Ranger Archive

First of all I must state that I am a role player and I generally enjoy ranger the way it is. (Doesn’t mean I am against enhancements to the profession). I love running around dangerous planets hunting (usually unbuffed), the terrain negotiation, the camping and the general lifestyle that is ranger. I actually do use traps. I believe if you think of ranger as a role-playing profession or as others here say "a way of life" then I think you will get more out of it.

Nonetheless, I was thinking about the idea of using foraged materials to attract certain animal types. For example if you want to make some Tatooine cammo and can find no banthas around you could forage around until you find some bantha fodder. Craft this into a lure, toss it on the ground , step back and wait as a random spawn of bantha came along. Then you can get your wolly to make your kits.

There could be a "food chain" hierarchy involved to lure the bigger creatures. For example, herbivores could eat plants which you forage, certain carnivores like certain herbivores. Avians are atracted to bugs, bugs are attracted to fish, etc.

So if you wanted to spawn some avian's, you could first forage for some worms. You use the worms to catch a fish. You craft the fish meat into a lure which attacts insects. You kill the insects, craft them into a lure to attract avians…

If you wanted to potentially spawn a kryats or dragonets, you could take bantha, make it into a lure… etc. (Since everyone should know that kryat feed on banthas)

By setting the lure you could have certain types of animals lured to that position. (or perhaps even generate a spawn) They would need to be random throughout that particular class of course. (Meaning you might get feral banthas, matriarchs or any kind of that class.)

I think you get the idea. This idea may compete with our tracking a little bit, but I think it would add to the premise behind being a ranger and make foraging a more useful skill. This could be intermixed with a major beef up/higher payout of "explorer" mission terminals.

I think this would be a good way to make our foraging skills more useful, and add more to the idea of ranger without infringing on other classes..

Something else to go along with this… I know I got one starred all the heck for bringing this up before but…

People are constantly asking that ranger get defensive bonuses/offensive bonuses. I agree that creature to-hit should be increased for us. However I REALLY REALLY want us to be able to use our camps (at least the HTFB as a defensive position to run back too.

With the combat upgrade, it seems that high-end hunting is supposed to require more group support. Why cant a camp be used as a safe base of operations for this? Why cant people run out… fight a bit… and when they need heals run back into the camp to be relieved by the next wave of fighters? Rangers need to be able to place a camp.. run out.. fight a bit… and then go back into their camp? XP Exploit? So make it so that xp only accumulates when someone in the ranger's group is in the camp. (Not a droid or pet)

Also HTFB's need to be able to heal battle fatigue. Last night I was hunting kryats with my group. Someone asked me to place a camp, which I did. Everyone goes "Nice Camp" We had a dancer and when they found out their battle fatigue was not healing they then told me to disband the camp and someone placed a house so that they could heal their BF and buff. What kind of logic is that?

I don’t care the reasons why a field base was not made a safe haven, but whatever the issue was it needs to be FIXED, not Nerfed. I think that most rangers would agree that we would not have to add defensive mods to if we could use our camps as a defensive position. We let everyone play for half the life of the game in god mode with uber buffs and 80% composite armor, but using a camp as a field safe position for a group to heal up and sustain fighting longer is too exploitable? Please someone explain this to me… I mean this would be so easy to implement and could add so much to the game especially after the combat upgrade when supposedly everyone will not be in god mode and grouping will be encouraged.

In regards to the foraging… I understand that from a functional perspective people think it should be removed, just like certain pistol specials in pistoleer which have no benefit over any other special move. However with foraging, I do see from a "role-play" perspective how foraging could fit into ranging. In the army, elite professions were taught how to forage water and food and resources in order to survive out in the field when the support lines broke down. So from a "role-play" perspective I can see how foraging would fit into the ranger lifestyle. I also think that foraging could be used to make camouflage instead of using all creature resources.

I think that the developers probably originally meant for us to need food when they designed the game. I am not sure why they removed that need. One idea that I think would be interesting would be to make your substats such as strength and willpower decrease over time after your belly was empty for so long. Your stamina and constitution could start decreasing if you go long without drink. If you go to long without one or the other you should (active playtime of course) die.

Foraged foods could fill this role of basic sustenance. If you are going to use chef foods, then don’t eat foraged ones. This would also open a market for lower end artisan foods that are not as expensive as the Chef foods. I mean I don’t want the skill to be broken. I would rather it be made useful or have it removed. But this is not a new feature we are asking for, it is one that is in the game, fits into the role-playing aspect of being a scout, and should either be made useful or removed.