Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: DNA Sampling Failure Rates Mutant Rancors
Joilhath
Sun Sep 12, 2004 8:43 pm
#14
Hmm only 13 agro in 90 attempts not to bad, I'm fine with the 10% success rate but wish the cap was higher still.
yanini
Mon Sep 13, 2004 4:32 am
#15
well all i can say about MR is that i dont seem to have too much of a problem.. MBE/TKM/scout 4040. i have found that u can sneak past them at a slow jog and its a lot easier to run up behind them, when MS goes off just stand still. dont move. wait the 10 sec and put it on again.
the fact that they DIE on one sample does bother me, and i would also like more than a 10% chace to sample the MR. i dont see my TK hit only 10% of the time ( except against a fencer).
i was there one day for about 1 hour and got 4 MR samples, about 8 rancor youths, and 2 regular rancors. i was very happy.
ZardoZap
Mon Sep 13, 2004 4:41 am
#16
Its soo worth going to master scout if you plan on sampling mutants.
The extra +25 (with the clothes and the beer) means you break scent a lot less AND you can re-apply it almost instantly. I wasn't expecting the second part, but you break - stop and in about a second you can re-apply. You waste a lot less time.
Zardo
The extra +25 (with the clothes and the beer) means you break scent a lot less AND you can re-apply it almost instantly. I wasn't expecting the second part, but you break - stop and in about a second you can re-apply. You waste a lot less time.
Zardo
NancyJ
Mon Sep 13, 2004 4:58 am
#17
If it werent such a skill point drain I'd go as far as to say its well worth going Master Ranger for DNA sampling
GFoyle
Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:02 am
#18
ZardoZap wrote:
Its soo worth going to master scout if you plan on sampling mutants.
The extra +25 (with the clothes and the beer) means you break scent a lot less AND you can re-apply it almost instantly. I wasn't expecting the second part, but you break - stop and in about a second you can re-apply. You waste a lot less time.
Zardo
Agreed Zardo.
It's also got to be asked I'm afraid: How much of the frustration of sampling for some people is down to the system being borked and how much down to people just having a crap technique/template?
To me the sampling rates seem reasonable given that we are trying to get the chunkiest DNA in the game.
For my own part I can generally get about a dozen samples an hour (always assuming I can find some MR's that haven't been slaughtered by the Jedi hordes 
). Call it an hour and a half to 2 hours with travelling and admiring the scenery.
Lower sampling failures or chances of maskscent failure and I'll be harvesting backpack loads of samples.
Now my template is fairly extreme for sampling, Master Scout/Ranger 0-0-3-0, but not as extreme as Master Ranger (as Nancy used in the test).
That's the point - the failure rate is about right for people with set-ups maximising sampling rates and minimising mask-scent breakage.
If failure rates werebased aroundJoe Blow with his minimum scout template, the "uber" sampling template would dominate to an insane level - a "normal" pet supplier could just not compete.
Inkanissen
Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:11 am
#19
This is the top mob we can sample, one of the best pieces of DNA we can get for making high level pets. I think the system is just fine the way it is. It is a challenge to DNA a MR. It should be darn hard to get it, and it is. 
Here is what I found:
First I tried with 4040 scout, MS clothing. No good, they break MS almost always.
Then with adding Jawa beer, not good enough either.
Finally I accepted the fact that I need Master Scout (for best MS), Mask Scent clothing, good Jawa beer. Also, I can reapply MS immediately when it breaks at that high level which speeds things up considerably. And still I am seriously thinking about getting that FS +5 MS from the Survival line and selling a First Aid box to get it. (2 points needed, and... uhm... some more badges in my case.)
Then, I approach slowly and stop many times to allow them to get used to the new scent among them. 64m, 40m and 16m seem to be critical intervals for stopping, but since they often come in a herd of five, I just stop a lot when approaching. I always do it on speeder, I don't believe in all those rumours about approaching on foot, crawling, from behind, you name it. Speeder is safe and I can get away fast when needed. So when I get close enough, I dismount and sample. On aggro it is one "/mount Speederbike Swoop" hotkey press and I am out of there.
