and hide you're harvesting anyway, so I won't count those. And, you still have to open your inventory and click the crate to get one out, then set it to a hotkey. This can save your neck during battle, since you cant craftthen (especially with 2-charge ad meshes). However, there is still some time lost to these. Be aware of that. I still like to use them, because I'd rather not manually craft each one, but just be aware.

Well, for items in crates the stats are now displayed, so you should not have to break one out of the crate.

Since traps and camps no longer gain a bonus from experimentation, you can make a single item separately and place it in the bazaar to direct people to the crate section. Make either a basic camp or a leperacine dart and change the name to something such as "Crates of Pheracine Darts available in the Factory Crate section" (maybe a bit less verbose). You can use the basic ones because you just want it to show in the individual category.

Personally I am going to start making crates for everything. Camps I can pull out when I need them, and I only use a few types of traps so the extra space used in my backpack is not a big issue. Pulling a new one out certainly beats crafting one on the spot and is possible (granted not easy) in combat if you really need one.

For convenience, I do this! I have four crates: p.dart, glow-wire, adhesive, flash. I'm using them on a trip to Tatooine and I hope to experiment with sonic to see how effective it is as a trap (I've only tested 2, which I think is a poor sample and want to do another 8 or 9 before I give an assessment to how good it works).

Oh, what I would give for an automatic "take out of crate and thow the trap" function!