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Xcom
Gallente Genco Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate
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Posted - 2007.11.07 05:57:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Xcom on 07/11/2007 06:05:47 Edited by: Xcom on 07/11/2007 05:59:12 Today I went on sisi to test out the new feechers added to sisi on drones. This is what I found. New drone options, drone behaviour changes and fancy hot keys. This post WILL NOT BE ABOUT DRONE BANDWAITH so no need discussing it.
I did a lot of experiments on belt rats and in this thread, present the findings for your viewing pleasure.
As we all know by now, the drone UI can be removed from the Overview and moved anywhere on the screen. A new feecher by CCP. But what you probably havenÆt heard are the new changes on drones. The full drone code have probably not been added on sisi so things might change in time. LetÆs hope itÆs for the better and not crucify the devs, yet.
Well letÆs start at the beginning. WhatÆs been added?
Pic of Windows
Drones engaging targets
Pic of hotkeys
You can see the new drone option window that has been added. Something very fancy and really cool. Other small changes like the health bars on the drones have been put into one row. Very nice butà seriously, you need a telescope to see the health bars. But I wonÆt complain itÆs still nice. Some major design issues in this area. More about it later. The fancy indicators on what targets are being drone attacked. Really nice! Something a lot of people have been screaming for. And ofc the most important part. HOT KEYS!!!111 what we have all been waiting for. And they work.
Drone options window and drone behaviour
From observing the drones for hours I came to these conclusions.
The primary behaviour of all drones is to attack anything that aggresses you or your drones after they have been launched. Of course this is directly the opposite of what you would expect of drones in passive mode. No matter what setting they are set on, passive or not passive. This means that drones in passive mode will attack any new aggressor just after it has been launched from drone bay. After they are dun killing the target they will go idle. They will stay idle from now on until ordered to attack. Meaning even new aggressors wonÆt get them to attack.
The behaviour is clear on what happens after the drone is dun killing a target. On passive mode it stops and goes idle. Aggressive it picks a new target. This means it will auto attack. What it will auto attack is unclear. I have no idea if they will attack structures in missions or go off and aggress new targets without your consent.
If set on aggressive mode the drones seemed to attack in focus fire. Even with the ôfocus fireö toggled off they attacked in focus fire. The focus fire button seamed to not matter at all. Take it into account that drone grouping have NO effect. The focus fire button has no meaning either in the cases where if the drones attack multiple targets and one drone finishes killing one target. In this case you would think it would help the other drones if set on focus fire, but instead it picks a new target.
In one experiment I had drones 1-3 attack target 1 and drone 4 attack target 2. Drone 5 finished attacking its target. Completely ignoring what the other drones were up too. It went off and started to attack a new target. In other words, ôFocus fireö seems to be a bit buggy at this moment.
Doing several experiments I came to that drones attack in one linier attack pattern if set on aggressive mode. Passive you pick the targets for the drones but aggressive they auto engage new targets in a very specific way. They attack what I would call the smallest target. IÆm not sure how or who is there smallest target but they seem to start with Frigs over Cruisers and Cruisers over BS. Subsequently they go for the smaller targets first. Frig > Cruise > BS.
I havenÆt dun experiments on
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Xcom
Gallente Genco Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate
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Posted - 2007.11.07 05:58:00 -
[2]
Edited by: Xcom on 07/11/2007 06:01:39 My opinions
1. Drones in focus fire should attack together whatsoever in aggressive mode. But if itÆs off, they should spread out and NOT attack the same targets. 2. Drones in passive mode should NOT attack anything until ordered to. Referring to the auto attack they do when launched. 3. Drones in aggressive mode shouldnÆt sit there and look dumb if the owner or the drones are under attack. Any aggressive drone in idle should seek new targets. They should inn fact never have an idle mode as long as anything is aggressing the owner or the drones. Drones seem to only aggress a new target automatically if the target starts attacking, if they just finished killing a target or if you attack a new target.
