Bio Engineer Archive

I've been reading up on Bio-Engineering because I wanted to learn how to make pets. I've read FAQs on this site, SWGCreatures, and a few others and came up with a discrepancy.

Can anyone confirm for me whether all bio-engineered pets can have a ranged attack or if it is only if you use a skin that would be able to use a ranged attack in the wild? I've seen confirmations both ways and don't know if it changed at some point.

This question came up because I saw someone's post of a "Spittin' Kitty" where they had a Gurrcat or Gurreck that had a ranged attack. It wasn't a visible attack, but if you watched the chat spam, it was attacking. I thought that sounded interesting, if a little odd.

Thanks for your help.

All BE pets are capable of having a ranged attack

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ArthurDentOnBria wrote:

When I want a ranged attack, I generaly insert 2 samples from a creature that has ranged attack into the mental and psych slots of the dna template, preferably vhq or hq samples. That does it nearly every time iregardless of what skin you use.

Occasionally you'll make a pet that will get a ranged attack "bleeding in" from some slot other than mental or psych (usually when you don't want it, lol) but that is relatively rare.

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Lol I didn't know that - had always thought it worked similary to special attacks where they could be bleeded in by putting a VHQ sample in the psy and an AA in the aggression slot. Cheers art

Thanks for the quick answers, guys!

My intent is to go Master Bio-Engineer / Master Creature Handler / Master Medic. (Mad Scientist/Veterinarian) I'm really looking forward to creating some fun and interesting creatures, and then taking them out to play. Something like a Durni transformed into the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail would be a blast. =)

My favorite skin is the Gurreck, though. I'd like to make one that has a ranged attack (and maybe light armor) to use purely PvE in the lower CH levels, but I think that it might still end up really high in the CL. Has anyone tried anything similar with keeping a moderate Kinetic resist and everything else vulnerable to keep the CL in the low-to-mid teens?

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Loony1 wrote:
Thanks for the quick answers, guys!

My intent is to go Master Bio-Engineer / Master Creature Handler / Master Medic. (Mad Scientist/Veterinarian) I'm really looking forward to creating some fun and interesting creatures, and then taking them out to play. Something like a Durni transformed into the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail would be a blast. =)

My favorite skin is the Gurreck, though. I'd like to make one that has a ranged attack (and maybe light armor) to use purely PvE in the lower CH levels, but I think that it might still end up really high in the CL. Has anyone tried anything similar with keeping a moderate Kinetic resist and everything else vulnerable to keep the CL in the low-to-mid teens?

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My personal best is 60% kinetic and light armour at CL15. Others have had similar results. There is a link in my 'BE Research' clicky in my sig, if you'd care to take a peak.

Nice compilation of data in that link, Zadokk. I think I just learned quite a bit over my lunch hour.

Thank you!

The problem with that is this: if you make one of the "usual" kinetic tank pets that has an energy vulnerability, then what you want to have happen in a battle is for it to close the distance quickly to what you are fighting, and make it a melee-range battle. Your pet will do very well in such cases. Where it won't do well is when it has things hitting it with ranged (mostly energy) based attacks, which will go right through its armor (if it has armor) and resistances and tear your pet to shreds. So by giving a kinetic-tank pet a ranged attack, you are inviting ranged battles, and your pet will perform very poorly in terms of absorbing damage. Moral of the story: if you want to have a pet with ranged attacks, make sure it has excellent energy resistance.

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Loony1 wrote:

I'd like to make one that has a ranged attack (and maybe light armor) to use purely PvE in the lower CH levels, but I think that it might still end up really high in the CL. Has anyone tried anything similar with keeping a moderate Kinetic resist and everything else vulnerable to keep the CL in the low-to-mid teens?

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I'd already done a little planning on that part, Arthur. I would pick and choose my targets so that I was really only fighting things that didn't have a ranged attack of their own and/or I would be tanking for the pet. At the early CH levels, I feel I would live longer than a normal CL12ish pet while taking direct hits.

And since I not only can't make the evil CL10's, nor want to use one, I need to protect the little guy as much as possible while still allowing it to attack to get CH experience.

Side note: I'm almost done with all my pre-requisites for both CH and BE. If my emphasis is going to be on pets over tissues, it seems like it might be best to go up the Engineering Techniques tree first to get experimentation points, then go back and start on Clone Engineering to get more templates. I'd probably take Tissue Engineering last and DNA Sampling doesn't share xp so it can just fill in as I'm out hunting. Is that pretty normal or is there a compelling reason to get specific boxes first?