Scout Archive

Greets!

I got my Master Scout and Ranger tabs in the same night recently---Ranger was a surprise, didn't realize I had enough exps to qualify already. So, I'm happy about this. Yay!

But

I know I recently said on this bboard that I didn't see any problems with harvesting and so forth. I'm also aware that the Devs have promised it's a bug they will fix; but it's killin me! heh. I'm to the point where I can barely craft my own camps. And, apparently, I'm going to have to start harvesting metals, now---something I swore never to do. Can someone tell me about this? I had a surveying tool for this purpose once, but got rid of it. How advanced a skill is metal survey/extraction?

What prices should I now be charging for my hides, bone and meat? The supply is trickling out and I'm no longer going to the bazaar to post stacks at 4cr per any longer. I had to log on this bboard here to see this was the apparent standard. I was afraid to reveal my ignorance, so never asked before. Well, now I am: what price does the Scout community consider fair? I'm thinking double digits for certain.

What armor and weapon should I be using, now? I have a mixture of ubese and composite (mostly for looks heh) and an FWG5 etc with powerup. I'm finding my damage reduced recently OR HAM on my opponents increased in some fashion. It's insidious. I can't quite figure it out.

Anyway, any advice on these matters would be appreciated.

thanks

Kirk2

Kirk,

Congratulations! Welcome to the Master Scout club.

Well, we've got the floors done now, but the walls need a coat of paint. Grab a gnort and start painting. Make sure you get one of the tamer ones, or you're gonna be recleaning those floors, buddy.

So you've got Ranger, any idea what else you want to do?

As for tips on pricing - right now, I've just been asking the crafters to make me an offer. Generally, they'll offer you much more than I would offer to sell for, so you'll make a good profit.

If you are selling on the bazaar, I think the going rate for good quality stuff is between 10-20 credits per hide. So sell them in lots of 100 or 200.

B

Congratulations, Kirkon2

I'll get there one of these days. Not in any real hurry, since the game is still so much a "work in progress".

I'm simply not selling any hides or bone of any kind right now. I have a mining operation on Kauri to support my cash needs, and I need every hide/bone I harvest to build traps and camps. Even then, seems I never have enough. Hopefully there will be a change made to the harvesting code, and we can once again have enough hides to sell to the crafters.

Concerning armor: I use chitin, all pieces made with 18%+ kinetic resistance. I bought this especially for hunting creatures, since that is by far their most common damage type. Seems to work pretty well. With a DL44 high level pistol dealing (I think) 114-185 damage, and a DLT20a rifle doing a bit better than that (both fast weapons), I can usually clear yellow-con NPC's and critters off my harvesters when I have to service them. I have to be careful, but I can do it.

In the case of creatures who camp my harvesters, I used to be able to use maskscent and be able to get in and out without aggroing everything. Maybe I'm just on a bad streak, but with Exploration IV, I can't seem to run through even a group of 5 kreetles anymore without one of them breaking maskscent. Not a problem with those little bugs, but when it happens with bocatts, I'm toast.

For metal extraction, you need to train Novice Artisan. This gives you the Survey and Sample Resources skills. Then, get a mineral extractor from an Artisan, or off the bazaar. "Use" it to both survey for metals, and to extract them as well. If you get to where you need enough metal, you might consider setting a harvester or two. Personal Harvesters require 720 credits and 600 power units per (RL) day to operate on a 24 hour basis. You can usually buy the power for 2cpu, but I find it more cost effective to harvest my own (less than 1cpu). Also, you must be a minimum of about 1 kilometer from town to set a harvester (or a building of any kind, for that matter).

Most new artisans will build and set wind power generators for their power needs. These generators require 1500 credits per RL day to operate. I go another way: I set Personal Extractors to havest either Radioactive minerals, or Liquid Petrochem fuel. These resourcescan usually be found in much higher concentrations than wind power. In addition, if you mine the right one, recent game changes now calculate theenergy you can get from a resource according to it's Energy Potential stat.

Wind power is, without exception, 500 quality Energy Potential. At that number, one Wind Power unit = one Energy Unit. Until the last resource shift on Kauri, I was harvesting a Class 3 Radioactive mineral that had an EP rating of 970. So, with a unit that costs less than half the money to run, I was getting well over twice the Energy Units. Although this fact has been discussed on different forums, not many people have clued into it.

