Ranger Archive
Thread: Ranger-only Trap Ideas Thread
Okay, randomly strewn about many have posted Ranger Trap ideas.. so why not post them here? We'll make this thread ONLY for discussing traps for rangers.
So guys, start posting =P
My personal ideas are these..
Area of Effect Snare Traps. These would make Rangers more effective soloers and would definitely help in groups.
Area of Effect Melee Defense Lowerer This would help, too. =) -15 Melee Defense to all effected for 60 seconds
Area of Effect Ranged Defense Lowerer. This would rock the most, hands down. lol Make it like -15
Area of Effect Intimidate. Like the skill indimidate, cept just make it somethin else with that effect.. so that it lowers the damage they do.
I had an idea for one a while ago I thought would be cool. A trap that effected a single target (non-AoE) that put some kind of scent on that creature that drove other creatures around it into a frenzy.
ex - You see a group of slice hounds, and hit one at the edge of this group with this scent trap. Instead of all the slice hounds attacking you, they go for the one that smells like (insert creature here) instead of you. Then while they are busy working over one of thier own, you could pick a few off or use more traps, or make your escape.
Just an idea...
I was going to start a new thread with this rather long post, but this thread will serve just as well.
Zip's Advanced Trapping Master Plan - please critique
Ok, given some vague hints floating around here that our general ideas about traps being more stationary than thrown have been well received by the devs, here is my proposal for the entire line. Please feel free to make constructive comments and polite critiques on any specific points. These points are not in any particular order of importance.
1. Remove /rescue from the line. I personally can't see any conceptual connection between diverting an attack from a friend onto yourself and TRAPPING. The skill may be useful, and it may be good for rangers to have, but I just don't think it belongs in this line. Nothing is being trapped with it.
2. As has been suggested elsewhere, change the effects of the Flash Bomb and Sonic Pulse from blind and dizzy to snare and root. This would be more useful, and make more sense with the concept of trapping.
3. New trap types:
A. Deadfalls. Deadfalls would be stationary traps that the ranger places on the ground and returns to check on later. If the deadfall was successful in the intervening time, the ranger would find an animal's corpse which he or she could harvest for resources. I could see the coding and mechanics for harvesters being adapted for these, as they would essentially be placable containers.
B. Snares. Snares would be similar to deadfalls, with the difference that while a deadfall kills the trapped animal, the snare catches and holds it alive. The result would be a creature as an inventory item exactly like creatures crafted by bio-engineers, and with the same uses. For those of you unfamiliar with bio-engineered creatures, they come out of the crafting tool as a creature in the BE's inventory, with options to examine, destroy, drop, sample dna (if a BE), or tame (if a CH). Snares would essentially allow rangers to bring wild creatures into captivity, for trading or sale to either BEs or CHs. Like deadfalls, snares would be placed on the ground and then checked on later to see if anything had been caught. (Note: given the existing use of the word "snare" for a slowing effect in combat, some other term for this trap type might be better; I'm open to suggestions.)
C. Lures. Lures would be more particle effects (like current thrown traps) than placed objects. They would be set out in the vicinity of a lair or group of creatures, and if successful would draw one of those creatures out away from the rest, without "aggroing" the others. The would have a set duration in which the lure either succeeds or fails, and possibly a re-use timer as well. In gameplay terms, ranger lures would essentially allow for "baf-free" pulls. I don't see these as needing snaring or rooting effects, as a successful lure could easily be followed up with a phecnacine dart or adhesive mesh throw to hold the creature in place.
4. Scouts get 9 trap schematics, covering a wide range of useful effects. Rangers should get a similar selection, and given the variety of effects I've proposed above, I think that having the sonic pulse, flash bomb, and two each of deadfalls, snares, and lures would make for a complete set. Thus, I propose this progression:
(Note that listed resource requirements are given merely as a starting point, and could easily change depending on trap success rates, number of charges, etc.)
Novice Ranger: existing skillmod bonuses, plus:
-- Stationary Traps +1. This is the number of deadfall or snare traps that the ranger can have set up and active out in the wild at one time.
