Bio Engineer Archive

I'm not sure how long this information will be useful, because of the upcoming changes to pet crafting. However, since I'm about 99% certain I'm not coming back to the game now, I thought I'd post this before tthe knowledge is lost.

I'm at work, so I don't have the proper names of things in front of me. However, any BE should be able to understand what I'm talking about.

When making the template, there are 5 slots to put DNA into. These relate to Health, Action and Mind slots, and a psychology slot and a slot that relates to combat power.

Health and Action ONLY seem to increase those particular HAM slots. Mind will increase the creature's to hit number. For this reason, and because of all the mind damaging PVP action, I generally try to max the mind value during contruction and experimentation.

The value of Psychology is nebulous. I suspect that it may relate to how quickly the creature responds to commands, and how likely it is to run away, but both of these things could also fall under the combat slot values. I had made two creatures with near identical templates, except one had a 30% psych template and the other had an 80% psych template. I never ran the experiments because I ran out of interest in the game.

There are ten values on DNA samples, with each pair of values going down the list relating to a particular slot on the templates you construct. Going down the line, The first pair is for health, the second for action, the third for mind, the fourth for psych, and the fifth for combat. When picking a DNA sample to put into a slot you want the pair of sample traits relating to that slot to add up to the highest number as possible. For example, when trying to make a very elite creature, I try to make sure that each slot gets DNA with 1800+ as a combined score for the trait pair that goes with that slot.

However, that is only half of the battle. The HAM bar traits require that the DNA samplebe from a creature with a higher level than the creature you are making. However, there is a limit to how much better a creature can be made -essentially, it is a waste to use dna samples from a creature which has 10 levels over the one you want to make. A Razor Cat (level 22) made from Level 50 DNA will be no better than one made from level 30 DNA. If you use gnort DNA (<8)for the action slot of your Narglatch template (21), even if it has a 1900+ trait pair for it, it will still have a sucky action pool.

This is very important, because I have not seen it mentioned here before - the Psychology and Combat slots DO NOT REQUIRE high level DNA. A Rancor with an 1800+ in its combat DNA pair using gnort DNA will have just the same combat damage as one made from Kimogila DNA.

Now, there may be a slight bleed over effect between DNa in different slots. For instance, if you make a rancor using all gnort DNA, except for one kimogila with 1800+ in the action slot, you will get a 40% experimentation bar for action, but also the Health and Mind will be higher (4-6%) than if you had just used gnort DNA across the board. It isvery hard to determine how much this bleed over works, so there may be a slight advantage to have kimogila DNA in the combat andpsychologyslots of your rancor - but again it won't be much, and you won't see it reflected in the values of those stats - you might see it int he values of the hams though.

There may also be a slight degradation in using DNA sampled from your clones as opposed to wild DNA. This is hard to determine accurately, but suffice it to say, you can make very strong creatures using clone DNA samples, and the wild bonus is probably less than 10% if it exists.

So what does this mean for a creature maker right now. Assuming you are not a master ranger and can't get dna from level 50 creatures, you have one good option for making strong gurrecks and rancors. Harvest DNA from crappy creatures, make Kimogila's, then sample them to get good DNA for the HAM slots of your gurreck and rancor templates. Save the very high trait pair for Psychology and combat from the crap creatures, because they are perfectly suited for making gurrecks and rancors already.

For instance, I take some muon gold, and collect 30 or so samples from the trash outside of Mos Entha. I sort through it, separating the DNA that has 1800+ trait pairs in psych and combat. The rest I make into kimo's, which are in turn sampled for DNA. Those Kimo DNA'swhich have at least one1400 trait pair I keep for making average creatures, those with at least one 1800 trait I keep for making superb creatures. Those without a viable trait pair get recycled to make more Kimos.

A question here is whether the Kimos need to be any good to get good DNA - to put another way, would a second generation Kimo with made from kimo DNA give better samples than one made from nuna DNA. the answer as near as I can determine is no, it does not matter. Both are equally likely to give good DNA. If there is a difference, it is too slight to determine, and probably not worth the resources it takes to make second generation kimos.

Using the right 1800+ dna in a give slot does two things, it gives you a higher base score on assembly, and it allows you to experiment the value higher. To make truly stand out creatures, you want to put 1900+ trait pairs in - these will let you increase the creature to 75%-100% of max stats.

Where to put your experimentation is a tough question. Psychology is of dubious value and has no way of being shown in the creatures you sell, so if you are wanting to make a creature to sell for a lot of money, I wouldn't worry about psych. If you believe Psych has an effect on the frequency of special attacks, then you might want to put a lot of points into psych and not much into combat improvement, because increasing combat slows down your attacks even as it adds damage.

I've found that buyers respect damage, even knowing that the DPS doesn't change much. For pvp, having a rancor hit for 700 does offer advantages over one that hits for 500, even though the DPS is the same. Players hit by the first rancor will be down in two hits (one combat delay), while those hit by the second may require 3 hits (two combat delays). That is significant for them. For PvE, it is not as critical because the front loaded damage does not matter much when the fight is lasting for 20+ attacks.

So, I generally try to max the combat and mental stat lines (for the to hit bonus). I then raise Health and Action equally.

