Bio Engineer Archive

I've said it before interdependancy makes a healthy economy.

I read that snippet this morning too Tal-N. Has some intersting implications, but I think they would all be bonuses, rather than penalties, for us.

We all know the sometimes pain in the rearof medical subcomponents... especially if you aren't part of a PA or are friends with a doctor. Under this umbrella, I don't like the idea of increasing interdependency. The game is supposed to be fun, not a chore. For the average person, I don't think hunting down a TON of out-of-profession subcomponents is 'fun'. Properly implemented, some interdependency is acceptable, but gone overboard a profession would be dragged down into drudgery. As examples of good interdependency I'll cite our medical subcomopnents (good interdependency of us), tissues (good interdependency for tailors / chefs)... as bad I'll make up one of clones requiring combat medical subcomponents, doctor subcomponents, AND master artisan subcomponents (extend this however far you feel like).

Trying to come up with a 'bad' interdependency for bio engineers it is hard to think of other elite crafitng professions that we would logically be dependent upon. The medical fields and artisan/droid fields aren't too much a stretch... but the others would take more hoops than I would agree are reasonable (i.e. you *could* make up a reason we need a weaponsmith component for a clone, but it wouldn't be a satisfying argument). Furthermore, we already fill the role of support class in our tissue lines. These two facets of bio-engineering would seem to indicate an increase in interdependency would mean WE would be supplying THEM with more products.

I'd say this makes sense from a skill point point of view. Making bio-engineers the largest supplier of subcomponents to other crafting professions would offset the extra bite out of our skillpoint pool we take vs other crafting professions. Doctors, Combat Medics, and Smugglers are the only crafting professions which spend equal to, or more, skill points to reach Master... and I think we would all agree that those three classes have some non-crafting game play value (healing, buffing, fighting) which makes it possible to play them as non-crafting classes; whereas, bio engineers have zero in-game abilities other than to craft (along the lines of the other pure crafting professions).

So contrary to my usual reaction to change, this one I'll just ho-hum and wait to see. I sure have enough other things in game to worry about like the virtually untested cloning system we'll get early next week, and the 100% changed combat system they're slowly implementing.

I was thinking of extended combat medic components since engineered viri are something we deal with, so there's an avenue there. Organic weapon components already exist so I can see bio-engineers making things similar to the more common and weaker fambaa and kliknik components. What would be nice is the ability to make a make-up kit of sorts for image designers. They'd basically store a certain configuation of settings in one, then they sell it off to a customer who can then use the ID kits to change their appearence at well rather than needing an ID all of the time. Obviously they can only change to the settings the ID has stored in the ID kit. This would be handy for people who like minor changes such as hairstyles or lipstick but could also work for people who like to totally alter thair image from time to time.

Lot of the same thoughts I've had Tal-N and all fit nicely into our support role. Perhaps the interdependency will leap to us in the form of having to use other profession's parts as a base? Though I'd imagine that would be a pain in the butt for coding. Say a weaponsmith wants our dreamed up Arachne Tissue treatment for his rifle barrel to give his gun a poison attack in addition to the normal damage.... now we could either be providing a tissue for the weaponsmith to use (most likely) or we could be required to take premade rifle barrels to treat post production (less likely).

I've done some thinking about ideas of products we could make for other classes besides those which we alreasy supply to.

1. Bio weapon add ons, poisons or disease components that WS could add to weapons. There are already enhanced weapons like this that come off high level drops.

2. Bioarmor special resists to poison, disease, fire, ect. Also maybe we could make special components for a living armor, which would self heal over time, kind of like the yuzzum vong's vondum crab armor.

3. Droid brains- these would require DNA samples with high scores for intelegance and cleaverness. If aded to a droid like a chip, it would increase the droid's AI capability.

4. Genetic disguise kits - these would be used by immage designers, when aplied to a person it would change their name and faction for a short period of time. This would give people the ability to spy on the opposite faction, or send in undercover agents before a raid.

5. Bio Bufs - these would be used by Docs or CM when applied to a person they would give them bonuses seen in the animal world, armor bonuses, increased speed, ect.

All of these ideas don't force an interdependancy, as all of these classes have usefull skills that don't require us, but they do allow for us to be utilized.

Personally, I think the DE's are on crack. *no other profession blah blah blah??*

Armorsmithing. There are only 2 items in the entire armorsmithing profession that don't require something from another field. Ubese shirts, and armor upgrade kits. Also, if you want to experiment on those AUKs, you need artisan experimentation points. One entire line of armosmithing requires master artisan parts. The rest require parts from tailors, or someone with dom art 1.