Headway

[Tovan]

Last night, the latest incarnation of Tovan made Master Ranger. That was pretty nice. Also, he got a contract to track something for a Jedi-to-be, his first so far.

Server lag toward the end last night was fairly incredible. Crafting traps was downright painful; it took over 10 seconds just to load a schematic. That made tracking and hunting almost unbearable; by the time I'd get to a mob often it would either have de-spawned or someone had killed it.

Still, that was only during the last three hours of the server being up. Overall, lag has not been much of an issue, less this past weekend than at other recent times.

There are some decent resource spawns right now; Rori herbivore meat is pretty good, for instance. There's a good spawn of lubricating oil about 1000m NW out of Bela Vistal; OQ is 913 and it's a big deposit.

The old camo-everyone-in-sight trick works just fine. That will help you secure those last few tens of thousands of scouting experience points; it got me around 114,000 Saturday evening while I was out hunting. Make sure you have a bunch of camouflage kits in your inventory, then target everyone with a weapon or combat profession tag and use /conceal. It goes faster with a hot-bar button. Make sure you also get the people in front of the starport and at the mission terminals. Camo does not go away at this time once applied, except at logout. Similarly, mask scent sticks around forever, even after a creature detects you, until you log out.

I will say this, every time the emu goes down or gets deadlocked, they've fixed something when it comes back up. That smells like progress to me. Bearing in mind that this is a test server, lag and the other quirks of the emu are more than tolerable.
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Colonel Tovan Cassidine
Master Ranger - Master Rifleman
Consumer of beverages and eater of foods.

[kefkah]

Thanks for the update, Tovan. Good to know things are moving along. The lag is going to be the make or break for many.
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MMOFringe.com

[Tovan]

Interestingly enough, after I reported on the lag and other issues, the server was up and down frequently for a few days, after which much of the lag had disappeared. I've participated in a couple of stress tests since that time and, while lag was pretty high during those times, the game was still playable. After the tests, the system returned to normal performance each time. Crafting is no longer painful (I also have a smuggler and a master artisan working on armorsmith) and harvesting is more reliable (I gathered 172K Talusian leathery hides in about three hours Saturday).
Decent find: OQ 971.

Also, the bug where a creature will teleport 2500m away mid-fight seems to have been mostly resolved.

Of course, lag seems to be worst when there are a few ub3r l33t Jedi pwning n00bs in front of the starport in a major city while the spammers try to sell you your own socks. Go figure.

Speaking of good finds, Endorian bristly hide is also pretty good right now. I have a contract to gather a bunch for a master AS. Also, Rori avian meat.

There is not yet any harvesting of lairs, nor milking of creatures, but I suspect there will be when bio-engineer and creature handler are fully functional.

There is a bug associated with /teach of which you should be aware. If one offers to teach someone and that person leaves the group before refusing or accepting your offer, you will not be able to /teach until after the server is reset. You know as well as I that master rangers are often called upon to train prospective bounty hunters, squad leaders, bio-engineers, and creature handlers, not to mention all those master scouts and novice rangers. So, it's a pretty annoying bug that you might experience if not careful. You have been warned.

Finally, the economy is healthy. Artisans, armorsmiths, doctors, chefs, and tailors are all buying up organics to produce their wares. Buff kits can now be crafted and, while Doctors ran out of buff kits not long ago and there was not a decent spawn to re-supply them, there are now sufficient spawns to begin making them again.

So, I'd say the future's so bright we gotta wear shades.
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Colonel Tovan Cassidine
Master Ranger - Master Rifleman
Consumer of beverages and eater of foods.

[Bilos]

Thanks for the update, Tovan. I just got back into the Emu, and having fun right now with my weak Unarmed Brawler/lowbie Scout. I really wish the devs would increasing the harvesting on the spawns, but I'm guessing it's higher when you get to Ranger.

Nothing in our profession is ever easy, is it?

[Tovan]

Nothing for rangers is ever easy; that's what makes us special.

Harvesting increases dramatically when you become a ranger and again at master ranger.
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Colonel Tovan Cassidine
Master Ranger - Master Rifleman
Consumer of beverages and eater of foods.