Ranger Archive

I dont like the idea one bit. I can remember seeing a couple of sniper school documentories that focusedon the personal concealment art (in aswg senserangers are thepersonal concealment artists,riflemenare rifle users who shoot concealed shots). As the snipers progressed in the course they were introduced to making their own ghillie suit. This personal concealment suit was hand crafted, personally maintained and required great work and effort to first make and then use effectivelly in a combat situation. We as a community feel the same way about our camo.

Its not just a craftable and equipable/usable item. Its a reflection ofthe art of personal concealment that our profession is so heavily involved in. In the same way those snipers learn theirart, we learn ours as we gainschematics and weincrease our camo mods. In the same way they spend hours making their suits, we spend hours (and even days if you are planning on factory runs)hunting down the right critters,gathering the resources and creating our kits. When the snipers go out in the fieldthey are aware of how to move and basically how to be personally concealed. They dont just become invisible or very hard to see because of a suit, its using that suitin the right way and altering your movement to get the best out of the suit.In thisvienour camodoesnt simply mean we have a magical invis buff applied to us, it means that we alter our look (god knows why camo does not have avisual effect), alter our movements and use our camo knowledge (the mods) to remain unseen.

Thats the way i see camo and how i differentiatebetween mask scent and camo. Mask scent could be creature only, its hiding one's scents making you less of a target, camo is hiding yourself and should work against npcs, creatures and pcs.

So essentially, camo is seen as much more than just a buff applied to us. Because it's so heavily integrated into the profession and has so much potential its seen as an art, just as how the chef art is making delicious foods and a carbineer's art of weilding a carbine. I dont think making it a consumable would be a good way for the skill to devlope and think the other alternatives are a much better choice in regards to ranger.

Alternative Solution: Scent Masking Kits

As Paks was saying, if a personal concealment solution was definatly going to happen, i believe it should be a master scout crafted item. I also think it should be a variation of mask scent in terms of it's effects.It would come in the formof ascent masking kit.

First, a run down of what mask scent, camo, scent masking kits and stealthSHOULD do:

Mask Scent:

Mask Scent essentially makes a player less of a target to creatures. The skill is creature only and decreases the agro range of mobs byeither a percentage value or a hard number. It enables playersusing mask scent abilities to reduce the chances of a mob attacking the player up until a certain range. An example would be:Thortacis a master scout and is traveling around dantooine.Heisusingmask scent and thismeans that if farer than 20m from a creature there is a chance (thatdepends onmask scent mod) that the creature will not notice him and not attack/respond. As a master scout he has a high chance of avoiding agro from the mobs at ranges greater than 20m because of his high maskmod.When themask scent breaks the player is attacked and mustwait 30 seconds and until out of combat until they can re-apply the effect.

Camo Kits:

Camo is essentially visual stealth and a far superior version of personal concealment that can be applied to the ranger and the ranger's targets. The skill workson NPCs and Creatures, makes you imune to agro from 35m+and gives you a high chance (depending on the camo rating of the ranger) to avoid agro from creatures 0m-35m. Consumable planet specific camo kits are required and use resources from that planet. Theyare experimentable uponfor uses and duration up to a maximum of 30 mins. The camo 'buff' is applied, takes into account the kit rating and the camo mod level of the ranger. Once the kit has been applied the ranger or player cannot be agroed from over35m from a creature or npc andwithin 35m the ranger or playerhas a chance (depending on camo kitrating and surpassing the effectiveness of mask scent) to avoid agro from creatures and npcs.An example of its use would be: Thortac is a master ranger, he is hunting on dathomir with Lythender. He has made perfect rated camo kits with a duration of an hour. He appies a dath camo kit to himself and to Lythender and they go out hunting.Rancors and Nightsistersover a 35m radius from Thortac or Lythender do not attack at all, mobswithin the 35m radiusmake a check against thecamobuff and the rating it has (the rating of the kit used) to see ifit will break or not.Because of the quality of the kit and the high camo level of the ranger who applied the camo buff (Thortac) there is a low chance of it breaking. If the camo breaks then then Thortacwill have to wait 10 seconds before he can re-apply the kit.

Scouts would get their self applied and resource free mask scent skill as it's currently implemented.Scent MaskingKits would require resources to makearound the same asanadvanced planet camo kits but not be specific on itsresource requirement, for example40 hide and 40 meat. The kit would givemask scent effectsand be experimentable up to80% the effectiveness of the creator (in other words up to80% of the creators BASEmask scent mod). The kits would last15mins if unbroken, require 30 seconds to reaply if brokenand would come in5 use kits. These kits can be used by anyone.

Stealth:

Stealth is a high level ranger command based skill that allows rangers to remove themselves from the visual spectrum and from the radar. It doesnt require resources and is only self applied. The reason why stealth and camo are seperated is because rangers would not want to be invisible all the time like when in group or when needing protection on lower level planets with friends. Stealth is primarily a PvP based skill that allows movement and use of certain skills (pathfinding mode would increase out of combat normal run speedto burst run speedfor instance) and the opportunity forfirst strike capabilities. It can be used inconjunction with ambushwhich should be another skill open to rangers at master level. Basically stealth can be used at the same time as mask scent or camo or any other skill and removes the ranger from the visual world. The counters for this can be discussed later of course.

That essentially sums it up:

• Scouts get Mask Scent which is creature only and hides you from mobs over20m.
  
• Scent Masking Kitscan be used by anyone and give a 80% effective mask scent buff to the player and are crafted by Master Scouts.
  
• Rangers get Camo which gives immunity from agro over 35m and increased chance of avoiding agro up to 0m. Camo be applied to others only by a ranger (up to 30 min duration).
  
• Stealth is the rangers visual stealth ability and only self applied.

This sorts out the issues with camo/mask and also provides a viable personal concealment option to low level players. I still think that increasing the levelas you progress incraftingto a max of40 needs to be done but if that isnt enough then these changes could greatly help and still keep the risk element to crafters in the wilds.