Hello all. The following is a short guide on the pros and cons of the /areatrack command:
Tips:
Tracking can NOT find what the server has not spawned yet. This means that you need to have been in the area long enough for a critter to spawn. Ex. You can not fly into an area on a speeder and jump off and track. The server takes a moment to recognize that you are there and will then spawn accordingly
Tracking can NOT force anything to spawn. Rangers can not make a critter appear out of thin air. We hope to have a /track command implemented that will grant us this ability (in a limited fashion).
A typical tracking routine is to set up a grid of waypionts and to serach at regular intervals based on that grid. Remember to wait a few seconds to track when you enter a new area, to allow the server to catch up with you. Other methods include having a group of people roaming around inside an area (this is generally called 'stirring up spawns') while the Ranger tracks within that area.
The radius of tracking is 500m which means we can track anything that is within 500m of us, that has spawned.
What does tracking look like to a Ranger? Well, when we issue the /areatrack command, we get a window that asks us to choose what we want to track (based on our skills); Animal, NPC, or PC. We select what we want to track and there is an animation. We then get a list of results, or a message saying there is nothing to track in the area. The list or results consists of a the MOB type; displayed as the full critter name including the baby tag if it is one, or the NPC name incliding it's type [such as Ophelia (a Nightsister Ranger)], or a Player's name (no title or faction affiliation is displayed) and a direction and distance, if we have the appropriate skill boxes trained. There is no waypoint to the target, so multiple tracks may be necessary.
Bugs:
There seems to be a 'hole' in traking that occurs around 100m from you. Often you can not track critters that are at this distance from you, even though you can see them.
Another bug is the terrain bug. Often, you can not track a critter that is above or below the elevation you are at. I would actually rate this bug as a 'rare occurrence.' Others see it as more common than I do.
To reiterate, if the server hasn't spawned something, you can't track it (ok, not a bug, but a very important thing to mention). Almost every Ranger has been in the following situation:
Ranger: Nope, I didn't track anyhting
Peep: I am looking right at one!!!
Please feel free to add any comments you wish, and i will keep this post updated, as I am sure I missed something.
Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 10-12-200404:03 PM
Calculus Entropy Ranger Blue Glowie Emeritus Garindan used /areatrack to find Han.
At Master Ranger the radius is 500m. Which equals a 1KM circle you see around you.
Novice - a report of animals spawned nothing else
Tracking 1 - direction
Tracking 2 - NPCs
Tracking 3 - distance
Tracking 4 - players
(I feel like i got 2 and 3 backwards)
Canon Fodder - The former Ranger/CH now unplayed Smuggler Down to one account and thats only because its a station pass Currently a Droid Commander in City of Villians (really)
Another method of tracking is to run the route to and from popular POI. Since there is a limit to the number of items that can exist on a planet at any given time, coupled with the fact most spawn is generated by the presence of PCs, it follows that major traffic areas (say to and from the tusken fort) between cities and POI are very good ways to find spawn -- it is also the best way to "wean the population" of unwanted spawn so that others may generate.
Also note that the maximum number of results you can get back from /areatrack is 50 (I believe) and this can have an effect on your range especially in cities. if the farthest track result you get is 500m or so away, you prolly didn't miss anything. But if 100m is the farthest thing that shows up in /areatrack, it's because you are in a dense area and will need to use the skill more often.
Also, calc you should check your first line for typeos.
Message Edited by Eklectrick on 08-05-200411:08 AM
Star Wars Galaxies or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Jedi.
AgonThalia wrote: Vertical Terrain (ie: mountainous) is calculated as horizontal terrain, therefore, your tracking range is somewhat lessened.
In other words, the 500 meters is not as the crow flies, but a ground length.
Hmm, implementing a distance metric that measures the distance "along the terrain surface" would be hellishly difficult and/or slow. Knowing that the SOE devs are not known to go out of their way to create difficulties for themselves, I will go out a limb and say that the distace is more likely to be calculated using the classical distance metric in euclidian spaces:
d=sqrt((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2+(z2-z1)^2) where (x1,y1,z1) are your coordinates in the 3d game coordinate system and (x2,y2,z2) are that of the tracked mob.
This would shorten the effective tracking range where you and the mob are at different altitudes. For example, lets say your tracking range is 450m. If you are at 0,0 and the mob at 0,400 at the same altitude (z1=Z2), then the mod would be tracked. If the mob is 300m higher then you, the straight line distance would calculate as 500m and the mob would be beyond the detection range.
As for the detection hole around 100m, this may be an artifact of the way the data strucures are managed as the player moves around. We know that because of efficiency reasons, only mobs closest to the player are fully realized, eg the AI starts to function at 64m unless something triggers it, lairs and mobs tends to reset beyond 128m, etc. Tracking is one of the few (maybe only) instances where the player interacts with mobs beyond the 128m radius. My guess would be that the tracking code actually has two different subroutines for near and far mobs and sometimes a mob falls between the cracks.
