Scout Archive

Well, Last night 2 of my RL friends, my wife and I went to Talus for the first time. We decided we were going to head out east of Dearic and tackle the Pirate base. Here is a brief account of our journey andwhatwe encountered there.

First of all, you must fly from Corellia to get to Talus. On Talus, there are two Cities and one Imperial Base. The cities themselves are not very heavily populated, so finding training or pickup groups may be a bit tough. Also, the Imperial Base has just a few structures, including a cloning center, medic center and bank, but no Cantina (boring Imperials).

My party consisted of me, my pet ronto, my wife Myra the Doctor, and my two friends Tulvan and Oraia. Since I was the scout, I led the way with Maskscent while they trailed behind quite a bit. I ran into several red creatures along the way, so this setup was probably the best.

The Pirate base itself was quite a long ways east of Dearic, very nearly to the edge of the map. Between Dearic and the Pirate base the land is made up of rolling hills, with one great big ravine (and I meanDEEP ravine). Therefore, scouts will need to be aware of leaving their part behind due to terrain navigation. Also, creatures had a tendancy to spawn right on top of me as I traveled.

I ran into several very large creatures. Tortur Bulls and such. I can't remember all of their names right now, but the wild life varied quite a bit. There were of course Pirates and such along the way. These camps of NPCs had a tendancy to spawn really fast.

Most of the creatures we fought would have anywhere from 3000 to 7000 hitpoints. They would yield on average 40 units of harvested resources. The nice thing about the harvested resources is that at least one resource harvested from each creature type would have several stats above 900. The Dalyrakes, which are large spider-like animals would yeild very nice hide. Whatever you do, don't harvest bone from the Torturs (which looked like giant turtles). These Torturs literally shake the entire planet when they land and are big enough to fill my screen while zoomed out, and I got one bone from a skinny Tortur, hehe. Also, most of the creatures are social, except for the NPCs and Cats.

Anyway, we finally made it to the Pirate base. It was a small structure with an underground section. It was filled with approximately 16 NPC Pirates, including the Pirate Chieftan (not sure why it was a Pirate Chieftan, instead of say a Pirate Captain) at the very bottom. Unfortunately, after we cleared the base, they didn't respawn again the rest of the time we were out there. There were also some MagSeal containers in there. The loot was standard NPC stuff (clothes, skill enhancers, CDEFs, etc). The Chieftan dropped a junky DL44.

After clearing the Pirate base we hunted the area for a while longer. In conclusion, I will say that you don't need a big group tohandle Talus. However, my pet Ronto has 5500 hp and hits for 190-200. With out him it would've been much tougher, although not impossible. Most creatures hit in the upper 100's and swing pretty fast. The Dalyrake's willeven poison you. We are planning on checking out the other two NPC dungeons on Talus later this week, possibly even tonight. Once I get a better feel for the planet, and check out all the stats on my harvested stuff, I will try and remember to give a more detailed scout report. Please feel free to add your own Talus knowledge to this thread.

Overall, I say Talus is a good spot to hunt and harvest resources. Unfortunately, it's not for the solo scout. So, bring some friends and have a good time.

Thanks, but some of us started on Talus. I never understood why so many scouts come from "urban" worlds.... In any case that was a very informative post, for people that didn't learn where the pirates were the hard way.

Heh, I started on Naboo. Needless to say, when I moved on to Tatooine (and later visited Talus) I was in for a big shock. I'm not sure how a newb would handle the wilds of Talus.

Still, I love the planet and will be visiting there often.

I've lived on Talus my whole career, and I must say my development it going slowly, for two reasons:

1) Creature difficulty: Even paralopes and song rasps can be deadly to the ill-equipped new scout. I can't speak about 'docile' creatures on other planets, but there are some awfully lethal 'docile' critters on Talus.
2) Low Population: The riverbanks are teeming with wildlife, but it can be hard to find training (from PC's at least) and good weapon/armor smiths in town. (Which of course only helps to compound #1). I think the largest hunting party I've seen was five people, but then things might be different in different Galaxies...

I'm thoroughly enjoying my frequent near-death experiences among the Mottled Wrix, Kahmurras and sludge panthers, but its certainly a challenging (and IMHO beautiful) place.

My friends and I hunt there about 3 times a week. The exp is amazing (1,000 Trap off one Tortur) and the harvests are marvelous. It's a beautiful and challenging planet. I would recommend a 5-7 member party with one good medic, a tank and a pet or two (or three). Oh yeah don't forget to clone.

finky,

I too am enjoying your home planet. However, I would certainly advise anyone to train on a different planet, and come back to Talus later. I found Naboo to be entirely to docile, with very little challenge for the adventurous scout. However, on Tatooine, near Mos Eisley, I found exactly the challenge level I needed. Unfortunately, Tatooine is a very ugly planet. Still, it does provide all levels of difficulty for the novice hunter, all with in reach of town. NPC thieves in town for the potential loot. Standard noob critters around town in abundance. Lots of players frequent the town making for quick pickup groups, medical center populated by advanced doctors, entertainers by the score in Cantinas and lots of Business/Training opportunities. Also, if you head out east of town you will quickly run into more difficult critters which make for good group dynamics.

Xy,

Hey! You need to get down to the Lianorm Swamp area, and the area down near Naboo. There are some parts of my home planet that'll curl your toes.

B

I started on Talus and I remain fond of it, but I didn't really start to rake in the XP and App XP until I went to Corellia. I'm just about to hit Master Scout and I decided to goto Naboo for a change of scenery. I would agree Talus can be harder for a brand new scout and it's nearly impossible to solo some parts. I figure I'll go back to Talus once I make Novice Ranger and explore areas I always got wiped out trying to traverse. Plus I'd like to build a house there too.