akicks wrote:Excellent Zun in Grove, Excellent Wood, etc. They have choice near them that pop only at the same time.
Even with 'Choice Only prospect'? I am only asking because I would like to know if this is by design or there is a link with overlapping nodes. All information helps solve the mysteries of Atys, no matter how small and unrelated.
borg9 wrote:Even with 'Choice Only prospect'? I am only asking because I would like to know if this is by design or there is a link with overlapping nodes. All information helps solve the mysteries of Atys, no matter how small and unrelated.
Yes, even with Choice Only prospect. Whenever I find a Choice mat where I don't expect it to be I always toss an Excellent prospect. The BM website is littered with such nodes. The tricky excellent spots are the ones that appear in fields where you'd expect their choice version. I don't know if this holds true in the PR or with Supreme mats as I have yet to prospect a supreme mat myself (PR is too scary atm).
-Raku
Rakujitsu
Tryker, Windermeer
Ballistic Mystix Guild www.ballisticmystix.com
"Life is changing on Atys"
I am not sure if this is mentioned already as I will describe it now, but whenever any new player asks me about tracking, I have a standard reply.
There are three entities to keep in mind when harvesting.
1. Nodes. A node is an area in a region that contains spots of materials
2. Spots. A spot is a few squares where raw mats are in the ground to be found.
3. Sources. A source is the green glowy bulbs.
A node can be big. It can contain multiple grades of mats and multiple types as well. A node is marked with a certain mat/type/grade when the mat should be there. Sometimes (less and less rarely) a node is bugged and says a spot is there while the mat/type/grade is not activated in the node. If you find these, report them so the devs can fix it. There was a seednode in Fount that did this and was fixed. Proves to me devs *do* listen.
Spots move around within the node. This is a very slow process, but whenever I haven been in a region for a few weeks, I just notice things are afew meters off from the location I first found them.
A spot can be depleted, but a node can contain more then one spot. So after the depletion message, move around a bit, there might be more of that mat to be found.
On tracking. Tracking will find you the exact location (square) that is linked to that node (!). As stated before, a node can be big, so spots can be far away from the center of said node. So the reason you dont seem to find sources is simple cause they arent there *at that exact spot* to begin with.
Tracking is very usefull to:
- Find a general location for a specific mat/type/grade. Like looking for excellent motega wood in Fount.
- Check if a mat of a type/grade can be found at what time. Depending on the message that it is not near, you can deduct wether you are in the right season/time/weather.
- Search a region quickly. Keep in mind that your tracking range used might not overlap the whole of the region, so move around a bit.
Tracking is not meant to:
- find the exact spot location. Prospecting is meant to do that.
Now on prospecting.
I had a discussion with a guide about this. It is all about the calculation of chances and squares involved. Using an enormous angle (say 360) and a very long range (say 60m) you will prospect an area of pi*60^2 = 11310 square meters. When you have 8 sources active in you prospect the following will happen in the server calculations:
- are any active spots located within your prospect?
- do they apply to your prospect on mat/type/grade?
- are they active?
- are they filled with mats?
Now think about the following:
- With that a wide angle and range, you increase the chance to find inactive spots due to season/time/weather.
- With that a wide angle and range, you increase the chance to dinf empty spots.
- With that a wide angle and range, you will find huge tracks of ... land that are simple barren, no spots present at all.
Assume a spot is 16 m2 and 6 spots are present in the 11310 m2 you looked in. One is depleted, on is not of the right type, one is not in the right type/grade due to weather and one is not of the right type/grade due to season. Only one spot could pop up.
Then add the fact that you always have a certain *chance* to find something, as stated in the desciptions and a relative tiny area, compared to the whole area prospected, could pop a source. And this one spot is overshadowed by the others wanting to give of a message too.
When this comes down to a tie, I think the message "No sources could be found" comes up.
So my conclusion to the question: Is tracking useless?
No it is not, but you will need a few harvesting lvls for it to be effective. Just keep in mind:
- You track for a node, not for a spot.
- It is meant to look for specific mats. In fact, it works awfully well using matspecs like excellent motega wood.
- For tracking to be usefull, you will need a long range and matspecs, as nodes can contain more then one mat/type/grade.
- Scanning a huge area with prospecting is not usefull, as the amount of focus used is excessive. Use tracking for this.
- Combine calculation of chances, randomizers in general and computers and some odd things tend to come up. There is no such thing as perfect random, luckily nowadays we have Pretty Good Random.
This post became much more lenghty then I planned it to be, but tracking is one of my pet peeves. Underestimated, not understood and generally scolded, while it should deserve praise.
Okee, tracking is like a woman. If you dont understand it, dont touch it. If you touch it just right, a treasure to have around.
Last edited by hans1976 on Thu Jun 23, 2005 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Foraging question - is deposit tracking working?
wrong, you get a slap!
