Bio Engineer Archive

At first, when it was mentioned that (with the coming patch) creatures with high stats would reflect those stats in their size, I thought there'd be a mad rush for Rancor-sized Durni or Gnorts or any other pint-sized critters. The thought of a Master CH traversing the landscape with a 50 foot Vir Vur in tow sounded interesting.

What I realized is that when they said that about a creature's size reflecting their stats meant not monstrous durnis but rather large-sized durnis... not 50 feet tall, but maybe waist-high. Big when compared to other durnis maybe.

My reasoning is that they aren't going to create new textures for all these small animals with a higher resolution. I would bet a texture map on a Rancor is maybe 512x512 or so... maybe even 1024x1024.

A durni, on the other hand, is very small and thus a 512x512 map would be overkill and bog the game down. My guess is that a durni texture map is only about 64x64 or 128x128.

Now, anyone with any experience working in 3D knows what would happen if a durni grew to be 50 feet tall... the texture would be a blurry mess. That's why I think the giant creatures some people are hoping for won't exist.

Anyway, I guess I'm just thinking out loud here.

This is about the only issue I have with the new cloning system as being reported from TC I know it appeals to some (many?) to have some gurreck-sized durni running around at CL60, but to me it makes the game cartoonish. Just as there are lower limits to the high-end creations' CL, imo there should be upper limits to the low-end models' CL. I have difficulty seeing the dev logic in not allowing mini-rancors but allowing giant durnis. If one is allowed 'for fun' why not the other? In scientific terms, I would think that halting the growth of a large animal, to make a mini-version would bea heck of a lot easier than growing a rabbit the size of a horse (all sorts of nasty structural issues).

I dunno - I don't want to seem like a killjoy, but the concept just seems farcical

If it is true that size will reflect power, well. That blows.

I have ALWAYS wanted something the size of a kima with the strength of a Kimogila.