Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Mutant Rancor Sampling
the trick i've learned with agro is this.
mask scent is broken:
1. stop moving
2. If no animals and moving to your position, stand still untill you can remask
3. If 1 animal is moving toward (or stalking if yer a ranger) you, move perpendicular to thier movement. most carnivores seem to have a cone of vision. Mutant rancors have small cones. If the rancor moves all the way to your old position and you've managed to put 30m between you and him, you wont get attacked. Stop moving once he does and wait to remask.
4. If more than 1 animal is moving towards your position, run away. hope that you can put at least 41m between you and your starting position before they reach it, or you will get attacked.
having your overhead map up helps this a bunch. and yes prone stalking owns drive-bys.
Thanks for all the tips. They are very useful.
Before work last night I was able to get 22 samples then I had to go. Only 3 of them were VHQ, but most others were HQ.
I have been riding my speeder right into their midst, with the shift down as if I am walking. This seems better than riding in without the shift down. I have made a /mount macro so all I have to do is target my bike when I get agro and hit the macro. I don't use the "jump on the bike after I start sampling" method, since I would have to continually get off and on.
I do have +28 mask scent clothing on (which is deteriorating fast with all my deaths even though they are insured!).
The pack idea works great. That is how I got the 22 samples (in about 1 hours time).
Made my first Kimogila with it. DOH level 71. Sampled it and added in some AA DNA and got a level 55 Kimoila, which is just fine. 11k HAM, 53 kinetic, etc. Knockdown and Intimidation. 480-490 damage.
Another trick I use:
This works best when all the creatures are about the same distance away. I normally try to keep mask scent on all the time, but with high level creatures that keep breaking mask scent when you move to within 64m, try this. At about 66m from the closest in the group, unmask scent and target the one furthest away. Walk toward him until you are within 63m and mask scent again.
When a creature breaks mask scent, of course, you have to wait (about 15 seconds for me) to remask scent. But, if you unmask scent yourself, you don't have this delay.
You can modify this technique as necessary. Say, 2 creatures are near each other and a third about 10m further away. When you are 66m away from the closest 2, unmask scent, walk to within 64m of them, and remask scent. Then target the one a little further away. Walk until 66m away, unmask scent again, walk to within 64m, and remask scent.
I've also done what others have suggested in this thread: don't panic and run when mask scent breaks. Stand still and be patient. Start spamming mask scent so you can see how many more seconds you have to wait to remask scent, and remask scent as soon as you can. Often they just ignore you.Sometimes, a creature will start walking toward me, or even start stalking me while I am unmasked. So, I may start walking away from him while waiting until I can mask scent again. If they start charging you (but not attacking), and you remask scent when they are pretty close to you, mask scent may or may not hold. Often, if I seem to just get mask scent up in time, I will immediately kneel. Mask scent works better when you are kneeling, so it is less likely to break.
I got 29 Mutant Rancor samples on one trip with only one death. Of course it took a long time, and I had a pet that would take the aggro off me while I ran for my life. I was lucky in that there were 2 groups of Mutant Rancors near each other, so I kept moving back abd forth between the 2.
Another good tip that others have already mentioned is alternating between creatures instead of sampling just one until he either dies or attacks you. And, if you see a ? show above his head after you get or fail to get a sample, it's a good idea to move on to another creature. Also, if they go from prone to standing after a sample attempt, that's a bad sign. Say a Hail Mary before trying to sample again.
Does anyone know off-hand how often a creature re-checks for you? If pass the mask scent test on a herd of Mutant Rancors, about how long do you have before they look for you again? It seems like a few minutes at least.
Benechi
Zaket wrote:
Mutant Rancors seem to hate me with a passion.
Try to work off some of that -5000 Rancor faction.
Yes,
My system is rather time consuming. In 3 hours Im able to get about 11 samples. The mask scent is critical, and scout xp for success is your indicator.
Usualy I find like 3 groups of 6 Mutants. On the first attenpts to sample and failures cause agro and use of thier AE attack. This agros the group and they being killing each other. Battle rages on, and nabors get smoked in the process. Some times you can find a set of spawns close together. Once you get a group fighting, you can drag new agros from another spawn into the frenzy. While this is going on you may get a sample or two, but failure is very common, and I put the chance to get a sample at about 20%.
In case you dont know, most free standing spawns will respawn the original group of critters 2 times after the first set is dead/displaced. Once you have wore down the spawn to the last, you will get one or two standing waiting to be sampled. I find it Very Very hard to get by all 6 in a group without mask scent being detected / removed.
The only problem with getting these samples, as I found out, is that you can create Critters too high to be used 
It is very easy to get a critter 70+ with this DNA.
Sckoarn ;(