Mask Scent 5 (Source)

I kinda accidentally discovered something on Tatooine the other day. I was running up to bestine when red dots suddenly popped up on my radar. I hit mask and ran through a pack of dewbacks, I immediately got 400 or so exp. I saw a few yellows pop up ahead of me and hit mask again. I got the message "your mask scent has wore off". I found that if I hit it again after this message I could mask again without delay. So I got to thinking and bought a ticket to Lok. What I'm about to post is what I've found out over the last two days. Techniques on how to use mask scent and how to gain scouting XP with it. Now, off the bat your going to need Exploration IV and a ticket to Lok. Gains are decent, I gained about 10k exp the first two hours. I logged in for about 10 mins this morning (timed it) and gained 2k exp. Of course it'll take some practice but I'll lay it out for you best I can...

The Process

OK, so you arrive at the shuttle port in Lok. Head through Nym's stronghold and head south. Just outside of the strong hold to the south is a nice area. There will be some mountains in front of you and some to the left and a small mound to the upper right. Now this'll probly work anywhere on Lok but I found this place to be devoid for the most part of yellow blips on my radar.

Set you mask scent to your toolbar. I have mine set on F9. You'll notice on Lok that there'll be several nests in close proximity (about 75m appart). Face the closest nest and hit tab until you target the closest mob. It'll give you a range by the mob's HAM bar. You'll want to get to about 60-75m away. Hit mask scent and either walk or run twords the mob. Do not walk on top of the mob or directly tword the nest. I've found that mask works alot better by skirting the mob and not closing within 40m of each mob. Generally there are about 5 mobs per nest. If your lucky you'll get 5 gains in a row. Turn off mask scent by hitting your mask button again and run to withing 60-75m of the closest mob at the next nest. Avoid comming within about 80m of any yellows. If you can it's best to kill those yellows.

Now when walking up on the nests some times the creatures will start to detect you and a "?" will pop up over thier heads. If you keep walking at this point your mask is going to be broken. Stop when you see the "?" pop up. You have two options here, you can stand still and wait a few seconds and walk forward. I've found that to be about a 50/50 chance after the "?". Or you can play it safe and turn off mask and run in the opposite direction to avoid aggro and the timer.

Last night the nests were aranged in a nice circle with no aggro in the middle. So I'd approach the first nest, mask at 70m run through, unmask, and repeat on the next 4 or 5 nests. At one time I got through every nest without being detected. It was around 2.5k exp in under 2 mins. There are also not so lucky times where you get detected ever 5 seconds.

Hints

These hints are based off of my findings the last two days. While they are kinda "unprovable" it seemed more often than not these were the cases and these were the things that helped

-Equip your weapon. It will lower the con of the mobs and make it easier for you to mask successfully. A white con with your weapon equipped is a red con without it and con does seem to make a huge difference so immagine how much higher a red con is when your weapon isn't equipped.

-Run or Walk? My findings on this are: walking has less change per check to be detected. However I've also found that the longer my mask is up and the longer I'm in an area the higher the chances are. Walking does make it easier to see the "?" pop up and stop though. Even still, I've been running more lately.

-You can hit the same nest multiple times. I got 8k exp just doing the same 4 nests and rotating between them. However I did notice that the more times I hit up a single nest the more times I got detected.

-DO NOT EVER RUN BETWEEN NESTS MASKED. Never have mask up when you aren't less than 70m from an aggressive mob. Always turn off mask between nests. For some reason I was always revealed like 90% of the time between nests even when there weren't any mobs.

-For some reason the mobs on Lok aren't too aggressive. I've had mask broken 50m away from a mob and it didn't aggro me the 60 seconds it took to wait for mask again. So stay calm, watch your radar and learn at which range the aggro you.

-Zoom out far enough and walk direct enough that you can see all the aggro mobs within 60m while masked. You'll need to do this so you can watch for those "?".

-If you try to mask on one nest and you are detected by a mob you should hit another nest. I've found that about 95% of the time if a mob detects you and you remask and walk by it 60 seconds later it will detect you again. However, if you do another nest and come back the chance of being detected is much lower.

I think that about covers it. I'm not sure if it's faster than harvesting but I did run a few missions with red cons, masked and shot and only pulled out about 12000 xp between mask and harvesting per two mission run. Needless to say, I'm back on Lok. I know there are other people who just can't stand to mindlessly harvest. I also know that there are people like me who intend to use mask scent in their profession. I've found this experience to be invaluable. I can sneak up on a single red con with very high success after doing these nest runs on Lok.

So there ya go, that's the Vertigo method of /maskscent. You guys who'll try it will have to let me know your experiences and how well it worked for you. If you feel inclined feel free to tip me