They donÆt start aggressing new targets ifà àyou release your drones after everything have started shooting you. àyou told your drones to come back and orbit. àno targets were inside drone range when they were supposed to pick a new target or the aggressors were outside drone range. This is where drones in aggressive mode will fail. They should auto target new targets in these cases. Otherwise drones in aggressive mode wonÆt have a proper role.
Targeting icon
The target bar now shows drones attacking your target, like turrets. Only that 1 picture indicates 1 or more drones attacking it.
Picture of 3 targets getting attacked by drones
Picture of 5 drones attacking one target
The first pic shows 3 targets with each having at least one drone attacking it. The second pic shows 5 drones attacking one target.
The overview window
The drone health bars are now in one line. But they are kind of too small. ItÆs impossible to see things clearly. Your drones need to take some hefty damage before you notice anything.
The health bars are a bit buggy to. They donÆt update the health properly, similar to the shield bug on your ship when undocking. They also display some damage. Even with full health. If damage is received they go back up to max and go down from there.
The drone info text has received some update to. ItÆs now possible to see what your drone is attacking. The drone text now looks like this. Drone (status) (targets name).
But there are some problems with the whole overlapping issue. The bar is made so that the drone info text is on the left and the health bar is on the right. Resizing the window will make them move accordingly health bar moving along the right side and text to the left. Meaning, if the window is too small the text displaying the drone info will overlap the health bars and clutter everything up. This results in you having to expand the window into some oversized monster so the stuff donÆt overlap.
Pic of overlapping
An easy fix would be to have the health bars overlap everything. That way you could make the window smaller at a cost of removing parts of the drone text info. Parts I believe are not that big of a deal to have in your overview.
Drone hot keys
Well what else is there to say? You can now assign drones into hot keys.
The only problem is the launch. There is no way to hotkey any drone to launch from overview. You simply have to use the old way for this. Would be nice if there were a solution for this.
Other bugs
The random pick issue is not fixed yet. Drones still randomly pick new targets after 30-50 seconds.
The drone humping issue where drones get stuck to each other and slow down is not fixed either.
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Neth'Rae
Gallente The Scope
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Posted - 2007.11.07 06:03:00 -
[3]
Yay hotkeys, that's awesome :)
"th-ere.. w-as... re..ally.. a caa-ke.." |
Ulver X
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Posted - 2007.11.07 06:44:00 -
[4]
Thanks for the info I was also going to look at this but I am far to lazy to log into the test server.
Also I think the thing where they attack anything that agro's you is left intact for pvp. If you were damped/jammed when the new cycle started the drones would attack which in some cases is enough to scare off the attacker.
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Sheriff Jones
Amarr Please Enter Password
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Posted - 2007.11.07 07:52:00 -
[5]
Edited by: Sheriff Jones on 07/11/2007 07:52:42 So, basically people still won't be happy?
*takes out a shield repair drone out of it's hole*
Yup, it sees it's shadow, 6 more months of whining.
My opinions represent the opinions of my corporation completely. I'm the CEO damnit. |
Faydelm
Caldari Eve University Ivy League
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:00:00 -
[6]
Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:03:38 Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:03:15 Feechers????? Come on it's spelled FEATURES... man this community. It's behavior not behaviour. I'm usually not this fickle but you repeated the same spelling errors over and over.
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Baron Primus
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:02:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Faydelm feechers????? come on it's spelled FEATURES. man this community...
Perhaps it was just a play on words?
"Man this community" indeed.
Originally by: SoftRevolution WoW is computer AIDS.
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Willow Whisp
Sadist Faction
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:08:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Faydelm Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:03:38 Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:03:15 Feechers????? Come on it's spelled FEATURES... man this community. It's behavior not behaviour. I'm usually not this fickle but you repeated the same spelling errors over and over.
i don't think it's a mistake... then again, maybe hook'd on foniks werkd four heem. ...
