Ranger Archive

I know that there's several posts on harvesters droids in general but I figured I'd post my observations on my use here.

I have the top-of-the-line droid on Starsider (as far as I know), with 117 rating. My skill is 0040 ranger (yes I am a harvesting template).

In my real world harvesting, the TINY bonus I get from the droid makes it pretty much useless since it is SO much slower at harvesting than I am. I seem to get a bonus between 3-5% only (3-4 units per 65 unit kill or so). Considering that I can harvest about 5 times faster (at least?) than the droid, I can move more quickly without it (especially counting the 15 second calling time at each lair) and thus harvest more than with it, and with a lot less headaches. Note, I always use veghash while harvesting.

It wouldn't be nearly as bad if I could tell it to harvest and then right away change target. However as you know you need to wait a few seconds before you can target the next mob.

I have also heard that for example a master scout can get equal or even better harvesting results than a master ranger when using a droid. This also seems to be the case from what I've seen (well not total but % benefit from droids). Friends with just a few boxes in scout get 15+ benefit from a worse rated droid than mine on the same mobs (giving them almost as much per-kill as I get with veghash).

So why is it that the true harvesters (high level or master rangers) get significantly less benefit from a droid than scouts, almost putting a master scout on equal footing with a master ranger? Doesn't this seem somewhat off-base to you?

Personal review of droid at 0040 ranger: waste of time, waste of money.

Things that would change my opinion: Significantly better bonus, at least 20-30% more, perhaps up to 200% (it's not like the game is overflowing with organical animal resources) and/or AUTOMATIC harvesting of killed mobs.

Higher bonus would make the pain worth it. Automatic harvesting would be a time saver despite slowness of the droid.

1. call droid


2. 15 sec, eat and drink while waiting.


3. Droid is out, I'm on my belly and stuffed full of food. Start shooting.


4. Target is now corpse, /tellpet harvest


5. at the same time, switch targets, shoot


6. New target is a corpse, verify that droid has harvested.


7. /tellpet harvest after lastharvest is verified. If there is another target, go to #5


8. when you get here, you realize that you have spent the EXACT same amount of time that you would have without pulling the droid and just start the shooting without it. Perhaps less time.




• Right after the last harvest /tellpet store. Saves on battery life.


9. next lair

If you still want to argue I have this: 3 days on Dantooine and ~200k of herbivore meat. My droid has 119% mod. Only thing I can give you is you loose out on loot items this way.

I guess the droids mainly works for Rifle/scouts since they often set up withen 40-50m of the lair. For Brawler/Pistol/carbine scouts I would agreee Harvest droids can seem to be a waste of time.

But regardless of your level, there is a bonus to the units harvested. (not sure exactly) Also the Rifle/scout will usually do well enough and never be touched unlike the other combat professions. Which means the rifle/scout can sit on his butt, clear out a lair jsut as fast as anyone else, not get hurt, and have the droid do all of his leg work.

Now we coudl argue who clears out a lair faster... but that isn't what this forums is really about.

Maybe their should be a contest to see who can harvest more in an hour, and get to the bottom of this delemma

I'm a Master TKA so I'm right in with them. As for missing corpses - not too hard, once harvested they disappear much faster than ones that are not harvested. The time I spend waiting after /tellpet significantly slows down the "killing" process (there's several seconds lag).

As for the bonus, lets see how the time is:

1) Call pet, 15 seconds.
2) wait for droid to aquire target after order is given: 2 seconds
3) Wait for last corpse to be harvested: 3 seconds (estimate/average perhaps)

A normal mission driven lair has 3-6 mobs times three. Say it has 4. This means 12 mobs or 24 seconds for "targeting". Total time lost on the lair when using the droid is thusly 40-45 seconds. If the mobs are aggro, the loss is larger since you need to stop and call the droid further out and then either remount / drive or run in.

Considering how fast things tend to die when you're an MTKA this significantly increases the time per lair. As a ranged attacker, especially rifleman, yes I can see the benefit. As a melee character, it's a huge hassle where the 5% gain turns into a loss.

And yes, it's a time game - when I harvest I'm out to harvest as much units per hour as I can. I can't tell you that I do gain on not using the droid because i haven't timed it or measured the difference in meat but I know for sure that 5% or whatever the low gain I get isn't worth the hassle to me.

I guess the main issue I have, still, is that less skilled harvesters get significantly better benefit from a droid. I'm surprised this isn't considered to be a bigger issue by the ranger community.

I get: +4 going from 64 to 69
They get: +15 going from 40 to 55

I don't remember exact numbers but it's somewhere along these lines. Sure I still harvest more but I get a 6.25% gain and they get a 37.5% gain. I don't know about you, but I sure don't think this looks right.

Oops. Double post.

Message Edited by Mejowepra on 08-11-2004 12:46 AM