Throw Trap Context 9 (Source)

http://swgforums.swganh.org/viewtopic.php?search_id=2041346817&t=442724

Ok, new Rangers! Listen up:

Hunting is darn fun. With Ranger skills you can take down some of the biggest animals in the Galaxy. It doesn't matter if you're big or small, because almost any animal you bother to hunt will be at least twice your size and strength. What matters is whether or not you can outsmart the critters. There will always be something stronger than you, but you'll always be smarter than them. Or you'll have a short hunt.

Chapter One: Run and how to evade:

When approaching unfamiliar animals you better be ready to book it if they turn out to be social. Some critters don't care if their pack mates are being killed, while others do. With new animals always approach from the furthest distance and attack from the furthest distance and be ready to hit Burst Run if aggressive flags appear over the whole swarm.

While Rangers are nimble and fast, many large animals, thankfully, are not. Almost anything with wings and almost any cat in the game can run you down. Be very careful testing them. But most quadrapeds and bipeds can't outrace you. And if they do, try this: Run up a hill. Many animals will slow down enough to let you escape them.

Try to get at least 100 yards from a creature and hit peace. This should end the fight except for very tenacious animals. Also, if you trap an animal it will not cease to be angry with you and want to kill you until after the trap effect wears off. More of that later in Trapping.

Hills: If you're at least a Master Scout, always head for a hill when evading an animal. If there are no hills, but gullies, run across the gully, then run up the top edge of the gully, then across. The animal will not always follow you in a direct line, and the time they waste running up the gully walls could put distance between the two of you. If you are on perfectly flat terrain, always run straight. Dodging and turning will NOT help you.

Chapter Two: Gunfire and animal control

This depends on your level of skill with a weapon, but say you're really good. There are a number of gun tricks that can help you take down game or even save your life. These are:

Warning shot: Scares animal away for a moment.

Threaten shot: Same thing.

Suppression Shot: Makes animal stop in its tracks by forcing it to kneel. Animal may not look like it's kneeling, but it will stay still for about 5 seconds.

Combos: Warning shot, wait till animal goes away, suppression shot. You can then shoot animal with impunity until it gets up. The effectiveness of warning shot depends on the timidity or lack thereof of the animal. Cu Pas will run up to 90 meters away from warning shot. Rancors, on the other hand, think you're trying to pet them.

Chapter Three: Gunfire and killing the animal

You will learn the benefit of gunshots that cause DOT, or damage-over-time. The main one is called bleeding shot. If you have pistol, you can 'stack' shots by doing more than one. This essentially causes the animal to bleed twice or even three times as fast. It takes about 20 seconds for an animal to start bleeding after the hits. Most of your big game animals will take most damage once your bleeding shots kick in. Bleeding shot lasts two minutes. If the fight goes over two minutes, reapply the shots.

DO NOT let yourself be killed by your own guns. By this I mean using specials to the point that you are exhausted, and the animal only has to hit you once and you die. If you spam special shots, you will be causing much damage to the animal, but much damage to yourself. The animal might have 10,000 action points, but you only have 1000. All the above-mentioned shots take action points. You should save your action points for these shots, and for taking hits from a creature that ends up getting within melee or spitting distance of you. That leads us to:

Chapter Four: Trapping

Traps give the Ranger an incredible edge. Your skill with your traps will determine the outcome of a hunt. The most important traps to use for ranged fighters are:

Phecnacine Dart

Glowire mesh

Adhesive mesh

Stink Bomb

Bone Spur

Phecnacine and Glowire will be your bread and butter if you are already a strong ranged fighter. Traps last seconds, not minutes, so it's easy to spend all your available shooting time throwing other traps. If you throw three traps, the first one is already set to wear off. And that's WITHOUT a trap failure. So....

Throw the Phecnacine first. The Phecnacine will be you 'pull' trap. Pull is the word used to describe the first engagement with the animal. Trap range is 50 yards. It takes action points to throw a trap - another reason why you should not burn all action with special attacks.

Combat will begin as soon as you throw the trap, but the animal will not react until the trap hits them. Then, the animal will stand up if it's laying down, which gives you more time to throw your second trap: The glowire.

The glowire drops both the animals ranged and melee defenses. This will allow you to cause more damage. If you have pistol knockdown this is a melee attack. (But you should not rely on knockdown except for emergencies because it is only used succesfully once every 30 seconds, costs a lot of action, and puts you in melee range of the creature.)