-- Schematic: Log Deadfall. This stationary trap is capable of killing small to medium sized creatures (level 12 or less?). Higher trapping skill gives a higher chance of success. If unsuccessful, the trap will expire (disappear) one day from the time it was set. Requires Trap Camouflage (8 hides), Deadfall Mechanism (12 wood), and Bait (5 flora).
Advanced Trapping 1:
-- Trapping +10. (As currently)
-- Stationary Traps +2.
-- Schematic: Net Snare. This stationary trap is capable of capturing and holding small to medium sized non-aggressive creatures, for sale or exchange to Bio-engineers or Creature Handlers. Like the Log Deadfall, it expires in one day, if unsuccessful in capturing something by the end of that time. Requires Netting (15 hides), Counterweight Mechanism (10 metal), Sedative (5 inert petrochemical), and Bait (5 flora).
Advanced Trapping 2:
-- Trapping +10, as currently.
-- Stationary Traps +2.
-- Schematic: Flash Bomb, as currently.
-- Schematic: Herbivore Lure. This lure uses chemical and herbal mixtures to create scents appealing to many herbivorous creatures, drawing them away from the protection of their herds or family units. Requires Lure Housing (8 hides), Chemical Emulsion (10 inert petrochemical), and Herbal Extract (7 flower flora).
Advanced Trapping 3:
-- Trapping +10, as currently.
-- Stationary Traps +2.
-- Schematic: Sonic Pulse, as currently.
-- Schematic: Poison Deadfall. This stationary trap uses multiple spring-loaded branches with poisoned tips to bring down medium to large (though not the largest, perhaps up to level 20?) creatures for the ranger to harvest. It expires two days after being set, if nothing has been caught by that time. Requires Flexible Spring Arms (20 wood), Trigger Mechanism (8 metal), and Poison Coating (7 inert petrochemical). Optional Component: Radio Transmitter, craftable by Droid Engineers, notifies you via mail when the trap has either caught something or expired.
Advanced Trapping 4:
-- Trapping +10, as currently.
-- Stationary Traps +2.
-- Schematic: Pit Trap Snare. This classic trap can capture and hold large and aggressive creatures without killing them. It expires in two days, if unsuccessful. Requires Excavator (30 metal), Camouflage Covering (15 hides), Sedative (10 inert petrochemical), and Bait (5 meat). Optional Component: Radio Transmitter.
Master Ranger: existing skillmod bonuses, plus:
-- Stationary Traps +1.
-- Schematic: Carnivore lure. This lure uses a realistic robotic decoy of a small tasty rodent, replete with fresh, meaty aromas, to lure dangerous predatory creatures out away from the rest of their packs. Requires Animatronic Motility Unit (20 metal), Body Shell (10 hides), and Musk (5 meat).
I feel that with additions such as these, the Ranger's Advanced Trapping line would become a skill set that provides the ranger with added usefulness to groups, additional income, and increased interdependence with several other professions, in a logical way. There would be a noticable "cool factor" in using a number of these traps, without imbalancing the profession in combat or impinging upon roles belonging to other professions. The three new types of traps would both create clear differentiation between Scouts and Rangers, and help satisfy those of us who have long felt that things called "traps" should be just that, and not just animal-only grenades.
I look forward to feedback on these ideas from the rest of the Ranger community.
Zip...Wow...very good Ideas. I would hope to see our Corespondant pass this on to the devs. This is originally the type of things a trap would be in the game. I love how you figured out what it would take to make each trap as well.
Very good...well thought out ideas. Hope they look at it.
I like that idea. A trap that makes other mobs attack the one you trapped.
Would cut down on exps, but there is a point soon where exps wont matter to anybody.
Well , I like the ideas presented here , they need polishing to be appealing to me .
Here are my issues with all of the ones I can remember mentioned above . I like the idea of a frenzy trap that makes the MOBs attack each other . However , some balance would need to be put into it otherwise I could go to the hardest lair , toss a bomb , they rip one apart , repeat until all MOBs are dead but one . Kill that one , attack lair , repeat for massive gains in XP and money with little to no risk . We would have to look at a fail initiating an attack , or a timer , or whatever to balance this and prevent exploiting .