___________________________________________________ Beri Beri Syrin--ex Master Ranger & Veteran of the Great Hotpants Wars, current n00bissimo.
d=sqrt((x2-x1)^2+(y2-y1)^2+(z2-z1)^2) where (x1,y1,z1) are your coordinates in the 3d game coordinate system and (x2,y2,z2) are that of the tracked mob.
What about the "ghost" spawn tracking problem? Very very very often on tracking you see a particular spawn (most usually one you happen to be looking for) and it shows at say 150m NW. WITHOUT moving the slightest bit you /areatrack again and you don't see the spawn any longer. It's there one second and not the next. I don't consider this the same "detection" problem you describe because even if you go 150m NW and look or track again the spawn is still NOT there. No matter how many times you track or how many circles you drive in that area nothing ever spawns even though you did see it on tracking that one time. (and no, it's NOT because someone killed it and left. there are never any corpses nor any players around, just nothing at all like the spawn never existed.)
What about the "ghost" spawn tracking problem? Very very very often on tracking you see a particular spawn (most usually one you happen to be looking for) and it shows at say 150m NW. WITHOUT moving the slightest bit you /areatrack again and you don't see the spawn any longer. It's there one second and not the next. I don't consider this the same "detection" problem you describe because even if you go 150m NW and look or track again the spawn is still NOT there. No matter how many times you track or how many circles you drive in that area nothing ever spawns even though you did see it on tracking that one time. (and no, it's NOT because someone killed it and left. there are never any corpses nor any players around, just nothing at all like the spawn never existed.)
OK, one more SWAG:
The spawn are despawned, probably as part of a server load compensation, e.g. someone forces creation of a mission lair elsewhere on the server, and the load manager poofs one of the lairs in an "empty" area to keep resource usage below certain limits. When you track just after this event, of course, you don't find the lair.
I have seen this happen to individual mobs and lairs. For example, I might be working a lair, with some other lairs in the vicinity. Usually, they stay where they are, and I can see the same lair and mobs appear and disappear in my radar over and over again as I move in and out of detection range. Then, poof, one of them disappears while out of range and doesn't appear again.
___________________________________________________ Beri Beri Syrin--ex Master Ranger & Veteran of the Great Hotpants Wars, current n00bissimo.
Thanks for putting this info out there, with the current correlian avian boom /areatrack has been the bain of my existence. I'll keep these pointers in mind and see how it helps.
I'm working up the Tracking tree in ranger (mainly for harvesting bonuses and such). I'm MRifleman/MMarksman, looking for some speed tapes so I can surrender some skill points to probably go more into Ranger skills. Anyway, I'm at Tracking 3 so far and I would just like to know if anyone else has experienced what I'm about to describe.
You say that Rangers can only track that which is spawned...well...,
I was on Lok the other day hunting Gurks for leathery hide and on my way to one of my missions I hopped off my speeder and did an /areatrack just to see if I could find a larger lair spawn. I saw some Gurks pop up that weren't the regular name. I can't remember the names but there were a few Enraged Gurk somethingorothers and several others whos names escape me. It was a server spawned lair, not my mission. Just to see how powerful these things were, I went to their location and all I saw was a lair w/ about 5 regular named gurks around it, nothing else in the area and none of the ones I saw pop up on my tracking list. I figured it was just a glitch so I comensed to taking down the lair w/ my droid out in the fray. I had about wiped out the entire spawn when one of em started running away so I ran it down and finished it off. I came back and kneeled about 40m away from the lair which was about 3/4 destroyed. I waited a couple minutes to make sure there were no others to spawn and seeing none, I commenced to finishing off the lair. At about 15% left in the lair, it exploded and all those unusual named Gurks jumped out and ran me down...having only food buffs and only BE clothing on I went down rather quickly. Luckily I cloned nearby and was able to come back quickly and have my revenge.
I've seen higher lvl creatures spawn from a lair when it's at low HP, and this obviously seemed to be that case. My question is this, if Tracking only picks up those mobs which have spawned, how come I picked up those creatures that were inside the nest and didn't spawn until the lair was almost destroyed? I suppose there could have been some in the area, but I recall checking track again before I tagged the lair, and those creatures were in the direction of the lair I had targeted. I also recall checking the area, but I suppose I could have missed them cuz I was focusing on collecting the hides from this rather large spawn of Gurks.
Has anyone ever noticed this or did I just miss the ones already spawned in the area?
Thank you for all your hard work on this. This was extremely helpful!!!
knil
MCM/fencer (soon to be ranger/fencer)
knil MF - Im glad I dont have to walk around in RL carrying a baton MM - Cant live without it Novice Swordsman - Great...Now my strongest weapon is a Hammer...
