Ultima Online Tracking - the published anti-stealth formula, and the range that is not published

The range in tiles is not published anywhere

[!] uo.com does not publish Tracking’s range, at any skill level. Not a tile figure, not a table, not a formula that produces one. uo.com says only that Tracking works “over longer distances than you can see on your screen” and leaves it there.

This is the single most-asked Tracking number and it does not exist on the record. Any tile figure is unpublished, and none is given here.

[!] Two related behaviours are unpublished for the same reason: how many targets the tracking list displays at once, and how often the arrow updates or how long a track persists before it must be re-run.

The anti-stealth formula, published verbatim

This is the reason the skill exists on a PvP template, and uo.com publishes it:

% Chance of tracking = ( Tracking + Detect Hidden + Random 1-20 ) ÷ ( Hiding + Stealth ) × 50

Read the shape of it before the numbers. The tracker’s side is additive — Tracking and Detecting Hidden sum together in the numerator. The target’s side is additive too — Hiding and Stealth sum in the denominator. It is one pool of skill against another, with a 1–20 random term on the tracker’s side and the whole thing scaled by 50.

The notes published alongside it:

• A target with no Hiding and no Stealth is 100% trackable. The denominator is nothing; the roll cannot fail.
• No human is free to track. Every human character carries a baseline 20 points in both Hiding and Stealth from Jack of All Trades, which puts 40 in the denominator whether they trained either skill or not.
• Elves have a published racial resistance that makes them harder to track. [!] uo.com describes its magnitude only in words; no figure is published.
• Grandmaster against Grandmaster is roughly a coin flip. GM Tracking against GM Hiding and GM Stealth comes out at approximately 50% [!].

The practical consequence of the numerator is the template advice: because Tracking and Detecting Hidden sum, a character who wants to find stealthers is better served carrying both than maxing one.

An arrow, not a position

Worth being precise about what a successful track actually gives you. uo.com: “Select Animals, Monsters, NPCs or Players from the tracking gump. Select your tracking choice from the specific list”, and then — “A small arrow will indicate the direction your quarry has gone.”

Direction, not distance. Tracking narrows a search; it does not pinpoint. The tracker still has to close the gap and then actually reveal the target, which is a separate job for Detecting Hidden. That division of labour is why the two skills appear together on templates rather than as alternatives.

Ghosts cannot be tracked — published on uo.com. A killed opponent cannot be followed.

Four categories, and the forms that move a player between them

The gump offers Animals, Monsters, NPCs and Players. A shapeshifted player does not stay in the Players list, and uo.com publishes exactly where they go:

What the target is in	Category they appear under
Wraith form, lich form or vampiric embrace (Necromancy)	Monsters
Polymorph into a monster (Magery)	Monsters
An animal form (Ninjitsu)	Animals

A tracker hunting a shapeshifted player who only ever checks the Players list will find nothing and conclude, wrongly, that nobody is there. This is the most common way the skill is used incorrectly.

In PvP

• It is the published counter to a stealther. The formula above is the whole contest, and both sides of it are skill you chose to buy. A stealth archer sitting at 100 Hiding and 100 Stealth is a known quantity: a Grandmaster tracker finds him about half the time.
• Carry Detecting Hidden with it, not instead of it. The two sum in the numerator, so 100 Tracking plus 100 Detecting Hidden is a far better tracker than 100 of either alone — and Detecting Hidden is what converts the arrow into a revealed target.
• Every human is partly resistant for free. The 20 / 20 Jack of All Trades baseline means there is no such thing as a trivially trackable human player.
• Elves are harder, by an amount nobody publishes.
• Check the right list. A necromancer in wraith form is under Monsters, not Players.
• Ghosts are untrackable, so a corpse-running opponent is gone the moment they die.
• [!] Whether tracking a player notifies that player is not published. Do not assume either way.

In PvM

Straightforwardly a search tool. Selecting Monsters locates hostile spawn across a wider area than the screen shows; selecting Animals finds tameable and wild animals, which is why Tracking pairs naturally with Animal Taming — it is how you locate a specific creature worth taming instead of walking a spawn until one appears.

The form rules still apply here: a player in wraith or lich form shows under Monsters even in a PvM context.

[!] Tracking grants no published PvM bonus of any kind. No damage bonus against a tracked creature, no accuracy bonus, nothing. uo.com does not say Tracking improves your hits on what you tracked.

Caps, stats and training

Tracking has no Power Scrolls. Its practical ceiling is 100.0 real skill plus whatever item bonuses you carry, and there is no scroll for it at all. Never plan a template around 120 Tracking — it does not exist. It contributes to the 720 total skill cap, and it has no Skill Mastery.

Primary stat Int, secondary Dex.

[!] No skill-value thresholds are published for Tracking. There is no table of “at X skill you can do Y” on uo.com — it gives the success formula and nothing else.

An unpublished training route:

Range [!]	Method
0–40	NPC training
40–100	Using the skill

Humans also have a racial minimum of 20 skill points, and a quest reward grants accelerated skill gain up to 50 [!]. NPC trainers are the Ranger and Ranger Guildmaster. The Guaranteed Gain System backstops training with a mandatory 0.1 when nothing has been gained inside your bracket’s window, and a Scroll of Alacrity raises each check from 0.1 to 0.2–0.5 for 15 minutes.

What is not published

• [!] The range in tiles, at any skill level. The most-asked number about this skill, absent from uo.com.
• [!] How many creatures or players the tracking list displays at once.
• [!] How often the arrow updates, and how long a track persists before it must be re-run.
• [!] The magnitude of the elven racial resistance to being tracked.
• [!] Whether tracking a player notifies that player.
• [!] Any skill-value threshold table.
• [!] Any PvM bonus from Tracking, such as damage against a tracked creature.
• [!] Any mechanical link between Tracking and Forensic Evaluation. The two are often grouped as investigative skills; uo.com states no connection.

Where these come from

uo.com Tracking · uo.com Skill Masteries · uo.com Skills, Stats & Attributes · uo.com Skill Gain Systems. Everything here is from uo.com or the game itself; anything uo.com does not publish is marked [!] as unpublished where it appears.