At any rate, unless you are using a lot of metal for camps and traps, you might not think it's worth the hassle to "stoke the boilers" of harvesters, so to speak. On a 60% concentration, running 24 hours, a PME will give you about 2K units of resources. Hand sampling would take many hours to accumulate that much (and the dev's have changed sampling now so that macro's are next to impossible to use).

Oh, and one more thing: You don't need to be an Artisan to set extractors. However, you won't be able to survey beforehand to check that the right kind of mineral at a decent concentration is present where you set it. You can get around this in a couple of ways. You can beg a surveyor to find you a spot to set your extractor, or you can just set it and open it's "menu". When you set a mineralextractor and open it's menu, it will list the minerals it is sitting on, and their concentrations in that spot. This is very hit and miss, and can be expensive, since it costs 1500 non-recoverable credits to pick it up and move it to another spot. You could try just plunking it down in the same spot where a number of other extractors are working, but there is no guarantee that they are extracting the same thing you are looking for.

Hope some of this helps

Dega,

You need to get some better armor.

Check with an armorsmith - you should be able to get a good set of Ubese with 30-40% kinetic resists for 45k,

That's what I paid anyway.

B

Thanks for the advice, all!

Well, I spent a minor fortune (for me) and went full padded armor with some hefty bonuses. So, my personal damage has gone down. Now, however, I have to get back to the mission grind so I can get up the cash for a better weapon.

I did get a mineral survey tool and have forced myself to become one of those kneeling, special effects makers you see all over the place---purty blue rings expanding outwards for no apparent reason heh. Gathering metal in this fashion is tedious.

I forgot to ask in my first post: which planet, now? Meaning, I'm tired of the newbie worlds and need both a bit more challenge and change of scenery. Well, after wasting yet more creds (the bank account is now less than 10k ) I finally discovered Yavin IV. It meets all the requirements---the challenge level is *just* above my current ability. Or, right at it, so I cannot breeze through a mission solo. It took me an hour to do one Maimien (sp) lair last night. I attribute this to my weapon woes. So, I didn't make good cred return on my time, but did, in fact, make awesome exp. Nevertheless, I'm back on Corellia attempting to wrack up more creds so I can go for a DX2 pistol (I guess...I'm hearing bad things about this thing). Once I've gotten a better pistol, I'm heading back to Yavin IV.

This brings up this point: I am pretty much 'forced' to go solo due to RL work schedules and so forth. I tend to frown about game changes that either purposefully or inadvertantly lessen my ability to do this. Now, hunting/harvesting solo doesn't mean I never interact with others, because I certainly do---especially for training.

Also, again I must say that maskscent seems to be working well. I couldn't have made it alive to any of the nearby missions I took on Yavin IV without it. I had to manuever between various crystal snake nests to get to the beach where my mission was. Maskscent kept me alive. It broke once. Then I had a great fight with a giant crystal snake. My pet and I *almost* beat it. If I had been more canny with my keyboard skills, I'd have taken it! Anyway, during all the long battle against the Maimiens, maskscent kept me safe from all other red cons crowded all over the area. Either that, or I'm just lucky heh.

thanks

Kirk2

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DeltaXi65 wrote:

Dega,

You need to get some better armor.

Check with an armorsmith - you should be able to get a good set of Ubese with 30-40% kinetic resists for 45k,

That's what I paid anyway.

B

---

I'm sure I'll have to when I start surveying on the wilder planets, Brisc For now, the chitin cost me about 20K, and it fulfills my requirements. I'm still pretty much sticking withing a 2 klik radius of Mos Eisely. I'm taking it fairly easy, and so far the fun factor is still there.

You know, the fact is that I sell everything I harvest right there in Mos Eisely. The only reason for me to expand my operations will be the challenge. Before I head out to Yavin, Lok, Dantooine, etc., I'll need either a financial reason to do so, or simply need the change in scenery.

For now, the occasional fishing expedition off-planet fills in the gaps. Kind of like my real life, LOL

Wolf,

His name is Mornadak, he's located outside of Moenia.

He's a good friend of mine, so tell him that Brisc sent you.

B