Bio Engineer Archive

Is this common?

Fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, agro, run - they fight each other and so get away successfully. They all die but one. Go back and...

Fail, fail, fail, fail, got one sample target dead!

Today is my first day sampling rancors.

Yes it is the common thing.

Fail, change target, Fail, change target, Agro, insta incap ( i have 450 Health ), crawl away, head back and start again.

Remember to Switch to the next Mutant after each Fail or Success and just cycle them all, if you have a bike and Mask Scent ( Cammo is WAAAAAY better, I was a Master Ranger ) use a macro (I don't remember the proper lines )to hop off-DNA-hop on and ride if needed, once you start the DNA sequence you don't need tohave the Donor targeted.

Nikkoli Walksfar

Corbantis

yes have a bike and have been parking it very near as I can and have pre-typed /mount so i can hopefully make it to the bike.

I have no problem sampling rancors and rancor youths, just these darn mutants!

They're basically saying hop on the bike after the DNA sequence starts, before you get a fail or success.... this is one of those exploity type bugs that they will probably fix eventually...IMO you shouldn't be able to perform any portion of an action while mounted. If you try to mount it should either abort the action (like you're too far away), or it should say you can't mount while performing an action. The reason you can remount is the sampling animation is very short, but the actual process is longer, so once the animation finishes you can remount (under the current system).

By the way, the reason they kill each other off? Simple. One (or more) uses an AE attack, which hits all the other ones. Once you're down (or dead), they turn on each other with a vengeance until only one is standing.

I use this with wildlife now and then for amusement on Endor. Whack a screecher with a trap, at longish range. He'll often unknown attack (wide, wide range ae SOMEthing) or plague strike (limited range AE disease), tag a bud, who'll do the same thing. Usually the whole nest, and whatever's roaming from other nearby nests, is suddenly involved in a death duel. Back in the day, I'd walk up and flamecone them. Nowadays, I content myself with helping them kill each other off at range. By the time they (and I) are done, the survivor that turns on me is hella beat up.

When I'm trying to get dna samples, it usually makes me sad to see fratricide, but it does mean there are fewer to jump my squishy self in the event of a fail/aggro.

One simple trick to minimise aggro is to only sample from herds of the mutants. The trick is to rotate around the herd taking only one sample from each one. Using this method you can have a huge number of failures without almost zero aggro chances since by the time you return to the Rancor you first sampled then it's aggro timer has reset. Try to remember that folks, there is what could best to called a sampling cooldown period which determines how much your p*ssing off the animal. Given around 1 or 2 minutes you can resample from the same animal with the same kind of risk of aggro as if you were sampling it for the first time.

I know Rancors are on Dathomir, but I've never seen a mutant one. Is there a special place, or just get lucky?

Head west from the Dathomir outpost, around 2000m away you'll come to a valley followed by a huge expanse of mostly flat land with the occastional canyons. These are the Rancor plains, almost nothing but Rancor spawn here and it's of every type imaginable.

---

Seshemw wrote:
By the way, the reason they kill each other off? Simple. One (or more) uses an AE attack, which hits all the other ones. Once you're down (or dead), they turn on each other with a vengeance until only one is standing.

---

There seems to be more to it than this. Once they start fighting each other, others from a good distance away will head for the fracas and join in, as if they are defending a member of their pack. I don't know what the AoE attack distance is, but, unless it is well over 20m, something else is also causing them to attack each other.

---

Tal-N wrote:

One simple trick to minimise aggro is to only sample from herds of the mutants.

---

That trick only works if you can get close enough to sample them. As I've said elsewhere, I've never managed to get close enough to a pack to even attempt a sample. It's usually mask scent broken at 65m and then aggro. Mutant Rancors seem to hate me with a passion.

Remember to crawl next time. Improves your chances drastically.

What attacks can you get in the dna sample?

I never bother crawling, it really doesn't seem to help.

I usually target the closest MR and then head to 62m and wait a few secs. If it doesn't break, TAB to the next closest MR and move to 62m of it. If it breaks, I back off to 70m, wait,reapply and then head in to 62m again. If you don't back off too far, the original MR won't get a new roll against the MS (as it has already failed it). If you back off too far, you'll give it a new check when you come back in.

I get a ton of MR DNA now and actually supply it to other MBE's.