Ranger Archive

Let me start off by apologizing for yet another Krayt thread.

It all started when a guildmate told me that we will be going Krayt hunting and asked if I already had Tracking 4. I didn't but it was only 20k xp away and altho it seemed that my tracking radius was already very close to the max 500 meters, I thought better be safe than sorry and skinned a few Huurtons and somesuch to get to the top of the branch.

Then Iwent to swgcreatures.com to pick up all the sightings of Krayts and proceeded to waypoint them ingame. I estimated the geometric centerpoint of the sightings (which were all consentrated around the graveyard) and made a nice honeycomb matrix of tracking waypoints in the area with 800 meters between them. I started circulating the wp's and after a couple of hours I was a couple of hundred meters from my next trackpoint I almost run over a Canyon and a Juvie Krayt. The first indication of them was announcement that maskscent had failed and immediately I get the aggro sound. I had time to take a look at the magnificient beasts but the bigger one was already charging me and I stepped on the gas and ditched him (oh boy, was he _fast_). When the aggro stopped I parked and considered my next move. The krayts were shoving on my radar as arrows outside and I thought I go take another look.

I started turning and the red arrows were gone. Off the swoop I jump and do immediate areatrack. Nothing, well not a krayt at least. I jump on the swoop and float back where I saw them and I am moving quite slow now. I had applied camo to see if that would help. I drive back and exactly where I found them last time, both krayts spawn right in front of me out of thin air andcamo drops immediately, but neither charge. My distance from them was 120 meters. I take my time ogling them (no-one else in sight, it was 20 minutes before server shutdown) and start inching away. When I get 175 meters distance both of them disappear again. Needless to say I ama bit bewildered and hop off the swoop and areatrack but come up empty.

I maskscent and turn back and again scent breaks and they appear in the exact spot where they already had appeared twice. Neiter aggro and distance is 130 meters.

I inch away again in other direction and same happens at around 180 meters away - the Krayts disappear. Only this time when I get back they don't respawn anymore.

All this happened on the sand there were a few buildings a few hundred meters away and a few other critters here and there (the first time I stopped after the chase the krayt gave me I found myself in the middle of a cannibal dewbacks so I camoed quick). Line of sight was long, mountains and other obstructions were far and I practically maintained ability to see the spawn spot the whole time.

After this I came here and started reading threads handling tracking and krayts, but the conclusions were obscure at least to me. I read about couple of hundred posts in forty or fifty threads before making this one.

So has anyone else had similar experiences? I am beginning to understand why so many sightings say that they have practically tripped over a krayt. I had excellent connection with practically no lag so critters were showing on the radar wery well. The thing was that the krayts did not appear in areatrack creaturelist unless I practically saw them and was closer than 180 meters. My graphical settings are pretty high, detailed terrain half way up the slider and the other one about 60% of the slider. Rest of the options is max everything. I bet that if someone had started fighting them or if the canyon one had attacked the juvie I would have been able to track them from further away... but this is speculation.

So, thanks to anyone having read this far - any comments or thoughts appreciated. Have I missed something or is this the way krayt spawns work always.

BR/~~L

I'm increasingly convinced that certain rare creatures have an additional flag that screws with their spawn logic. My guess is that there most creatures are sprinkled around fairly randomly by an algorithm that increases their frequency depending on invisible planetary zones. The rare beasts, however, also are constrained by additional logic that keeps them from spawning too frequently, or too reliably.

I had a similar experience tracking GDKs last night. Tracking was of no use. Enraged Kimos, Dune Kimos, and Giant Kimos all spawned around their "Pile of Bones" lairs and could be tracked from a good distance, but I never found a GDK. However, once I just started wandering around I drove right through a lone GDK spawn, went 100m away and it vanished. Inched back and it reappeared.

This happened two more times, with the massive beasts appearing out of thin air.

Cheers,

Gho

Frederick Skinner
Antarian Ranger, Ranger(0030), Master Rifleman, CH(4214)
Ranger is not a profession. It's a lifestyle.

"There is an effect here in play that you are ether forgetting or not aware of.

If you make contact with anything on radar, this mob will no longer have it's information sent to you after you hit +128 m. It takes about 30 seconds before this happens, however. On a speeder you can get close to 500m in that time, hense your confusion. Visual is always broken allong with radar, all data is cut."

Excellent infoFred_Skinner, thank you. I was unaware of this and it explains quite a many things. Similarily I was unaware of the 'segmented' nature of big beasts. I am one of those people who love to understand how things work exactly

"Your /areatrack not working could possibly be a terran issue, or unlucky timing (you had them despawn in the end, therefore /areatrack data is suspect)."

It could very well be. The terrain was as flat as it can be on Tatooine (not counting the table plains).I have noticed that areatrack gives sometimes different results depending on lag and the time spent in a spot doing areatrack. What I forgot to mention about the areatracks I made after the krayts had disappeared, I did it first 3 times after the first disappearance (right after the chase, standing in the middle of the pack ofcannibal dewbacks)then 4 times after the second (cannibal dewbacks did not come up on the list and the spawnI had been standing a while ago was around 300 meters away)and two times after the real despawning. I usually wait 10-20 seconds before I do area track in a new spot but between retries I only wait a few seconds.

Weird speculations:

Could it be that certain creatures are untrackable unless they are within the 128 meters or the 'radar range'?

Or could it be that there is some sort of bonus at Master Ranger title so that one has to be a Master to be able to properly track certain monsters. I am currently 2-1-4-1 (was planning to make it 3-1-3-1 with the collected scouting xp, but the hunt changed my plans)?

It will take some time before I am able to try the secondspeculation out since I do not powergame. The first seemed true unless something was bugged or I was unlucky (there result is variable?) when I was tracking. And who knows what happens ingame when server is shutting down. After the final disappearance I drove a few hundred meters and logged when the counter was showing 5 min till shutdown.

BR/~~L