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El Mustacho
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:09:00 -
[9]
And it is spelled "done" not "dun" ...
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Chromakey Dreamcoat
Caldari Model Of Aggression
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:13:00 -
[10]
Originally by: Willow Whisp
Originally by: Faydelm Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:03:38 Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:03:15 Feechers????? Come on it's spelled FEATURES... man this community. It's behavior not behaviour. I'm usually not this fickle but you repeated the same spelling errors over and over.
i don't think it's a mistake... then again, maybe hook'd on foniks werkd four heem.
lol
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CCP Tuxford
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:42:00 -
[11]
Overlapping This has been fixed. In fact most of the info is now in the tool tip when you hover over the drone entry. If its still too big its clipped and does not overlap the heat gaugese.
health bar It now no longer shows damage all the time
Quote:
They donÆt start aggressing new targets ifà àyou release your drones after everything have started shooting you. àyou told your drones to come back and orbit. àno targets were inside drone range when they were supposed to pick a new target or the aggressors were outside drone range.
They need new aggression to respond too, although when jettisoned they might be convinced to look for new targets.
If you tell your drones to return and orbit they should do exactly that, not go gallivanting off to the next yahoo that triggers a new aggression on you. Of course you could argue that if you really wanted them back you'd put them on passive mode and call them back but that seems a bit roundabout way of performing such a simple command.
In my opinion drones shouldn't magically have more control range just because they are responding to aggression but its really not up to me to decide. Having them wait for aggressors to come within range is really not a feasible solution.
Drone target calling It has been improved quite a bit but it means that the drones almost always pick the same target anyways. Its possible to inject some randomness to their choice however, if they are not in focus fire mode. _______________ |
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Ophenbach
Gallente Center for Advanced Studies
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Posted - 2007.11.07 08:47:00 -
[12]
Nice review of the changes.
As for the spelling and grammar, they indicate you may have a future in journalism.
----- Gone today, however,
Ophenbach
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Wild Rho
Amarr GoonFleet
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:00:00 -
[13]
Isn't using the hot key F10 for drones (the map hot key) going to cause some confusion?
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Andrue
Amarr
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:18:00 -
[14]
Edited by: Andrue on 07/11/2007 09:18:29
Originally by: Faydelm <snip>..It's behavior not behaviour.
Not in my country, maybe not the OP's either.
If you're going to be fickle and pedantic then at least be accurate. -- (Battle hardened industrialist)
[Brackley, UK]
My budgie can say "ploppy bottom". You have been warned. |
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CCP Tuxford
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:18:00 -
[15]
Originally by: Wild Rho Isn't using the hot key F10 for drones (the map hot key) going to cause some confusion?
The hot key is unassigned by default, you don't need to put it to F10. Personally I've been testing this with ctrl-1 for attack, ctrl-2 for return and orbit and ctrl-3 for return to bay. Little hint, ctrl-1 is dangerously close to ctrl-q _______________ |
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Zaqar
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:26:00 -
[16]
Edited by: Zaqar on 07/11/2007 09:26:35
Originally by: Faydelm It's behavior not behaviour.
Dear oh dear. It is spelled in the latter way in England. You know, the place where English comes from?
Also, you seem to have no idea what 'fickle' means. Perhaps you should become literate yourself before attempting to attack other people's literacy?
ps yay for drone hotkeys
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ArmyOfMe
hirr Morsus Mihi
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:36:00 -
[17]
good to see you back on the forums tux, its been a while now.
Now please respond a bit more often in the Ships and Modules section as well
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Mag's
MASS Ministry Of Amarrian Secret Service
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:38:00 -
[18]
Originally by: Andrue Edited by: Andrue on 07/11/2007 09:18:29
Originally by: Faydelm <snip>..It's behavior not behaviour.
Not in my country, maybe not the OP's either.
If you're going to be fickle and pedantic then at least be accurate.