I love lure idea , always have . We need this in our arsenal to make hunting more fun and dynamic and to give Ranger more depth .
The problem I have with the traps that catch or kill a MOB is that I wouldn't go through all that much trouble at all for just one MOB . A trap that sits for a day and only has a chance of catching something , and even if you do it's only one MOB of low to medium difficulty ... well I don't see much appeal in this . Just personally , I mean . I wouldn't do all that for one MOBs resources , it seems like a bit much for that little amount especially when you consider that it will take resources to make the pit in the first place .
For example , from what I read the trap would be able to succeed against low - mid level MOBs . Now , I'm not even sure this would apply but lets use for an example anyway .
Lets say the MOB in question is a Snorbal , which is a big dumb ole elephant thing on Lok with 10k ham bars , no ranged attack . It gives a few thousand XP for killing and you get around 500 XP for trapping it with darts and stuff . Resources are around 50 each if I remember . Takes me about 1 minute to kill one of these , maybe two . I could , in theory kill it in under 30 seconds if I wanted Rifle XP exclusively .
Now this is a relatively difficult " big game " MOB , so I'm not sure it would even be elligible for the trap in the first place . If it was , I place a trap , and come back a full day later ? Then PERHAPS there is a corpse of one in there ? I can make a Snorbal corpse myself in 30 seconds lol . Don't need any resources really , to do it either . Except time and one set of slow bombs .
So , that is my constructive critisism ( SPELLING ??? ) of the placed trap idea . In the form you present it would be much more bother than it's worth , for the resources of a single creature .
What would work for me is this ..... we get some detect Fauna skill that works just like a survey tool . A list of the MOBs that are available in the immediate area ( again think Survey / Artisan ) would show up when we probed for Fauna . Finding a good concentration of the MOB we are looking for would depend on LOGICAL things , like proximity to food source and water . Things real life hunters do to , ya know , hunt and stuff .
Then we would place a " trap " that actually represents a small cluster of traps spread throughout the area . We would come back in time , just like getting stuff from a harvester , there would be a number of resources in the traps Hopper that are available based on the percentage of any given MOB in the area . Lots of Durni show up on the scan ? Place a trap that represents 5 or 6 small ones , come back in a day or two for a few hundred or 500 wooly hides , based on the Durni % in the area .
That's my ideas on it . Probably just wasting all of our time , tho . The things we have are badly broken and we're asking for additions .. I dunno like wanting to go to the moon with one of those old bicycle planes that would lift offa the ground for 2 feet and crash into a barn and stuff .
Also I want to know exactly what ranged defense lowering does to a MOB .
Please post someone , and fill me in .
Does it make it easier to hit , like make our accuracy better ? Or does it make the attacks we successfully land hit HARDER and for more damage ? I never use the one we have in Scout for lowering Ranged Defense because I never noticed it doing anything whatsoever .
If you have noticed a benificial effect please post it . Thanks .
I like JonSee's trap/harvestor idea. I think that's the way to go.
Lure is also good, but should this be a skill used under hunting or a physical trap used under trapping? I say put it under hunting.
For the thrown traps, can we finally have a trap that is capable of killing the creature, not just bringing it down to 1 in it's HAM?
/Rescue need to go away.
-Korann, Ranger, Naboo, Starsider
JonSee,
Good point about the effort-to-reward ratio of the deadfall traps. That's essentially a balance question ("how much should it give you?") and is exactly the sort of feedback I was hoping people would post. I think that, like harvester structures, there's a tradeoff to make between making the set-up and retrieval worth the player's time and the fact that it captures the resources while you can be off doing other things. So...
1. First note that the resource amounts I suggested for crafting the traps are first of all just a starting point for the sake of discussion. I'm completely open to sound arguments on why the amounts should be either higher or lower. Secondly, remember that they represent a crafted trap with multiple charges, 5 at minimum. So the Log Deadfall takes 25, which is 5 per use, and the Poison Deadfall takes 35, which is 7 per use, for a 5-charge trap. It doesn't seem too excessive, really. Bump the charges up to 6-8, even.
