Ranger Archive
Thread: area track-players
I love the area track npc and the one for animals. Both of them let me do missions faster and have been extremely useful.
But what about the player track? I understand that there must be some use for it and I'm just not seeing it. Please help me with this. Thank you! 
"I understand that there must be some use for it and I'm just not seeing it."
Hmmm...
Does everything have to have a specific purpose in mind when it's implemented?
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/areatrack on Players will give you a feeling as to who is in the immediate area (friend or foe), and whether you should be heading in the other direction to avoid them.
It can also be used to locate a player who is not at the waypoint they sent (perhaps they have wandered off over the next hill hunting something). Once you are at the waypoint, you can use the skill topinpoint the absentee player.
Most likely the developer added the option simply for the purpose of completion. We could track animals and humanoids... Why not Players as well?
"Still seems like a BH skill to me"
Ah yes... Back to this debate again.
Two trains of thought on the separation between BH and Ranger:
One:
- Ranger: Tracks Animals
- BH: Tracks Humanoids and Player
Two:
- Ranger: Has skills related to tracking everything in the wilderness
- BH: Has skills related to tracking humanoids in civilization
There are arguments for both styles...
I saw a cool show about Native American trackers that the FBI hired to track down drug runners in the desert. The drug runners were transporting drugs across the border using mules and traveling in remote areas. When the trackers caught up to the drug runners they would radio in and the FBI would come with their choppers and guns and make the arrests. That's what I think of when I use the /areatrack players. BHs use profiling, droids and probably bank transfers and such to figure out where their target is. When it comes to tracking them in the wilderness, however, they either need the wilderness skills, or need to hire a Native tracker (me!). I think BHs are pretty willing to use whatever tools are available, including Rangers.
If it were possible for BHs to get missions to hunt actual players (that would be cool), then I think BHs would definitely need this skill in their own skill tree.
- Paks
Thank you for all the responses. I hadn't even thought of using it to look for opposing factions, but I should have. Can't wait to try it out!
To NRaas- No, it doesn't have to have a purpose, but I like to think that it might. I've also found that I tend to get better responses if I try to post in a positive way (like- this is great- help me understand it) rather than negative (like- stupid devs, why would anyone want to do this!!)
"I've also found that I tend to get better responses if I try to post in a positive way"
Sound advice indeed.
Now, if posters on the other forums were to follow it, their boards would be as clean and orderly as ours.
I would love to see titles added to this skill so I could find medics or slicers.
RebalMarineHunter wrote:
Oh yes, it has a purpose and I'll tell you the best one. I mostly hunt, I love the life of a ranger and that is my purpose in my guild. But I am also a Rebal and truly wish to be a thorn to the hate monger Imperials (Palpatine is a Dictator!). So, when my guild duties can be rested I take a few hours to do my part to further the cause of the rebellion. I don my composite, shield and buff and head out in the defense of the rebel outposts around Bestine. I go to a certain distance from the city and begin searching the environment for clues as to where the enemy may be. When I find a sign of human life I then travel to that location, very often it is a murdering Imp going out destroying my brothers in arms (oh, there families!). So, I take the battle to them, land a mind shot and follow that with dizzy, suppression and then head shots as needed. Very often I can spare many of the rebel defenders there fate. Do to my training in human tracking I can be very efficient and take out scores of the enemy with little loss of time. And it works in defense for when used properly and with skill I can detect enemy patrols that could overwhelm me and evaid.
You tell em Brother!!! Not only that...this is one of the best RP skeches I have seen lately!
/areatrack player is the one useful skill ranger bring to the table in PvP and it's very useful since he who shoot first, live.
As an example, I was an imp overt using the shuttle to go from Dantooine to Corellia (Dantooine imp recruiter is bugged, so I couldn't switch to overt and there were no other players at the time to DB me). Anyway, a rebel player used the very nice "loading kill" to DB me. ("loading kill" is the exploit where faction player sit at the common loading points like shuttle, cantina, or medical center, wait for a player to load. Because of the lag between the server and the client, the avatar will load first before the client load, making the avatar a sitting duck).
So, anyway, I loaded to see a dead avatar with a red rebel walking away. Look at the log to see who this very nice person was. Then I cloned and prepared myself pulling out all my faction pets and rancor and got my macro ready.
Being the master ranger that I am, I /areatrack player to find him 338 m east of me. Got just beyond the radar screen, then burst run in, all guns and pets blazing. Since he was caught by surprise, I was able to incap him before he was able to target me. Then it was a simple matter to kill off his prized rebel pets.