Ranger Archive
Thread: New idea for Camo Kits, and other asthetic issues with Ranger.
I thought about this somewhat. I see a lot of questions regarding the visuals behind the camo kits. After all, they're made of all the organic stuff of the planet in order to hide you, so assuming that you'll look the part isn't unwarrented. And of course, you don't look like anything execpt for...well, yourself. And basically, they're just a fancy maskscent (that's bugged and doesn't work nearly as well).
Well, let's do some logistics here... You put together a garment of flora, meats, paint, whathaveyou... I would expect to craft an actual overgarment if anything to wear that acts as my concealant. I'm suggesting that instead of camo kits, we craft actual coats (with hoods/masks) similar in fashion to spec op dusters. They would be colored in respect to which "kit" we use to assemble them. So Tatooine would be sand colored, Endor; green. Etc. When worn, you'll be physically wearing the duster/kit, and it activates the conceal ability automatically. So now, you have something that can be worn and taken off -- a pysical item.
With this physical items you've crafted, you can freely destribute your dusters to anyone in your party for them to use.
When worn, conceal is active. And while active, it has a "wear timer" that keeps track of how much "effective time" is left, since it's made from degradable sources. So the higher the conceal rank of the ranger maker, and the better the resources, the longer it lasts (I'm talking half-an-hour on up for the best crafted). The effectiveness should be directly tied into the item's HP status (for lack of a better term). It decays as you wear it, and its effectiveness slowly degrades with the decay rate of the garment. So if it's at 50% decay, it'll only be half as good (this can be up for debate). Once the HP reach 0%, it becomes useless and poofs just as you unequip the garment (or maybe not, as I keep useless armor around my household to show off). So to iterate, the better quality items you have and the higher your are, the more HP the garment has, and more effective it'll be. I smell experimentation here...
When conceal breaks, it shouldn't break entirely. Afterall, it's only one animal or NPC that doesn't see through the ruse. Your conceal will still be fine, though you'll have a single (or more, depending on effectiveness or social structure) target to deal with. However, like armor, your garment should take damage. It's a low percentage compared to you, and it doesn't ABSORB damage like armor. Let's say the camo garment takes about 10% the damage you take. It subtracts from its HP, reducing its effectiveness. But if one animal breaks your conceal and you off it before taking damage, you're still concealed to the others around you. In otherwords, you don't have to craft an entirely different garment per conceal breakage...
XP... You should get XP per successful ruse, of course. Should you get XP when others use your garment? Maybe reduced XP. This will certainly encourage Rangers to become entreprenures via selling these things on the market.
That's it for the camo kits. Thoughts?
Now onto the other issues:
Camps. Yes, I know they're broken. They will eventually repel creatures, yadda yadda. I'm concearned with camp interactivity. Right now, you can't do anything in them except sit, craft, and get healed. I'm a stickler for getting the ability to go inside the shelters for added protection against agro creatures(as well ar rain!!). So that means the shelters need a simplified inside with chairs, cots, computers, whatever. Some kind of interactive ammenity.
As everyone else says, we should be able to lay on the cots/medical beds to speed up medical recovery. And we should be able to do useless stuff that makes building these fanciful camps more rewarding -- like having the ability to play those chess-like games in the HT field bases, or cards, or something. Other than watching entertainers, we should be able to do SOMETHING in ALL camps. Roasting foods on the campfire, for example. And perhapse some of these leasure activities can help reduce battle fatigue by a certain percentage (not completely, as I don't want to put the entertainers in cantinas in danger of becoming useless).
And here, I always have to say that camps shouldn't poof if the maker goes into combat. That's silly. If a creature agros him in his camp, why does his camp have to poof? Makes no sense, and I don't see how there's any kind of exploitation going on. If anything, HT camps and field baes should be exactly that - -bases of operations to run quick skirmishes against tough foes. Attack, regroup at base.
Again, we should voluntarily disown camps instead of disbanding them (at the sacrifice of no XP gained). The camps would then be in a "shutdown" mode with no lights or fire. If some weary travelers hapen upon it, they can call the base their own -- withotu the XP of course. And the structure remain time would be finite -- like half a day or something (in total, not per disown). And to prevent camp spamming, rangers should be limited to maybe three camps at any given time. So even if they disown one, they can build another. But then they can't just keep building and disowning for the sake of spamming or whathaveyou.
No, I don't think we should have the ability to re-pack camps. Either diband or disown.
Other asthetic isues: scanning an area with Area Track. We need some kind of animation. Take out some kind of instrument and datapad, and fiddle with it as we obtain the data -- SOMETHING that looks really cool, but imporantly shows that we're doing an action, like tracking and harvesting.
That's all for now. I'd like to hear some feadback.
"I would expect to craft an actual overgarment if anything to wear that acts as my concealant."
- Nice. Like a cloak or something you put on, rather than some magic box of "stuff" you use. 
- This would satisfy the ghillie suit people
-We could use the condition of the garment as the timer (it wears down each time it is checked). So you could actually keep track of how long you have until you need to set it up again.
