Bio Engineer Archive

If you recall one of the key issues with bio-engineers is that we cannot do out jobs very well unless we have additonal skills that allow us to gather DNA or get close to creatures safely. Alot of BEs require additional maskscent skills to get close to animals, then possibily combat or trapping skills to actually survive any kind of aggro. All of the running in the world doesn't matter since animals can hit hard at CL30 and some have ranged as well. Additionally the devs LOVE it when a new way for professions to interact is added, they adore interdependance so by allowing any profession to gather the blood you give the devs a little candy plus you solve the need for a bio-engineer to take additional skills to gather do their job.

The core element to keep Bio-engineers in the game (so to speak) is that the device used to extract the blood has to be crafted by them in the first place. That creates new income for the bio-engineer for a consumable item that is easy to mass produce. Maybes its a few units of metal and chems for the device for example.

I brought it up as part of the storage topic because as I said the original idea for the 'Blood Resource' solution was designed as a complete system to solve multiple issues rather than just one. You know I prefer to kill two or more birds with one stone usually in my ideas.

In reguards to the exp thing. DNA sampling exp would come from extracting the samples from the blood, the actual gathering of blood wouldn't give any exp at all. Bio-engineers should however gain a bonus with blood sampling I think, if that filters through from the medic profession or not is open to discussion. Finally I have one wish when it comes to a bio-engineer droid. Let it have the ability to draw blood or a sample from an animal .... plus the ability to store a detonation module incase of aggro

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Also in terms of balance, just like with meat, a rich BE can hire an army of scouts to go get dna for him, and make far far more pets than he'd be able to today relative to other BE's. Thoughts?

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Any increase in the availablity of a resource will cause the market to become more competative, the same could be said for the new organic recyclers yet the devs introduced them. If you wanted a safeguard against something like your proposing then make it so that there are two options for dna sampling. The first is to draw blood that can be stored as a resource. The limitation of this would be you cannot extract anything more than a 'Very Good' sample from it. However if you go out and sample dna directly from the animal without drawing blood then you can get the 'Excellent' samples. A case of quality over quantity would arrise. People might complain that they have storage issues because they want loads of excellent samples kept around the place, however we all know that a very good sample is perfectly good for anything but the fussiest of customers.

Message Edited by Tal-N on 01-18-2005 02:22 AM

I have an idea for a simple solution:

1) Arch can make a DNA Storage Building (Fridge or Freezer if you like) that can only be placed by a Master BE.
2) This building can only be used to store DNA samples.
3) It takes 1 lot.
4) It holds 150 DNA samples.

Or make it 200 storage in the MBE building if you think that is a better estimate for our storage needs, I know I have some 500-600 DNA stored - maybe a bit more. But we should not push it too much if this is requested from the Devs, better ask for a little and get that instead of asking for too much which will make them reject the idea. 150 seems like a good number to me, a Factory holds 100 in the input hopper, so we would get 50% more storage here for BE only. Perhaps let the storage building have 10 built-in containers for sorting DNA. We know that SOE can introduce new buildings with relative ease, they have done so before. The only new thing to this one would be the fact that it can only hold DNA samples in it which would be simple to make.

The reason why I do not like the DNA stacking idea is that then we would not have the natural variation anymore and only get some generic kind. It is great fun to go looking for those fine examples of species that I am using as donors, such as a 14k Health MR and a 13k Health MH to name a few.

The blood idea may save database space, but for me the idea would degrade pet making to the level of smugglers making spice where quality of ingredients does not matter because they would all have the same stats for given classes of creatures - effectively killing my fun factor and that would make me drop BE in a split second. Making pets with the complex system is my kind of fun, that is why I took BE in the first place. Looking for high HAM donors and getting the DNA is great fun, if that goes I will go also. I could not care less for making tissues, that part is just like any other crafting profession. The pet system is unique and exciting. I really think that my idea with a special storange building is a better solution, it gives storage for DNA only and it gives Arch a little to do again crafting those buildings.

Perhaps some do have 54 skill points in their template to get Merchant 0401, I know that I do not. Going defenseless out to sample is not my cup of tea, a few combat skills are better than none and that does not leave me 54 points to spend for storage. I think that it is obscene to spend over 21% of the available skill points to solve the storage problem.

Message Edited by Inkanissen on 01-19-2005 12:52 PM
EDIT: Sigh... typing

Message Edited by Inkanissen on 01-19-2005 12:53 PM

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ArthurDentOnBria wrote:

Hylidex,

I'm having trouble seeing these as the same issue.

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You are right in that they are not identical issues, but they are closely linked issues. Any DNA storage proposal that does not also address identification of the DNA in storage is setting us up for an unworkable system. Right now, I have DNA scattered between houses and factories. Finding a specific DNA sample is a nightmare--even though they are organized in labeled backpacks. Increasing DNA storage will magnify this problem. The good news is that several storage solutions (blood sampling, labs, etc) have built-in identification solutions.

I honestly think we should present all the proposed solutions with our top 5 unless the solution is really unworkable and let SOE do whichever they think is most viable. I would hate to lose our opportunity to gain extra storage because they didn't like the solution we proposed.

We may be limited to one issue for that slot, but not to one proposal for a solution.

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Inkanissen wrote:
I have an idea for a simple solution:

1) Arch can make a DNA Storage Building (Fridge or Freezer if you like) that can only be placed by a Master BE.
2) This building can only be used to store DNA samples.
3) It takes 1 lot.
4) It holds 150 DNA samples.

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Droids, although cool, are kind of cumbersome. The time penalty for calling in the field, can't call in the house, and you have to call to get to the storage window. If it could hold 60+ samples then it'd be worth it, but for 25 I feel it would just become another place to store stuff.

I personally like the belt idea the best. Yo can access it from the crafting station and can take it off and hang it in the house.