Ranger Archive

A conscensus has been made that Rangers would like to know in advance if an animal is going to give x number of resources depending on it's status of fat, medium, or skinny by using the examine function.

One problem the dev team might have in coding this will be because of the resource shift. When insect meat is in a resource shift, all bugs giving that type of insect meat will be skinny and unhealthy when harvesting for the meat. But harvesting scaley hide off of that same bug that only gave 1 meat could very well show the creature was fat and healthy and give maximum hidebecause scaley hide is not in a resource shift.

So an overall check of any creature could result in conflicting statuses.

Personally, I think tracking and knowing which particular resources are in decline, on the rise, or at maximum numbers is part of the challange of playing my character as a creature harvester. The problem lies in when there are more than one type of leathery hide or herbivore meat currently on a planet. Sometimes you can kill two of the same type creatures and yield two different results.

Right now, /examine is only showing hard coded information that never needs updating or change for each animal. We're asking for information that needs to auto update with every resource shift.

So as long as we're asking for that, I'd like to suggest that rather than asking to reveal if an animal is fat, medium or skinny, to just show which brand of meat, hide or bone the animal has. It's not unrealistic to say that we as Rangers should be able to know which resource is currently on any given animal by checking our pretend animal handbook,and by judging the time of year, planet and weather patterns (just go with me.. hehe) if a particular Nabooian animal should be carrying Tipa leathery hide or carrying Shodo leathery hide or any other leathery hide depending on what is in season.

Then when we kill the first skinny animal and knowing that it was Shodo leathery hide, we'll know that if it's leathery hide we're after, to avoid any animal carrying that brand of hide until the resource shift is over. This way we're keeping the realism of being a Ranger, not creating conflicting reports (how can an animal be fat and healthy for hides, but skinny and unhealthy for bone) and still leaving some challenge to harvesting without taking the fun of resource tracking completely out.

In a nutshell, rather than displaying fat or skinny, display resource class/ resource type instead and let us keep track of what's in and what's not. Understanding and following resource shifts is a huge part of what makes this game fun for people like me who love to harvest for a living.

Thanks for reading!

Japhy

"Right now, /examine is only showing hard coded information that never needs updating or change for each animal. We're asking for information that needs to auto update with every resource shift."

- The simplest solution to the "fat/skinny" problem is when you /examine a creature, ituses the harvesting routines todisplay the resources available.

- Using the harvesting routines wouldtake into account the "skinny" issue revolving around resources shifts, as well as give us access to the regular quality of each of the resources (fat, medium, skinny).

- Whether this is feasible (it would incur several more queries than the current /examine) is up to the developers.

"(how can an animal be fat and healthy for hides, but skinny and unhealthy for bone)"

- You can have great skin, and have brittle bones if you are not getting enough calcium in your diet.

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- A Ranger should be able to observe an animal to determine the quality of its resources.

• The animal is limping or has a broken leg (bad bones)


• The animals coat is shiny and full (good hides)


• The animal is thin and lethargic (bad meat)

- So it sounds logicalwe should have the ability to display the "fat/skinny" on each of the resources.

- Now the question should be, at what skill does this new information appear at?

- Whether this is feasible (it would incur several more queries than the current /examine) is up to the developers.

Wouldn't it be easier to just display current type of resource? That wouldn't require any sort of if statements and would simply fill in the blank for current name of resource.

When I arrive at a new planet I kill each type of creature until I find a resource worth hunting. So if I find a brand of Wooley with a high OQ, then that's what I'm after.Except on some planets there can be two different wooley hides available. I'd much rather know which one it is rather than how much it's going to provide. Once the resource goes skinny, it stays skinny and I know not to hunt that resource anymore and the same with medium and fat.

Just seems to me that knowing which hide is on an animal is more important than how many I'll recieve.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just display current type of resource? That wouldn't require any sort of if statements and would simply fill in the blank for current name of resource."

- Most likely, retrieving what the current resource on the planet is would require another query anyways.

- Either way, I agree that would be the easiest solution.

- However, why should we make the developers work easy for him?

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- It doesn't really make sense (to me at least), that I can look at particular creature and determinethe name ofresource it is carrying.

- I would expect that it would take a closer examination of the resource than the creature would allow in a live state.

- But this is a game, and not everything has to make sense.

- It doesn't really make sense (to me at least), that I can look at particular creature and determinethe name ofresource it is carrying.

From the SWG Prima Guide for what was Field Bioscience

The master hunter is unmatched in creature resource harvesting in knowledge. He has studied the behavioral patters and biological nature of hundreds of creatures and his bank accounts reflects his success.

We could reason that someone so well trained in animal biology would know which meat is in season. Perhaps a study of the local flora, the environment,(not saying we need to do this) and other creatures, the Ranger could assess the biological make up of any creature well enough to determine the brand of hide, meat or bone any particular animal will have.

What's unrealistic is that there are different brands of hide, meat and bone which rotate. hehe

I agree completely. Sitting at my computer hunting I track information, so it's not that the lack of info somehow provides an in-game realistic challenge, because your character would be doing the same thing if they were in this galaxy.

/examine of some sort is key to hunting and would be great to have back in.

-- YP

I think Rangers should "know" what animals provide what resources. You should "know", as a Master Huntsman, that although both Eopies and Rontos both provide Tattooine Herbivore meat, one is Ircko and the other is Abin. That is knowledge gained through hunting and I don't thing it should be served to us on a silver platter. Your knowledge is not simply what the game provides you with, but your own learnings as a player.

I think the best thing would be a general condition visible through "examine" and then we have to sample the resource to do a full analysis. That seems best and most fair to me.

I do a full 4 planet "survey" of the most wanted resources for my Guild each week. I post that on our Guild message board and then we know what to spend our time harvesting and stockpiling, even we don't have contracts for that resource at the moment.

Woo wee, this is a mighty old thread indeed.

"You should "know", as a Master Huntsman, that although both Eopies and Rontos both provide Tattooine Herbivore meat, one is Ircko and the other is Abin."

What you are observing here is not the norm...

• Normally, all Herbivore Meat on a single planet at any one time has the same Resource Name.

It has been noted in other threads that the system will occassionally "slip up" and produce multiple resources at the same time...

Check out this thread regarding the subject: Two types of avian from the same planet?

Is there perhaps a thread that really describes how the creature resource system works? How does it shift? How often does it shift? What are indicators of either increasing/decreasing quality/quantity?

"Is there perhaps a thread that really describes how the creature resource system works?"

Most of us presume it works the same way as the Mineral Resource System...

• You might have some luck by searching the Artisan forum for information on that system.

But here are some answers to the questions you asked:

"How does it shift?"

The shift is immediate, and occurs after server maintenance...

• After the server comes back up, the old resource should no longer be dropped as a new resource will have taken its place.

"How often does it shift?"

Each resource's duration is variable... Usually lasting 1 to 3 weeks.

"What are indicators of either increasing/decreasing quality/quantity?"

As far as I know there are none,the new resource is pretty much random...

• Though I am sure there are theories as to some form of quality cycle floating around the forum.