Sometimes they have one or two super noses in that group of MR's you find. I found this juicy group of five all of them with 14k+ health. No dice, they broke MS every time I got to 50m. Had to go to 300m for the spawn to reset (and hope that no other players got close enough to prevent that), return and get a fresh herd. Sometimes I have to refresh them two or three times, then I can get close enough to sample. And better hope that some swordsman does not kill your herd while trying to get DNA, that is sooooo frustrating. (Yep, had that happen yesterday, he did not even answer when I kindly asked him to leave them to me, so much other stuff he could kill instead.)
Worst super nose I encoutered was a TMB on Endor, it consistently broke MS at 100m. I am convinced that it is a hidden, random stat that never shows, we can only learn about it if we can fool the creature or not.
90% fail and 10% success sounds about right - when we finally get close enough to DNA them.
Yesterday I got 26 MR samlpes from around 2h 30 - 3h spent on Dath looking for DNA. Not too bad I think, just have to be patient.
I make a waypoint every time I see MR's, then I get an idea of where they can spawn so I can look in those general areas on later trips.
Here is what I found:
First I tried with 4040 scout, MS clothing. No good, they break MS almost always.
Then with adding Jawa beer, not good enough either.
Finally I accepted the fact that I need Master Scout (for best MS), Mask Scent clothing, good Jawa beer. Also, I can reapply MS immediately when it breaks at that high level which speeds things up considerably. And still I am seriously thinking about getting that FS +5 MS from the Survival line and selling a First Aid box to get it. (2 points needed, and... uhm... some more badges in my case.)
Then, I approach slowly and stop many times to allow them to get used to the new scent among them. 64m, 40m and 16m seem to be critical intervals for stopping, but since they often come in a herd of five, I just stop a lot when approaching. I always do it on speeder, I don't believe in all those rumours about approaching on foot, crawling, from behind, you name it. Speeder is safe and I can get away fast when needed. So when I get close enough, I dismount and sample. On aggro it is one "/mount Speederbike Swoop" hotkey press and I am out of there.
Sometimes they have one or two super noses in that group of MR's you find. I found this juicy group of five all of them with 14k+ health. No dice, they broke MS every time I got to 50m. Had to go to 300m for the spawn to reset (and hope that no other players got close enough to prevent that), return and get a fresh herd. Sometimes I have to refresh them two or three times, then I can get close enough to sample. And better hope that some swordsman does not kill your herd while trying to get DNA, that is sooooo frustrating. (Yep, had that happen yesterday, he did not even answer when I kindly asked him to leave them to me, so much other stuff he could kill instead.)
Worst super nose I encoutered was a TMB on Endor, it consistently broke MS at 100m. I am convinced that it is a hidden, random stat that never shows, we can only learn about it if we can fool the creature or not.
90% fail and 10% success sounds about right - when we finally get close enough to DNA them.
Yesterday I got 26 MR samlpes from around 2h 30 - 3h spent on Dath looking for DNA. Not too bad I think, just have to be patient.
I make a waypoint every time I see MR's, then I get an idea of where they can spawn so I can look in those general areas on later trips.
NancyJ
Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:17 am
#20
The failure rate would have been the same even if I had no mask scent, assuming I could get close enough.
GFoyle
Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:37 am
#21
Just logged on for a bit to testthose numbers, etc.
Bagged 6 MR samples and 3 Rancor samples in under 20 minues sampling time (1 dose of Jawa Beer).
I'd guess my successrate was significantly higher than Nancy's(I doubt whether I did 60 sample attempts).
A couple of observations:
I was mainly sampling MR's that were lying down or sleeping - this does seem to make a big difference.At the very leastthe MR will stand up on failure rather than instantly splat me.
The effect of the "Jedi Horde" is not to be under-estimated!
