Bio Engineer Archive

Well, it seems that Thunderheart is having the Correspondents do State of their Profession reports. Unless I missed a memo, we still do not have a Correspondent, therefore I say we turn this into an opportunity and do it ourselves. Needless to say, I'll start, though I do hope that people will add to this and correct any mistakes:

DNA Sampling
This now seems to work, but in an excessively boring fashion. There is really no reason at all to collect better than 'yard trash' DNA in the field. That yard trash can be used to make (largely untrainable) large creatures who can then be sampled from your inventory, that strong DNA is then used to make creatures which you sell. The risk to reward ratio for sampling in the field is just too high to bother with at this moment, especially if item decay due to incapacitation goes live. Sampling anything worthwhile in the field now would mean frequent incapacitation and therefore too quick item decay.

Experimentation
Some of the problems in this were worked out, though a lot of it is pending the complete revamping of Creature Engineering that was supposed to happen last patch and now apparently is not even going to happen this patch? Not that anything has been communicated to us lowly paying customers about that.

Tissue Engineering
Got milk? Needless to say, the ability to make these items in factories has been a very welcome bug fix (BEs complained about it for two months and were ignored, CHs complained about it for two days and were personally assured by Holo that it would be fixed very quickly). However, as predicted by anyone who had ever actually played a crafter in SWG, this has made apparent that while collection of resources by hand is sufficient for crafting by hand; automated resource collection is necessary to support automated production. We need an automated system to collect not only milk and eggs, but meat and other creature resources (ala the creature harvester systems in beta). Do the devs at all care about the fact that they took milk out of production over six months ago and still have made no effort whatsoever to reintroduce it? Do they care that they couldn't be bothered to take the few minutes it would take to change BE and Chef recipes so they use, I don't know, resources that were actually in the game? Do they really think that people are collecting eggs in enough volume to support the creation of everything that BEs and Chefs would like to be making? One other problem is that it is still impossible to see the effects of wearing our products and, after the long period where they did nothing, many are not willing to buy them without proof they actually work.

Creature Engineering
We were promised a new system for this in the last patch. We were told that it wasn't going to be ready for that patch but will be in the next one. The next one is on Test and this is not addressed. How can people who supposedly care about customer service be so completely uninterested in keeping their paying customers up to date on problem fixes? Does anyone there have any experience as customer service professionals or are they all gamers/programmers who raised their hand when someone asked who wanted to do customer service? Obviously the mount system is going to make BE/CH combos (any guesses on what percentage of active characters are not CHs these days?) into very, very rich people.

Economic Status
Things are much better here. BEs have several lines that can provide income and a few have even managed to get quite rich.

BE boards
Quite a number of old threads have been allowed to linger at the top since our last Correspondent left. This really illustrates the problems of having only one correspondent for each profession. The profession is completely SOL when (not if, it will happen eventually) that one person disappears.

In short, I can no longer claim that we are the worst off profession, the Chefs quite clearly have a corner on that market (though I'll give Pikemen their due, certainly!). But there are still massive communication gaps and no attempt whatsoever to address some issues that have been known to the devs for over 6 months. And the devs still seem to believe they can ignore their paying customers.

Actually you missed a memo Although I don't have my blue name yet, I was announced correspondent on Friday. I've been trying to work out the issues list first, but have noticed the State of the Profession reports on other boards. Much of what you've said echoes some of my thoughts on what should be in this report. If anyone else has ideas, I'm open to suggestions.

You missed a memo, hon. Mostly because no one with a red handle could be bothered to post here when our new correspondent was revealed to be Talthazar. He posted t'other day about what our current issues were.

Ill take it here is the point for the state of the profession input. I point out the problems and offer a few solutions.

Clones- 7 broken clones, untameable out of 35 total templates. This needs to be fixed yesterday. Lack of clones from lvls 26-50. Of the 7 broken clones, only the blurrg is presently useful for sampling...rest if implemented may/may not improve the 26-50 gap problem. A BE pet should be of a desirable template, and clearly better than a wild specimen. Wild specimens at present tend to have lower HAM, lower damage, but higher attack speed. Display all specials, resistances, and CL of the clone on the clone so the buyer knows what he is getting. Sure would be nice if clone statue sizes were in baby form to permit easier display.

