Bio Engineer Archive

since all pet psych data is based on 'observed behavior', rather than on hard stats (like HAM, to-hit, etc)... we're forced to speculate, based on anecdotal evidence. that said:

I have used high psych and low psych clones. psych SEEMS to:

allow pets to learn commands better, and respond to commands more quickly/less fails

keep pets 'in the fight' better... staying on target, not running, etc.

and may, on the crafting side, increase to-hit.

these are generally accepted bonusses (they FEEL right) to a clone with high psych.

but there are some problems, with wild AND cloned pets (and faction pets, and droids), that cloud the actual behavior of the pets... and these behaviors make testing the psych stats of pets VERY difficult.

1) pets with a ranged attack will seek to establish range. some pets will fire ranged, close in, fire, close, fire... until they reach melee, then switch. other pets will continuously attempt to reach an 'ideal range' for non-melee attacks. the flipside to this is that...

2) opponents with a ranged attack will seek to establish range. send a melee pet against a ranged mob, and watch it chase the mob. OR try to engage a ranged opponent in melee yourself.

if you can... call a (melee) pet, a probot, and a faction pet. attack a melee opponent. attack a ranged opponent. repeat with a ranged pet, or a ranged/melee pet. you'll notice BIG differences in their behaviors.

the problem is compounded by multiple pets.

3) ONE pet of a pair, or trio, will pull aggro while the other does not. this is a tricky one. I have found that the pet I call first tends to respond to commands faster (the commands are all trained the same)... and pull aggro. this often means warping to the target. no matter what the battle, the pet I call first is the pet that needs the healing (assuming a matched pair... uneven matches will often swap aggros). if I call the pets out of my usual order, they swap aggro and damage.

4) multiple pets exacerbate 'running' problems. whether matched, uneven, multiple handlers, whatever... I ONLY use one pet... and if someone else in the group needs xp for CH, they send their pet in at the last second... otherwise, RUNNING and swapped aggros all around. unless you are sending multiple pets against multiple independent targets... use ONE pet to keep running to a minimum.

these are the MAJOR issues with current pet AI that cause a lot of behavior that is otherwise blamed on the mysterious 'psych stat'. by watching closely for the occurence of these (and other minor) issues, we can all better focus on what is actually happening in the small minds of pets.

I'm open to debate on this, and I realize that there are AI issues I have not touched... but I hope this helps seperate SOME of the myths of pet psych from the facts, and lets us test this stat more effectively.