Bio Engineer Archive

If you were focusing solely on Damage you could probably do it. It would be tough, and the pet would be pretty weak in all the other areas, but it might be doable given enough generations. I could definitely see around 700 or so.

listen up youngsters...

(DISCLAIMER: I offer this story for perspective on how the game has changed, not as recipe for exploits)
in the OLD days, back when the game started, a BioE could sample DNA from babies.

sure, it had lousy stats. but when you popped that DNA in the right place, when the stars lined up just right, and burned the right incense, something really buggy could happen:

damage in the 10-50k range.

here's sort of how that worked (or rather, DIDN'T)... when an artisan/weaponsmith experiments damage on a weapon, they're actually experimenting DPS. every success will increase the damage and lower the speed (pick up novice artisan and make a few CDEF's to see this happening).

baby DNA had a HUGE delay... but to compensate for that, (and preserve some of the DPS), the DAMAGE would skyrocket. further... delay seemed to reset the timer when switching targets... so as long as one 50k hit would smash the FIRST target, the second and subsequent ones weren't long for this world.

this was an exploit, and it was quashed fairly quickly. since then, the cloning system has been completely overhauled.


NOW, in these fast-paced and modern times, I'd expect damage to top out about 700 or so... since that's what our best DNA donors hit their max at.

Though, there have been some rare reports of people managing to get Enraged Rancor DNA (damage should be 750's or 800) and a friend of mine said he managed to get 3 or 4 samples of kimogila DNA, after attempting to sample for many many hours on the same creature, though I never saw the DNA itself or the pets he made with them. Kimos have damage in the 1k range.

I personally believe the cl 75 sampling cap is a soft cap, and not a hard cap. You don't actually get a message that you cannot sample a creature until it gets into the 150+ cl range (hehe, I actually tried to...), I just think the sample success rate is on an exponential curve, so that past cl 75 it is statistically impossible (in the 1% or less success rate range) to sample DNA. CL 75's are already about 10% success rate, and the next highest creature is about cl 85 or so, which could be dropped down to a 1-2% success rate by then. Kimos are about cl 95 or so, which would give them an ultra low success rate.

Just my personal belief about the sampling system, which I have never been able to confirm myself. *shrugs*

Theres actually an error message?!

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CptAdder wrote:

Lammergeier... 50k damage you say?

Hmm even with delays that thing would be fun to use aginst Jedi(One shot fun!)

I could quickly see becoming a temporary PVP god(You have been incaped by 'Uber' 4000 damage (thats through 90% kinetic) for until they learned to oneshot the pet first then beat on me

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like I said... it was an exploit, and one of the problems with the old DNA and cloning system... and they put it down.

but yeah... for a while, baby DNA was hot stuff for exploiters.

Quoth NancyJ,

> Theres actually an error message?!

I checked out the string table files for DNA sampling messages. Some notable strings were:

harvest_dna_creature_killed: The shock to it's system was too much, the %TT falls over dead.
I've never seen this message displayed. Probably a bug.

harvest_dna_skill_too_low: You are not sufficiently skilled to take DNA samples.
This is the message shown when someone without Novice BE attempts to /sampledna. I have never seen it with this character.

harvest_dna_invalid_target: You cannot sample DNA from that target.
harvest_dna_cant_harvest: You cannot sample DNA from that target.
Note the same error message for two distinct error conditions. Overriding the table with unique strings reveals that harvest_dna_cant_harvest is shown when attempting to sample NPCs while harvest_dna_invalid_target is shown when attempting to sample inanimate objects.

Unless the harvest_dna_skill_too_low is shown for high level animals there doesn't seem to be a message.

The highest level creature I have come up against is a graul marauder (CL173) but it aggroed me at 17m. Every so often I come across enraged rancors and try a few samples. No success and no error message. It would be interesting to spend all day trying to get a sample from malkloc plainswalkers. Two hundred or so failed attempts would be convincing enough...

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furrycat wrote:
It would be interesting to spend all day trying to get a sample from malkloc plainswalkers. Two hundred or so failed attempts would be convincing enough...

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Hehehe, you just know what would happen if you got a successful sample of that right...crit fail

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NancyJ wrote:
Theres actually an error message?!

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I snuck up on a blurrg raptor... but when the needle went in, I failed and aggro'd.

have to try this again with a doc to rez or something.

the pet on the ch board was a pre nerf kimo. as we ch refer to them, the bugged ones.