DNA- DNA takes up too much inventory, some solution is desired. Add creature level to stats for DNA, so that each DNA sample is stamped with CL. It sure would be nice if there was some way to assist in the sorting of DNA, such as say color coding attribute numbers like

less than 600=light blue

600-700= dark blue

700-800=white

800-900=yellow

900-1000= red

This is the present con color system, and it would let you see at a quick glance where the attributes were high.

Experimentation- clone experimentation remains broken. Fix this. Remove the 'are you sure you want to stop experimentation' statement when you have capped the creature experimentation, and proceed directly to the next stage. This latter statement is unecessary since you couldnt experiment more even if you wanted to.

Tissues- as spoken by others regarding milk etc. I think the following ideas could work

a. Slaughterhouse- a factory like structure. Put animals into input hopper, and the slaughterhouse will simultaneously harvest hide, meat, and bone from the creature you put in. These structures should be made by architects, and the resources produced should mirror that for the resource type of the planet where the slaughterhouse is put, IE herbavores put into a tattoine slaughterhouse produce tatooine herbavore. This would let BE's make clones and dump them into the slaughterhouse in order to generate meat and other resources. Yield would need to be similar to hunt 4 yields with perhaps mods from architect engineering.

b. Farm- another factory like structure. Putting avians into the input hopper lets you produce eggs in the output hopper. Putting mammals in the input hopper yields milk in the output hopper. Putting fish in the input hopper yields fish in the output hopper. Consume these as resources, perhaps have a hopper limit and permit breeding in idle periods. So say you put a fish into the input hopper, and let it idle for a few days (depending upon the breed stat of the structure) until the hopper is filled with fish. Now you could dump these fish into a slaughterhouse to harvest meat. In the case of mammals, you would have a milk option to keep the milk flowing, and for avians you would have them lay eggs.

Useless tissues that were removed should be replaced with useful tissues. We need a holocron chapter on the various terms for resources, IE what really is creature food etc.

Sampling DNA from yard trash to make high level creatures just to sample them for better DNA is good in theory but its boring as all get out. Its also not very economical. You have to useresources to make 5 new critters just to get 5 good DNA samples.Until they implement the decay rate for incap (which will cause me to quit the game most definitely) I'll take missions and sample higher level critters. At least I get paid to sample.

Tissues are a lot better than they used to be. Obviously the resources are stupid but that's an old issue the dev's don't seem to care about. I can spend days collecting enough of the same type ofeggs to make one factory run. Then I have to start over again collecting eggs for days. The only tissues I can sell are to tailors. I can make some of the food enhancement tissues but none of the chefs buy them. I mean not one single chef has ever asked me for enhancement tissues. Of course there are only like 5 chefs in the entire game so I can understand why the market is so small.

Obviously the new cloning of animals is going to need a lot of testing. The reason for putting mounts out on test center so early was to give it extra testing (which I agree it needs). Its pretty apparent if the new cloning system is going to make this next big patch the extra testing is not going to be done. I would have to agree with the assertion cloning is not going to make and we will still be stuck making broken animals. I'm sure we will get a happy little post from a dev saying hang in there. The clones will be in the next big patch.

Bio-engineering is interdependant on many other professions. We are a crafter's crafter. Change creature handler you change BE. Change tailor you change BE. Anything that effects the other professions willdirectly or indirectly effects us. What a tangled web you've woven.

I won't go into the customer service issue. I'll let my monthly fee (or the lack of it) speak for itself. I'm right on the verge. If mountsgo liveand I'm stuck with broken animals I'm out.