2. Point taken that it needs to be worth the trip. What amount of collected resources would make it so, and still be balanced against the fact that it's risk-free? You suggested a few hundred to five hundred. That seems like a good number to me, if the resource or animal type is random. If we were able to use a survey-tool-like list to actually select a particular mob to catch (by baiting the trap with substances that will draw that particular creature), I would probably scale the number down some, to 100-200 perhaps. Keep in mind that in my progression a Master Ranger could have as many as ten stationary traps set out at one time, and while they do get used up, they don't take up any building allotment as harvesters do.
On your final point about wasting our time because we have broken things and are asking for additions, I'd have to disagree completely. A number of us have posted in Mineras' threads about wanting stationary traps and lures, and she (Mineras is a she, right?) has more or less hinted back to us that the dev in charge of Rangers very much likes the idea. Even if Sonic Pulse and Flash Bomb get fixed, the line is quite empty. So this was my particular vision of how to fill it.
Hey again Zip , point taken about filling the line with more usefull stuff . Hope I didn't give the impression that we shouldn't be trying . Sometimes I just get a little pessimistic about us getting new stuff when so much of what we have is broken or ineffective .
So for the record let me say I'm all for adding things , MANY things the flesh out this profession . I think the stationary trap is a great idea , along with lure and hunting blinds . These three things would go such a long way to making our play more fun and rewarding .
Now , as for balance issues , I hear ya on the trap having more than one use . I thought you intended it to be a one shot deal , that you would place then come back for later and it had a chance of snaring one animal . If we could put more than one in an area that has the MOBs we want walking around , and find .... lets say 5 out of the 6 traps we laid down had MOBs in them waiting to be skinned ... now that would be more like it . That would be worth the trip , as I would be heading out that way to hunt daily anyways . The resources you listed sound good for a trap that gets multiple uses .
I'm not sure on the traps not taking up lots , we would have to come to a number that would be acceptable . Wouldn't want the majority of the resources to come from risk free harvesting , and I think that the resources from one animal multiplied out to five would be good . We would just have to make the chance for the traps success to catch something dependant on the level of the Ranger . Also the number of traps placeable would be dependant on the level of the Ranger . And the most desireable resources should come from the most difficult or more difficult MOBs in the more dangerous areas . That way there only a qualified Ranger could get to the good stuff , and the rookies would have to be patient and satisfied with lower end stuff until they built their templates up . As it is now it's just sorta silly and random , like durni bunny rabbits have wooly hides that are ten times better than hides from a Montegrue , even tho the Monties are pretty hard to isolate and kill ( like 7k ham and BAF I think ) . Bunnie dies in one hit . Makes no **edit** sense at all and it's things like this that frustrate me .
But anywayze , a rookie could lay out a trap or two and hope to catch a Snorbal in em . His level would be too low , so he would more than likely return to an emty broken trap if he tried to overstep his skill level . But a Master Ranger could lay out 5 traps , and come back and find 4 of them full , so he would get the resources from 4 Snorbs , which would be about 200 of any given resource . Now if the resource was of a quality superior to stuff available on little one shot lizards , and it was only accessible in a dangerous area , and there was a good market for it ... we would be in business 
Sounds about good to me .
And the snare one , that catches a live animal would be great for the CH's to buy animals from us , especially the very hard to kill / catch / tame ones that are hard to find . Would make a fun little market niche for us . Of course balance it out so only the Master Rangers could have a chance of catching a little elite MOB .
All I can think of for now , good luck with your baby . Hope it gets someone's attention and sees the light of day sometime soon .
Peace all and good hunting
Jon
Wow this are al great ideas
But Ithink the live animal trap will be taking away from BE and CHs. The rest of the ides are brilliant and very alluring. i actually wouldn't mind having the harvestor trap taking a one lot.
Traps that cause the creature to bleed like /mindshot /healthshot /actionshot and friends over in marksman and elite marksman professions.