Aye as we say Honour, Armour and Colour. Remember, it's called 'ENGLISH' for a reason.
Now about the changes, I have to say, I'm rather disappointed. When I was told we would have a new UI for drones, I did expect something better. The drone damage bars are now in reverse, which takes some getting used to. All in all, nothing like the great ideas, put forward in a couple of old threads, in the development forum.
Oh and using Ctrl 1, lol, that's just asking for trouble, makes me understand the devs alot more though.
Mag's
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Xcom
Gallente Genco Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:42:00 -
[19]
Sorry for the spelling. My spell checker aint that good. I would be glad to fix the spelling if someone can help.
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The Snowman
Gallente Four Rings Phalanx Alliance
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:42:00 -
[20]
Originally by: CCP Tuxford Overlapping Drone target calling It has been improved quite a bit but it means that the drones almost always pick the same target anyways. Its possible to inject some randomness to their choice however, if they are not in focus fire mode.
How is it impossible since drones have been randomly attacking for two years? though I'm not complaining, its SO much rather they focus fire everytime than do random stuff.
If you've broken it so that Focus fireis always on... then thats FINE!.. jobs a good'un, go home, leave it! :D
Well done OP, nice review tells me everything that I wanted to know.
P.S. I think this is the first time I've ever seen a dev admit that there was a problem with drones wonder if any of them dares to explain why its taken so long
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Delta3000
The Scope
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Posted - 2007.11.07 09:56:00 -
[21]
The drone changes look nice, but I hope the bug fixes are improved. After all ,this is what the community has been crying out for - not hotkeys and undockable windows
Originally by: Faydelm Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:13:19
It's behavior not behaviour.
It's both. Stop being so ignorant and learn about the world that exists outside America.
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Darken Two
Gallente Cruororis Consors Conlegium Ivy League
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:00:00 -
[22]
Originally by: Faydelm Edited by: Faydelm on 07/11/2007 08:13:19
Feechers????? Come on it's spelled FEATURES... man this community. It's behavior not behaviour. I'm usually not this fickle but you repeated the same spelling errors over and over.
Don't be an idiot, and eveyone in the world isnt American. There two lessons for you this day.
Originally by: Blind Fear Generally, when trying to be a puppetmaster, it is considered good form not to wrap the strings around your neck and choke yourself.
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Xcom
Gallente Genco Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:02:00 -
[23]
Originally by: CCP Tuxford Overlapping This has been fixed. In fact most of the info is now in the tool tip when you hover over the drone entry. If its still too big its clipped and does not overlap the heat gaugese.
health bar It now no longer shows damage all the time
Quote:
They donÆt start aggressing new targets ifà àyou release your drones after everything have started shooting you. àyou told your drones to come back and orbit. àno targets were inside drone range when they were supposed to pick a new target or the aggressors were outside drone range.
They need new aggression to respond too, although when jettisoned they might be convinced to look for new targets.
If you tell your drones to return and orbit they should do exactly that, not go gallivanting off to the next yahoo that triggers a new aggression on you. Of course you could argue that if you really wanted them back you'd put them on passive mode and call them back but that seems a bit roundabout way of performing such a simple command.
In my opinion drones shouldn't magically have more control range just because they are responding to aggression but its really not up to me to decide. Having them wait for aggressors to come within range is really not a feasible solution.
Drone target calling It has been improved quite a bit but it means that the drones almost always pick the same target anyways. Its possible to inject some randomness to their choice however, if they are not in focus fire mode.
Let me just start by thanking you guys for a grate work on the drone changes. Been waiting for a long time. :)
The part about aggressing new targets when they are launched sounds like a very good idea. Drones in aggressive mode maybe should auto aggress when launched if there is someone shooting you. That way you wonÆt have a full control over who they will attack but at least they wonÆt sit and watch because new aggressions havenÆt been started.