-They could implement this in the current system by allowing us to apply camo kits to existing tailor madeovercoats(that would make the tailors happy).
- These cloaks would last substantially longer than simply applying the kit to yourself (sort of like applying mud to your face and then having it rain 
).
- Man, I love this idea.
I guess I should start my own topics instead of posting my ideas to other peoples topics, cause I posted this same thing last night and got no response:
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"I have an idea for how Camo Kits could have been done.
- Remove the charges and duration from the kit andmake each planets camouflage a customizedwearable item that is worn in the jacket slot. That way each planets kit could have its own animation as well as being able to remove it and reapply it untill it is destroyed.
- As it is worn in an several armor slots (chest and shoulders) this gives it some hinderance
- Give it a low condition so that when you take so much damage the suit takes an equal amount and would be destroyed after a few hits, but would not evaporate just becuse it is seen through by one creature.
Maybe this is a crazy idea, but I wanted to get some feedback on this. You never know, they may decide to totally revamp the camo kit implentation. "
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NRaas wrote:
-We could use the condition of the garment as the timer (it wears down each time it is checked). So you could actually keep track of how long you have until you need to set it up again.
Condition... Yes, that's the word I was looking for! Condition...
The only problem with the decay-per-check is the logistics behind how it works. The concept of a "camo coat," so to speak, is a wearable item that conceals the wearer with some kind of ultimate limitation of use. The conceal uses decaying resources for its construction, so this indicates that it should be a time-based decay of use. Per-check decaying is hinting that each animal wears down the suit -- so one animal's indirectly affect's the other. What I'm suggesting is similar to how maskscent currently works -- it's time-based because the garment itself is made from organic and decaying materials. Unlike maskscent (where an animal can pick your true scent up and alert other animals), conceal should treat each animal individually, so that conceal can't break totally when one picks you out of the pack -- UNLESS the animal is social.
Per-check means that if you wear the cloak without running into any animals, you can concievably keep the garment active indefinately.
You see where I'm going with this? It's effectiveness shouldn't decreas with each check, but with time instead. Of course when you remove the cloak, you can keep it "preserved" (pretend we're putting it in the camo box) so that it doesn't decay in our inventory.
Nothing worse than a rotten ghullie suit. '-p
"Let's all hope that the Devs read this post rather than ignore it. Good thinking."
- I'll float this thread for awhile and see if we can get some more feedback.
This sounds like a wonderful idea I just hope that the devs can come up with a cloak/duster big enough for us Wookie/Rangers.
Jowabe...Wookie...Soon...Verrrrry Soon...
However, in regards to Camps I have to disagree about being able to just leave it for extended periods. Those who might find these camps would not have the skill to return these camps to a usable order. I agree that short (one to three minute?) battles should not force the camp to become abandoned but I do think that camps should need nearly constant attention and when left to themselves should degrade and disappear. On the subject of games... well first of all i think that the Devs have more important things to do (make the game WORK) and secondly, in my opinion, mind healing and bf healing should remain the sole province of entertainers (I do belive that rangers or scouts should be able to have entertainers (number of people limited by the size of camp?) heal bf and mind wounds in camp - any camp). Again i agree on not repacking camps. The havested items need a way out of the system or we would become flooded with excess bones and hides, driving our prices down severely.
Areatrack? I'd be lying if I said I didn't want a visual.
Porag_Krongt wrote:
well first of all i think that the Devs have more important things to do (make the game WORK)
The entire SWG team isn't sitting around busting bugs. If that were true, then the game would probably self-destruct!
'-p
"The entire SWG team isn't sitting around busting bugs."
- Exactly. Many of the developers are both designers and coders.
- But there are people like Holocron (or whoever will replace him) that simply design new systems, or think about how to fix existing problems.
- Anyways, we can always save up all these wonderful ideas and remind the developers when they dohave the time to implement changes.
If you are gonna do a camflauge overgarmet for this game depending on the planet it should be able to break up your shilohuette so that other pvp(hostiles),npc,and animals aren't able to see you for a brief period of time. In addition you should only be visible for a few seconds giving away your position in order for you to escape or continue the pursuit. We must have something to conteract the commandos weapons. Cant hurt em with traps lol.Maybe they need to introduce an arsenal for Rangers to some degree.
Vahasan Esnoh (Kettemoore)
Ranger/BH
I like the areatrack animation point the best. We are, if I recall correctly, required to stand still while tracking. We -need- a visual to go along with this. Since the art team is separate from the coding team, this shouldn't be too hard to get.
I'm quite vain about my clothes in game, so I'm not as appreciative of the first suggestion. 
Yes, I wear clothing that is completely inappropriate for running around in the woods all day. (I've been known to wear dresses on hunts before, and my current outfit is red slacks, sneakers, and a yellow top.) I love my clothes! I don't want to wear a jacket whenever I camo! Somehow, I don't think I'm going to get much sympathy from the rest of you about this.... :/