Ranger Archive

The patch has been out for several days and so I want to give my thoughts on the camo kits themselves. This is not intended to be a discussion of conceal even though the 2 are directly intertwined. I also want to point out that I am the dreaded D-word...a dabbler. However, I believe that gives me a different perspective over that players that are going to be Master Ranger over hell or high water. In essence, I am a 4040 Ranger and since I am not tied to the Master title, it allows me to ask a question that the typical reader in this forum doesnt ask, "Is this tree worth it?"

Clearly /conceal is not working 100% and has some issues to be resolved, but I am sure those will come with some time. Even maskscent is not tweaked to perfection yet.

So, the issue I want to raise is simply putting the kits together. Right now, the hassle of these kits has me wanting to scrap this tree. And its not the fauna resource, the fauna resource I actually find to be the most trivial of the 4. At first fauna is a pain, unless you have survey. However, once you hire a surveyor to find you a waypoint and drop a simple fauna farm on the spot, you will gain 1500+ of the resource per day. A few days at each spot on the different planets and you have a several month supply to make kits.

So what is my issue? My issue is I move around and as a Ranger in my guild, it is now my job to camoflage my party. That means I now have to stock some 40 different resources! 40!!!! I find this rediculous and just far too much. My inventory is a mess. My house is now a mess. The whole thing IMO is a big giant mess. It is such a mess, it has me wanting to drop this tree and put the points into medic or something. It's just too much of a hassle to manage all these resources for what is a NON CRAFTING CLASS.

That being said, what would make me happy? Simple. I believe each kit should use meat, skin, bone and fauna as they do now. However, I believe the planet specific nature should be removed from the meat, skin and bone parts. It is far far too much work to gather these resources in sufficient quantities to make enough kits to use on a whole group, especially for the hard planets. Further, this would allow the Ranger to choose meat, hide and bone of high quality, add a planet specific fauna component and churn out some kits. It requires stocking of only 13 different components and can be put together much much faster than the current kits.

Further, I want to point out the current system was not balanced by the Devs. Lok domesticated meatdoes not exist and Endor insect meat is going to require and entire hunting part to acquire. The system was clearly thrown together random and no thought was given as to how difficult it would be to put these ktistogether.

I strongly feel the Devs need to rethink the components for the kits and we should let them have our input. These kits are crazy complicated to keep resources for and will be a huge burden when insurance comes back - and it will.My proposedsystem requires 1 planet specific resources, fauna (which is leaves, berries, wood, etc and such this makes the most sense to be planet specific), it allows the Ranger to pick high quality organic resources to build with and most of all it greatly simplifies the vast number of resources that would need to be gathered andstockpiled (which leaves a bit more time for actual adventuring).

Constructive thoughts are most welcome.

I agree and disagree, but I think I can see why. As you stated you are a dabbler. In particular, if you are mostly only going after the wayfairing tree, you are going to have a hard time with this. I'm primarily Scout/Ranger, and thats what I spend most of my time doing.

My experience is finding the meat, bones and hides was easy, even soloing, with all my other ranger skills. Not to mention, all my other experience working through scout, of using examine, milkig lairs, and just knowing what kinds of terrian spawn certain creatures. For the hard part was the flora. I am lucky enough to still have points for novice artisan, so I made a flora survey device, and eventually found some deposits, and smapled it. Took me a long time. I had about 200-300 of all the other resources needed for Tatooine.

Now I will probably have to do as you and buy a surveyer, plop it down and let it go. Come back in a couple days and load up. Sigh. I agree with the planet specific resources for all. I think they need to make a change with the flora though. But thats another solo ranger not wanting to rely on something other then myself for myhunting needs. My thoughts on the kit, are that we are making a package that not only covers our bodies, but changes our smell etc, to match the environment. Well I'm wearing skins, and oils from meat from animals that don't exist on a planet, how is that supposed to full anyone. Especially animals with hightened sences. The idea is the camo kit makes you blended into the terrain "of that planet" to hide you against the inhabitants "of that planet".

Now I totally agree with the crazy amount resources needed, and having to stock it and my traps, and now camo kits, and then the normal stuff people carry in their inventory. I have a military travel pack, and a cargo pocket. I actually want more cargo pockets, because they hold 20 items. Thats just enough for say, one for Traps, one for Resources, one for camo kits. But I found out they are only droped, so I have to buy an expensive wearable container I'm not going to wear, just to keep my inventory organized. Someone once said that they should call us Pack Rats now. Sounds good to me

I want to see how they change camo kits, and more specifially /conceal and what the devs have in mind for how it actually will work. That will determine if the camo kits are to expensive/difficult etc. for the benefit they give. As you said, they are connected, and how effective /conceal is determines if it's to expensive or not for what you get.