But reverse on the passive mode. ItÆs kind of funky to see them auto attack when you explicitly donÆt want them to be aggressive and have them auto aggro when first aggro happens after launch. It makes it look like they have been cooped up in the drone bay and have gone berserk.
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Curzon Dax
Deep Core Mining Inc.
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:06:00 -
[24]
You know, the default 2 hotkeys that I think would be demanded would be:
1. Launch
2. Return to Bay.
I would expect to have three hot keys, which launch my drones, tell them to attack the object I have targeted, and a third to return to bay.
This might be a bit bold, but if those three aren't covered, I wonder if we're missing the forest for the trees?
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Joshua Deakin
Gallente The Phalanx Expeditionary Conglomerate Blue Sky Consortium
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:18:00 -
[25]
Will we be finally able to see the effect of skills on drone stats? Or is this still left out for a 3rd party app? -------------------------------------------------
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b0ing
Sequential Digits
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:30:00 -
[26]
To fix drones getting stuck on each other, simply make it so drones have no collision detection with other drones owned by the same person. Or take away their collision completely, while making sure they still decloak people if the first suggestion is too hard to implement.
Another route is to make drones never get within 250m of each other. (If within 250m of other drone, keep at range 1000m then continue on ordered path, if any) type thing.
Same with drones hovering just out of scoop range when returning to bay. When the "return to drone bay" command is given, drones should MWD to the center 1 meter of your ship. As soon as the server detects they are within 2km of you, they should just disappear from space and and reappear in your drone bay, with any damage still intact. As a failsafe, if the game knows you have issued the "return to dronebay" command and it also detects the drones have been within 4km of your ship for longer than 5 seconds without any web being activated on them, they should just appear in your drone bay.
I'm not saying the above solutions are EXACTLY how it should be done, just showing how the programmers should be thinking to give maximum flexibility for drone commands to account for lag etc.
I'm sure if I had a few hours to spend with the "return to dronebay" code I could find a solution which does not create lag, but works 99.99% of the time and is intuitive for the user.
Also, if drones are set to passive, they should not attack unless specifically told to do so. Period.
If drones are set to aggressive, they should auto attack anything that has aggressed you, whether the aggression happened before or after you deployed them.
If the targets aggressing you are out of the drone's range, they should just orbit you. If the targets aggressing you move within the drone's range, they should instantly start flying to the target and try to kill it once they get to it (if on aggressive mode).
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Ja'kar
MAFIA
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:39:00 -
[27]
so who won the spelliny
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Shinzann
Beast Cat Industries
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:39:00 -
[28]
1. Hotkeys = Happiness! On Sisi I found ctrl-shift-a for attack, ctrl-shift-d for dock and ctrl-shift-o for orbit fairly effective, especially with passive turned on...
2. passive/aggressive. Great idea. Great idea, especially in missions when over-enthusiastic drones go wandering off and aggro more ships...
3. Focused Fire = more happy! Especially in mission situations when I already have all the aggro and I'm being perma-jammed. The wee guys can go about and kill them off in an orderly fashion for me.
4. UI changes... that new icon showing which targets have drones are them is most welcome. As for the bars overlapping, I just stretched that individual frame a little horizontally, and bang, fixed!
only concern I have is... How much longer will he have to wait? === Q u o t e: If the servers aren't up, its not a hotfix. |
Lazuran
Gallente Time And ISK Sink Corporation
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Posted - 2007.11.07 10:54:00 -
[29]
The most important question:
but do the fricking drones return to the drone bay like they're supposed to now?
"...been designed for one purpose and one purpose only. Imagine a handful of repair drones pouring from the carebear's mouth. Now imagine they have um, nothing." -Unknown Hel redesigner (2007) |
Dammar
Amarr Ephorate
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Posted - 2007.11.07 11:02:00 -
[30]
What about 'guard' and 'assist'?
Haven't had a change to mess with those yet..do they work? (..are they still on sisi? lol)
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