I logged on just after server reboot (one advantage of living in the UK). There were far, far more mobs in the Rancor hunting grounds than you'll see at prime-time. Finding MR's took me only a few minutes and all sorts of other Rancors were easy to find (including babies - must be the rancor spawning season on Chili)
About half of the mobswere sitting or lying down. Typically only one mob per group would be "on patrol", the rest engaged in loafing around and doing the infamous "Rancor arse scratch" (I won't speculate on what the pair lying on top of each other were doing). Most samples could therefore be done of rancors which were sleeping.
This really brought homewhatlarge numbers ofpeople on swoops/waving lightsaberes distrurbing the wildlife has on the mob stateand it's subsequent effect on BE sampling.
Looks like the best time to go sampling is definitely when the servers are low on population - "prime-time" being the absolute worst.
Message Edited by GFoyle on 09-13-2004 02:50 PM
c00kie
Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:19 am
#22
I don't sample MR... 3 hour buff sessions and getting 3 or 4 samples is waste of my time. Especially with our abnormally high crit fail on templates and then on creature combines...
I don't have the sp to get master ranger to run circles around em... and I don't like wasting that much time.
I dare say 10% is way way too low... I agree it shouldn't be high, but it shuold be a lot more than 10%... Getting to the beasts is hard enough, andl ike someone said can take 20-30 minutes just to get within sample range. Name any other master profession that has a 10% success rate at something they do, even high end.... I can't think of one.
I think somewhere in the realm of 25-30% is much more reasonable... and sampling a level 2 creature should have the base 5% failure rate that is it...
just the opinion of a BE who has stopped making high end creatures for a reason
Zadokk
Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:29 am
#23
I was just thinking, these guys are the biggest things we can sample in the game (in terms of level, rather than object size) and yet we get the fewest amount of samples from them? Surely we would get MORE samples from bigger creatures and less from smaller pets before they perish?
Busukaba
Mon Sep 13, 2004 3:24 pm
#24
Oddly enough, I never really had a problem getting MR samples. Sure, the fail rates make you sample one group of 5 MR for a half hour or so and you'll get like 6 samples out of it, but I never really cared because it was supposed to be difficult. But all you really need to do is make it to the spawn and you should be in good shape to get at least 2 samples before you get eaten. However, possibly because I was riding above the curve for so long, the game has decided to get even with me, for the past 3 days I have not been able to get within 60 meters of any single spawn of MR. I have been prone and crawling up from behind and I always get attacked.
So, I remember someone saying that if you killed a spawn and raised mask scent and waited for a respawn that it could be easy to get samples. I went and killed a spawn and every single respawn (*they came back one at a time) they immeadiately broke mask scent upon the spawn and attacked. Terrible luck these past few days, but I guess a month of time sampling at 4-0-4-0 and no bonus clothes and no jawa beer has to catch up with you some time. Guess I'll have to invest in some clothing and beer...
As I haven't actually been able to reach a spawn in a while, I haven't don't know if anything has changed as far as my old observations about fully sampling an entire spawn. But once you reach a spawn, I usually go with the old standby or if you get 10 fails in a row, move to another MR in the spawn. If the MR gets a ? or ! over it's head, wait for 30 seconds befor trying anything again so they calm down. Of course, it is easier to tell if they are sitting or lying, since most of the time they will sit or lay down again.
Waivveen
GFoyle
Mon Sep 13, 2004 5:55 pm
#25
Grrr - danged interface!
Message Edited by GFoyle on 09-14-2004 01:56 AM
Busukaba
Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:12 pm
#26
Great stuff, though I know for a fact that red mobs can have an alert (!) above them. I'll have to get a screenie next time I go poking things with me needles... Don't take it as a dig on your guide, but I know that they can be alert. It would be fun to figure out success rates of creatures depending on their state. Of course, it is easier to sample them when they are sitting or lying, but how much would that state really effect your success rate... it would also take a ton of time to get an accurate assesment.
I also found it amusing that out of 20 tries of sampling a sevorrt tonight (for my level 10's with intimidate), I failed 6 times. Of course, these numbers would more than likely even out with time, but still, this random number generator seems to really be streaky. I don't know if it is even possible to figure out a true success/fail rate
Waivveen