Well, par for the course we have a feature that just may work some day, as usual.

This is the way SOE works (oxymoron)

I don't give two craps about the resources requirements, I just hate that it doesn't even work at master.

I'm tired of this whole game.

Storage problem? Easily resolved byallowing us to access our bank safety deposit box anywhere in the galaxy.

Cammo kits - IMHO, everything required for a cammo kit should be available in the ranger skillset. I can harvest meats, bones, and hides therefore I should be able to harvest flora as well. Again - easy to implement:modify the forage command - provide the option to forage for food or flora [which would be updated for whatever planet you are on]

From reading the manual that was included with the game, a scout is suppose to be a self-sufficient character that wouldn't require anyone else [other than for training] and the main reason why I chose this profession - so I could spend my time out on hunts, camping, fishing, or just running the countryside no matter what kind of animal I encounter without risk of losing one of my clones.

-ILOG

Actually, cargo pockets are a very early item on the Tailor tree... a first tier, I believe. But, they don't improve inventory space, just organize it. I keep most of my resources in one so they aren't all over the place.

I agree that planet-specific matters. You want to hide yourself. If you start trouncing around on Dathomir wearing the scent of a Nabooian Gualama, creatures are going to take notice. Also, notice that the flora is different form planet to planet, so wearing some odd Lokian grasses will look out of place on Talus.

Now, the amounts of resources are another thing all together. It's hard to judge how much one unit of a resource really is. You can use forty hide to make three tents (field base), yet it takes half of that much to just cover two people not nearly as fully as clothing. It'd be nice to get a few more uses out of a kit if they don't drop materials. At my very best as a Engineer, I've gotten one Naboo kit to five. If I find better quality materials, I think I could get seven, but for what you put into it, that's not much.

It'd also be nice to see yourself wearing the camo, don't you think? Apply the kit, and suddenly your a walking bush-thing Camo should also work that, even if a creature sees through it, it's still applied according to other creatures outside of it's pack, unless it attacks, "ripping it off of you"or something.

I personally do not see a problem with the planet specific resources; I actually welcome them. These resources require me to travel to the various planets, meet interesting creatures and kill em

As for organization, I purchased 10 travel packs from a local tailor for 250cr each, then renamed them with the name of the planets. As I travel from planet to planet, I collect resources, and come back to my Ranger station every two or 3 days, and distribute the resources among my "planet" travel packs. And when my guild is planning a guild hunt, I go to that planet pack, pull out the resources, call forth my droid and go craft a few stacks for that planet. And in emergency, when I am stuck on some other planet, I made sure that quite a few [longtime, established, trustworthy] friends have admin rights to my house, so they can bring someof the needed resources (or drop off resources they harvested in the past).

As for the flora requirements: In anticipation I started harvesting minerals the last few weeks, and purchased a couple flora harvestors. I do not need 10 harvestors running the same time, just like oneor two for a week for each planet, and Iam set. In our guild we use the email system and our friends list tokeep each other updated with resource shifts and good harvesting spots, so that the players with no survey skill still canuse their slot assignement to harvest resources. Just grab a friend,who has survey skill, and have them help you locate aspot once a week.

"These kits are crazy complicated to keep resources for and will be a huge burden when insurance comes back"

Huge Burden? Because everyone will be begging for camou from you before leaving a base? Hey, if you do consider that a burden, nothing prevents you from changing your title over your head advertsing Master Ranger to, say Master Scout?

Have you ever looked at the resource requirement for stimpacks and all the other nifty packs combat medics and doctors use? Water from Talus, fruit from Tatooine..etc etc, PLUS quality is very important to them! And what about chefs?Ask a chef"Got Milk?"and watch him turn into a rancor right before your eyes. We have it easy lol!

Let's look at this another way: Who do you think a player will turn to retrieve a corpse? What profession will be the master at CR? Once auto insurance is turned off, there will be a huge demand for Rangers.

I was curious to all the people that disagreed with me how many kits you have put together?

How many Lok kits have you made?

How many Endor kits?

Danthomir?

How many?