Once you have your template, you want to have very high quality foods to make the creature. All of the stats on a the final creature depend 50% on the overall quality, 30% on the Potential Energy, and 10% on the other two stats (I think one is not named right, so it is possible this last trait is never used in teh algorithm). You want to use food and meat with as close to 1000 in OQ and PE as possible. This will give a good boost to all of the traits and let you experiment better on them.

Experimenting in the creature construction craft sucks. It is broken - the bars don't move correctly and reset oddly, essentially meaning you cannot get more than one great success in a given trait line before maxxing out (with 950+ in both critcal food traits both in meat and flora, you might be able to get 2 out of it). You are advised to only experiment one point into a given trait at a time, because one failure should not reduce you to 0 preventing correction to the trait (once an experimentation bar hits zero, it can never be raised). An important note here also is that a failur in psychology can lower other traits - it can lower Combat and HAM traits. None of the others seem to affect each other on an experimentation failure. If you succeed after a failure in Psych, it will improve the psych, but NOT fix the damage to the other traits that may have been affected by the failure. It is unclear whether subsequent successes in a combat damaged by psychology failure can repair the damage, but I recommend experimenting on psychology FIRST if you you are going to experiment on it at all, just in case you can repair the damage.

Note that the experimentation in this section will at most get you a 7 or 8% bonus to a given trait, so the gain is slight but it is what can push your creature into a stand-out specimen. One of the major reasons we cannot make truly exceptional creatures is because the experimentation in this phase is so screwed up - if we could put 4 experimentation points into a HAM slot we probably could make gurrecks with 14000 HAM's.

In deciding what to make, here is my advice. Kamurrahs are about 90% of the effectiveness of rock beetles, and you can buff up their damage to 200+ making them look like the nastiest non-CH pet. Many non-ch's like guamalas (they are pretty), gurrcats (they are cats) and the ape things I can't think of the name for. I wish we had a good dog for non-CH.

Razor Cats are the best level <25 creature we can make, with torton a close second. Narglatches look very cool, as do anglers. Teh anglers have a poison attack, but it is only 60 points, so who cares. The tortons will do dizzy attacks, and the razor cats and narglatches do posture down and stun attacks. The two cats are very fast runners, and thay can make a big difference.

Nothing else matters until the Gurreck and Rancor. People like rancors because their damage gets upwards of 700, and they look cool, but the gurrecks is still better for combat because of speed and armor. Both sell very well when you knock their damage and hams up.

I hope that helps those of you who are sticking this thing out. they would have to do an exceptional job at improving the game to bring me back, and nothing so far done after the release indicates to me that they are capable of exceptional improvements.

One last thing about selecting pets to make - those with the quadraped lizard bodies are all craven cowards in fights, and will turn tail at any provaction. Guf Drolg, Dewback and Bolma that we make are all like this. I stopped selling them. I'm not sure if the wild versions are like this.

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Mattakar wrote:

Health and Action ONLY seem to increase those particular HAM slots. Mind will increase the creature's to hit number. For this reason, and because of all the mind damaging PVP action, I generally try to max the mind value during contruction and experimentation.

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Health will actually increase the number damage of the creature but seems to also slow down the speed at the same time. Basically the DPS of a creature is always the same regardless due to this fact. You can some huge hitters that hit slowly or some low ballers that can hit really fast...the overall damage will always be the same.

Great guide, wish I had one this clear when I first started

You can make a decent lizard if you put points into psychology. My first dewback was a chicken. My current one rarely runs.

I figured this stuff out when i was a novice, but it seems that on ahazi few masters even know this. This guide is why i will take 60 samples before i have enough to make a good pet. I have gotten over 700 attack but havent broken 13k ham yet. I should have four times but got crit error every time when putting my temp in with my floral and ham. Floral being 1000oq with 993qual and ham like 900 plus on both too and a crafting station at 42, I was so excited each time too since i had attack at 97 and ham was the same for one others where above 90, never know what it could have been lol. Some bios i think just go by the dna qual u get a ton of very high dna quals that u can't make anything with, well decent that is.

Excellent guide. I feel badly that you aren't playing your BE anymore. I have two accounts and alternate between a BH and a BE, which allows me to stay sane. Also slows my advancement on both. What I'm seeing is that you played your BE so much you basically "finished" or "won" the game. And exceeded the devs ability to provide entertainment. I'll be a better BE because of the time trailblazers like you put in.

Nice Guide!

Thanks a lot mate. Now I know why I keep getting 50, 1, 1, 1, 50% on the critters I make from low level DNA.

Copy and paste = good. Mind if I hold on to this and maybe post in on a guide site with your name attached? Dont think youd mind just though it would be polite to ask first

Excellent guide. I'll definitely put it to good use until my account expires or I cancel it early.

What a NICE guide. I have a swordsman/scout/medic I am currently planning to work up to BE (just started on him a few weeks ago) and this is definitely worth making into a sticky.

In fact I pasted it into Word and printed it out already. Dude, that's four PAGES of text at 12 point verdana font. Thanks for making such a comprehensive and useful post!

C

Go for it, I hope there is some usefulness left in it for a little while longer. I heard they nuked the kimo sampling the day I posted this, I doubt they noticed this post, but it still sucks if they did it.

My account dies in 2 days, I've decided not to reinstate. I may load up my facotry and house for a few months of maintenance, just in case they do fix the game. Not sure if the house will stay up once the account becomes inactive.