Bio Engineer Archive

Ok, probably beating a dead horse here, but for crying out loud...

Went on a3 planet dna gathering session to fill a few specialorders. Hunkered down in my lab in my city with the Research Center specialization. Pulled out my droid with the good crafting station, using my +14 crafting tool.Picked out the DNA I was going to use: 10 mutant rancor 10 bark mite burrower queen 5 frenzied graul. For the most part all VHQ & HQ

First combine - Critical Failure... ok bound to have at least one...
Second combine - Success... woo-hoo... oh wait, the special I needed didn't stick... oh well, I'll just make another.
Third combine - Critical Failure... WTH
Fouth combine - Critical Failure... ok, now I'm starting to get quite upset... but I've still got 1 set of dna left to finish the special order I'm working on...
Fifth combine - Critical Failure on the last stage of experimentation...

After that I pretty much was just in a stunned state. 25 samples set aside for 1 special order, and I couldn't fill it... As a master BE with good equipment, in a specialized city, how is it possible that I critical fail 4 out of 5 tries??? I think I read something about how this was going to be looked at, but now am I to expect these types of results? That's about 3-4 hours of hard core sampling down the drain. Not to mention that I had to tell my customer that I'll be yet another day or two before I could fill his order. He was real cool about it, but still, I'm trying to be a professional, and run a business here. How can I do that with such a high fail rate that destroy's so much of my time and effort?

If anybody knows what I can/should do different to help lessen the critical failures, I'd be most grateful. And isthis getting fixed/looked at anytime soon?

same thing happened to me saturday, with mutant, ancient graul, bmbq, king merek harvester etc 3 crit fails on the final clone, tons of fails on the templates after, which havent seen since before the hotfix, think I lost about 14 hours of sampleing time, had close to 30 mutant and bmbq's , was trying to fill a few custom orders, now on my 2nd day off decideing if I really wanna try it anymore

Kadore Damadred ~ Eclipse

The same happent to me.

Also i used to make many generations of clones, just searching the characters i wanted to get, in orther to get the pets people asked me for.

Now, i cannot make this any more. For some balance reason, i fail much more now when sampling DNA from a be pet.

For 30 days this proffesion was fun, not only couse the exploit. Is a good thing that devs fixed it (again) and made it not boring but so frustrating, that will keep people out of here.

I believe Runesabre said they are looking into this.

Same problem here,

And i am a Master BE !!!!

This really needs to be fixed, but I read in another post that it will be fixed... IN FEBRUARY -->/cries

This is a 'feature' of the pseudo-random number generators that SWG and most other online games use.

Basically when a computer 'rolls' a die, in this case to see how successful you were at crafting, the result is generated from a formulae based on the previous number (can't remember the old 'chaos equation' off the top of my head). The problem with this is that although the result is 'random' it is not random enough and generates runs of similar numbers.

So you not only get runs of critical fails - you also get runs of amazing successes too!

This 'feature' is endemic to all computer based random number generators (which is why you have to do things like move the mouse around for keys on encryption schemes like PGP). Algorithms exist to alleviate the problem - but they all take processor time.

You can use this to your advantage. If you get a critical fail, build some sort of rubbish until you get an amazing success, your chances of a repeat 'amazing' are greatly increased. Or if it's something really important build rubbish until you get an 'amazing' THEN build your critical object.

You can use this method of getting through a run of bad numbers all over the place - anywhere where random numbers are rolled (in UO by playing an instrument in combat I could use it to help force critical hits).

But it is particularly useful when building stuff

Just thought I should mention two things (anecdotical, but try it and see for yourself):

1. I'm fairly sure there is some sort of "wrap-around" bug happening (it's actually a fairly common programming error). For example, say there is a cap of 125 (all up) on experimentation. You have a 15+ kit, a 40+ station and 100 skill. All your skill and bonuses add up to 155.When you hit the 125 cap, you then "wrap-around" back to 0, so your skill actually end up as 30. This would explain a lot of thecritical failsthat are going on and why some people say crafting with a droid only is a lot better for them.

2. Some people have mentioned that after they have sampled a lot of Mutants/Bulls/Insert-High-Level-Critter-Here sampling has become easier for them (I certainly feel I can sample these a lot easier now). It may be that there is a hidden variablewhere you actually get better at doing something after doing it a fair bit.

I'd be more inclined towards this if people actually did get runs of "amazing", but that doesn't seem to be the case (or people don't bother posting it). I've actually only had one "amazing" that I can remember while doing any stage of clone making (template or creature).

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GFoyle wrote:

This is a 'feature' of the pseudo-random number generators that SWG and most other online games use.

Basically when a computer 'rolls' a die, in this case to see how successful you were at crafting, the result is generated from a formulae based on the previous number (can't remember the old 'chaos equation' off the top of my head). The problem with this is that although the result is 'random' it is not random enough and generates runs of similar numbers.

So you not only get runs of critical fails - you also get runs of amazing successes too!

This 'feature' is endemic to all computer based random number generators (which is why you have to do things like move the mouse around for keys on encryption schemes like PGP). Algorithms exist to alleviate the problem - but they all take processor time.

You can use this to your advantage. If you get a critical fail, build some sort of rubbish until you get an amazing success, your chances of a repeat 'amazing' are greatly increased. Or if it's something really important build rubbish until you get an 'amazing' THEN build your critical object.

You can use this method of getting through a run of bad numbers all over the place - anywhere where random numbers are rolled (in UO by playing an instrument in combat I could use it to help force critical hits).

But it is particularly useful when building stuff

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I've had runs of 'amazing' all right

I'm really surprised you haven't had any during clone making, unless you haven't hit Master yet. Remember that the 'rolls' in most stages of creature creation are for multiple stats, and hence an amalgamation of the several results. Below Master you are unlikely to get an 'amazing' result because of this.

And no, I haven't yet seen any "whoohoo! Got 3 amazing results in a row" posts - but then, that's human nature for you!

I'm a master BE and used to get huge strings of failures. A guild mate of mine bought me a new +36 crafting station. Ifound that if I use my good crafting tools with this new station I still fail a lot. I made a crafting tool myself (which is junk of course). I get far fewer failures now.

I'm putting my money on the"wrap around" bug that was posted earlier. It sure seems to fit what I'm seeing.

It doesn't explain why I fail sampling DNA so often though. I failed less when I was a novice.

Its been worst since that hot fix it seems, but it might just be my imagination. Some things that should be looked at:

1. High crit failure rate (Devs, looking at this for Feb. :smileysad

2. High failure rate of sampling clones.

3. High experimentation failures (Could be just me again, but my experimentation has been realy crappy lately)

I would like to report that while grinding up to MBE with microsupplements I did notice the "string of failures" tendacy.

I could be happly running my macros with the toolbar displaying time remaining.. then every so often I would hit a point where my toolbar would show no time remaining for the item I just crafted... ok crit failed that one...then it would happen again..skip one...then again....it would then start working fine for 3 or 4 more times then fail one or two more times... after that it would running smooth for 15-30mins...

I would like to suggest that if you do hit a crit to try waiting 3-5 mins... maybe walk around...mask scent... hit some other macros... then try and go back.... I would be willing to be that your chances of hitting 3 more crits in a row would be greatly reduced... just an idea

May not be scientific but I just got one of those feeling hehe

I rarely get amazing successes while cloning,let aloneruns of them.