TruthScape.com  9  TruthScape Skill Secrets       9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning            9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Understanding, Using and Benefiting From Familiars                 9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Using Non-Combat Familiar Abilities

Utilizing Foragers and Producers TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Using Familiars in Combat

In this topic, I’ll conclude our discussion of the non-combat features of Summoning familiars, with a brief look at a few miscellaneous abilities. Right now these are implemented in only a small number of familiars, but Jagex has defined at least two of them as general features—this suggests that more familiars in the future may share some of these capabilities as well.

Please, please.. give me a chance to compose myself and stop laughing for a moment so I can write this section. Ah, that’s better. J Now, where was I… ah, yes, light enhancement. Jagex decided to add a feature to two familiars—the vampire bat and the fruit bat—that increases the brightness of light sources. The in-game rationale for this is given in the RuneScape knowledge base:

“Some familiars - notably bats - can see well in the dark and will make any light source you have with you brighter.”

Sounds good… only there’s a problem: bats do not have good eyesight at all; many species are nearly blind. In fact, they compensate for their weakness in vision by using echolocation to navigate—this is a form of “biological sonar” that lets the bats position themselves in their surroundings by emitting high frequency sounds and listening for echoes. So to whoever came up with that description: back to biology class with you! (Yeah, yeah, these are magical RuneScape bats, whatever. J)

Anyway, enough about that. Unfortunately, though, the feature itself is about as useless as the attempt to relate it to bat physiology. I tried seeing if this would allow me to go into a dungeon without a light source, which would have been useful—an extra inventory slot—but no dice. Then I thought, well, it could come in handy in Zamorak’s Fortress in the God Wars Dungeon, a place that is very dark—but it doesn’t work there either. (You get a message saying the darkness is caused by great evil and your “puny light source” won’t affect it. Fun.)

So, what is this good for? Well, if you go into a standard dungeon with a bat following you, your screen will be ever-so-slightly brighter than it would be otherwise, as shown in Figure 248. Woot. Well, I guess it’s better than nothing, but certainly not anything I’d make a special effort to take with…

Familiars are a rather classical feature of the fantasy genre, and a common feature of them is the ability of a magician to extend his or her senses using the familiar’s. Jagex has depicted this concept in a limited form through the remote view feature, which allows flying familiars to rise up into the air and let players see a limited area of the world through the familiar’s eyes.

Right now there is only one familiar that has this capability: the macaw. To access the ability you “Interact” with the bird and select “Remote view”. You then can choose to have the macaw show you the area directly above you, or above the areas a short distance away in any of the four cardinal map directions. The screen will change to a top-down view, will rotate briefly to show you a panoramic view of the surrounding area, and then return to normal. Your minimap does not change while this is happening.

There’s not much practical use to remote view, at least that I’ve been able to discern; it’s apparently intended to be just for fun. Well, it’s nifty to peek in on a Castle Wars game from outside its walls (Figure 249), but overall, the amusement factor wore off pretty quickly for me at least. It would have been cooler if you could control the macaw and tell it to move around to show you more of the map, but unfortunately that’s not possible. In some places you may not be able to send the bird exactly where you want, such as if there’s an obstacle in the way, and it won’t work in dungeons or other places where a bird could never get an eagle eye’s view.

Note that while you are viewing remotely, the Summoning interface button will disappear (as it would if you didn’t have a familiar). Don’t worry—it will return when the macaw does.

A limited number of familiars possess the innate ability to transform one type of item into another. To use this feature, simply “use” the appropriate item on the familiar. Right now there are two familiars with this ability: the bunyip can transform raw fish into water runes, and the giant ent can convert pure essence into nature or earth runes.

I haven’t tested the giant ent yet, but can say that the bunyip’s ability, while interesting and certainly useful in some situations, is hampered by the need to “use” each fish individually on the monster. I thought I had come up with a good use for this special: power fishing. I figured I could catch a load of salmon and tuna, and have the bunyip change them into water runes to free up inventory space and give me runes to use. And this does work, but all the clicking to do this 27 times every inventory means it is faster to just go to the bank. Hopefully this will be improved.

Utilizing Foragers and Producers TruthScape Skill Secrets - Summoning - Using Familiars in Combat