Oh boy, not the whole "we lazy people need a meat/hide/bone harvester" again. *sigh* we're hunters, we're outdoorsman, and the whole idea of a "meat harvester" is just silly and makes the idea of a "hunting trip" to be meaningless. Maybe a net for fish, but not for animal meat. Lets just all be glad that there aren't BE's putting a "heavy" on Dathomir collecting insect meat and pumping out 100's of crates of tissues and monsters a day shall we? That would make being a BE unplayable imho, to say nothing of completely invalidating such professions as scouts and rangers. I for one would quit BE the day we see a "meat harvester" implemented.

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Tissue Engineering
Got milk? Needless to say, the ability to make these items in factories has been a very welcome bug fix (BEs complained about it for two months and were ignored, CHs complained about it for two days and were personally assured by Holo that it would be fixed very quickly). However, as predicted by anyone who had ever actually played a crafter in SWG, this has made apparent that while collection of resources by hand is sufficient for crafting by hand; automated resource collection is necessary to support automated production. We need an automated system to collect not only milk and eggs, but meat and other creature resources (ala the creature harvester systems in beta).

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It's been said before, but I think we definately need the ability to harvest from creatures we kill while sampling. It's kinda funny that I can harvest from something that my panther mauled and I shot up with my carbine, but I can't harvest something I used a small sampling tool on.

The whole system of ranking DN is pretty crappy. Having to remember the CL of the creature you took the sample from is a waste of paper. How about telling us ON THE SAMPLE how good it is.

As far as meat harvesters go, probably the most balanced way to do it is to make a fish net system. With only one type of fish meat per planet we will have a limited selection of quality available at any one time. So fish meat can be an easy source of grinding material, or better depending on luck. If we really want quality meat we would still have to ask the scouts and rangers to look around for the best. We would also still have to hunt or buy it if it's a specialty meat like Dath insect or herbivore. Rangers don't like fishing any more than the rest of us. And we generally have the same problem with meat the the CH's have with pet stims-demand far outstrips the supply. Of course, eggs, milk, and mollusk still need to be addressed. It would make sense if mollusk appeared as a rare and shifting resource under our fish nets though. Maybe something that isn't always there, but does show up from time to time. As far as eggs and milk go, why can't we have an eopie and nuna farm?

Well, welcome and congratulations! I'll let this thread die after saying that I DO think that creature resource harvesters (and include seafood, milk and eggs in that mix) ARE necessary. I would think that anyone that has tried to keep himself stocked in Advanced CRDMs would agree. I'm not sure why you feel that an automated, droid-run slaughterhouse is any sillier than an automated, droid-run flora farm. In fact, 21st century slaughterhouses are MUCH more automated than 21st century farms, mineral mines, etc.

harvesters were nice in beta... mmmm strange meats...

I never did understand why they were removed.

-T

The state of bioengineering is a sad state at present. I about break even making pet stims and pet vitals. If it wasnt for the pet stims/vitals i would have given up long ago. I havent gotten into pet makin asof yet1/5 of creatures are furniture and most are either too low level or too high level cl to be attractive to ch's. Its either kaddus or rancors, nothininbetween. And dna samplin and creature creation is so borked... Ive sold a few tailor tissues but there is still debate if they work. I dont believe they do . The chef tissues are worthless. My tissues work in meatlump. Has anyone ever seen meatlump for sale? Lol no. Wow, u mean i can make tissues that give +creature taming? wow with all the ch's now I should be making a forturne. Now i just need some milk. What a joke.... So ignored considering ch is the NUMBER 1 profession in the game. I got into bio to make pets only to end up selling two tissues to make a living.cry

I don't think we need meat harvesters, even though sometimes it is tough to get enough for a factory run of something. A milk/egg farm or fish net sounds interesting. I have to admit the slaughterhouse idea sounds amusing and rather tempting (and I'm a vegetarian lol), but since we are required to have Hunting 4 to be BEs and large animals can yield considerable amounts each harvest, I'm not sure it's necessary. Then again, I'm totally into the Field Scientist kinda flavour, so I'm okay with going out into the wild to collect these things.

Milk/Egg farm certainly though.