So, in the time it takes for the animal to start coming toward you, you should be able to apply a phecnacine and a glowire and one more thing: your bleeding shots. Do not spam the traps. If you throw the snare trap and hit the second trap, and the first one fails, then the animal will be running toward you while you're throwing a glowire. Yay! The animal's melee defenses will be down while it hits you for hundreds of hit points. Throw the phecnacine and watch the effect. If the trap fails, you still have time to throw another phecnacine. If that fails, start running and throw a third. Sometimes that fails too, so you should still have time to do a fourth. If that fails, run, get distance, and try again in a little while.

Adhesive Mesh: This roots the animal, sticking it in one spot. The reason phecnacine should be thrown first is because while the animal will move while snared, it'll only go a few meters. Plus, phecnacine traps are five per bundle whereas Adhesive Mesh are two. And Phecnacine come from Ranger ingredients, whereas meshes need polymer and metal.

If you are fighting something serious, and do not want to wait for the phecnacine to wear off because you can't afford the chance the animal can catch you before you realize it's unsnared, throw adhesive mesh. This stacks on the snare effect. Then once the adhesive mesh is about to wear off, you will be able to snare it with phecnacine again. Cycling like this can keep an animal in one spot a long time.

IF the animal is snared and defenses dropped, your leading shots should be your bleed shots. Bleed shot first always so that it starts bleeding quicker and dies faster.

Stink Bomb: Makes the animal more likely to suffer your special attacks

Bone spur: Blinds the animal, making it miss more. More effective against animals with ranged attack.

Chapter Five: Traps and Creature Evasion

Say a melee animal catches you. What then?

DO NOT RUN LIKE A CU PA to evade a strong animal if it's already hitting you. You will not escape, believe me. You will have to use a special move with your gun so the animal will disengage you. This is where warning shot, knockdown, or threaten shot is handy. Suppression fire will make it kneel, but it will still be attacking you from kneeling. If you use suppression fire, back off. But suppression works only once in 30 seconds, not once on each animal. That's why warning and threaten shot are handy for evasion.

Once the animal 'let's go' of you, start running and at the same time use adhesive mesh, or if you're out, phecnacine. Keep running! Get about 50 yards away, or whatever distance you need to apply the next snare or root trap after the first wears off.

Again, keep in mind, animals will still be aggressive to you, regardless of distance, as long as they are trapped. You can take a flight to Coronet and that Baz Nitch will still have you on his hit list.

Chapter Six: Team support

A Ranger throwing only traps is of huge support to a team, especially while fighting social animals. If the Ranger is throwing only snares and roots, he can perform effective animal control that keeps the animals at a safe distance from her teammates. The team can then concentrate fire on one animal at a time while they are safe from all of them. If the Ranger is engaging the animals in gunfire, she won't notice when other animals are being freed from their snares. Also, the fog of battle can make it hard to tell what is moving and what's not. Try to get on ground slightly higher than the battle and keep everything in view while performing animal control. Without firing a weapon, a Ranger can better see what is happening, and has time to apply traps that benefit the team. You can throw everything in your trap line in this case. Make many, many traps before the hunt and during downtime. It doesn't hurt if the other scouts and rangers in the time contribute some of the hides and bone and meat they harvest to you for your expenditures.

Chapter Seven: Cornered and Outnumbered

If the solo Ranger is outnumbered, things can get ugly fast. However, special gun moves and trap application can again determine the outcome. Warning shot is excellent in an outnumbered situation. When you're outnumbered, you will spend twice or more the amount of traps. If you are facing two animals, warning shot one, knockdown the other, back off, apply snares or roots to both of them. Usually a Ranger will only fight two or more animals if the only alternative is death. Fighting multiple animals may be exciting, but it's usually a losing battle. The ability to determine when to run or when to fight can only come through many engagements with the species you're fighting. Be cautious at first, but as your skills increase you will be amazed to see what you can live through... sometimes.

Chapter Eight: Rescue

The beings in a team you will want to rescue EVERY time are the medics. If they die, your team is out of luck. If a ranger or a fighter dies, but the medic lives, you may survive as a team. Rescue requires the rescuee to cease fire. Train your team medics to cease fire if you are rescuing them. The animal attacking the medic will then attack you. But if the medic attacks the animal, it will re-engage the medic. It's well-known that medics are a favorite snack of all animals, so keep an eye on them.

If you hit rescue, you should see all the animals attacking the rescuee turn to you. If the turning is not obvious, you will notice their HAM bars appear. The rescue action has no other feedback to let you know if you succesfully pulled an animal to you. You will wave your arms and lose mind points for rescue. Rescue is usually immediately followed by burst run. Some Rangers have been observed flying all over the hills of Dathomir with up to six million Baz Nitches in hot pursuit.

That's it! Happy Hunting!

Please add your insights so the Galactic Ranger Fieldbook can become more comprehensive. I know nothing about hunting as a Melee fighter except my Teras Kasi Master friend is an uber-tank.