Bio Engineer Archive

This has been brought up before and for a chance I'm gonna attempt to play devils advocate here. Clearly the DNA is now the primary factor in determining everything about the new clones. The 'types' are 100% blank even down to resistances and the devs said we can add a couple points of resistances and such at the risk of accidently throwing the CL rating too high. (btw i do like that idea a fair bit since it means cloning requires skill and judgement) So where does the resistances originate?

There is the possibility that we get a point where we can define the resistances manually, however if that was the case then how come we can experiment on them and accidently go too far. Does this imply something similar to stat migration and then a further enhancement afterwards? Possibly. However given how much attention has been given to the DNA itself in reguards to how it effects the clone is it not a very easy estimate that the samples define features of the clones. So like when you drop a sample from a Rancor into the resistances slot then you end up with resistances just like the Rancor. This might even extend to the special moves.

And that is where I think I sense a problem.

First of all if resistances are something every bio-eng can see on the wild animalsso there's no problem there, special moves are another matter intirely as are the 'chance to hit' and the 'damage' outputs for the creatures. Indeed the hit % requires tracking 4 and the damage requires master ranger. These are only less important things however special moves need Tracking 3 and that is a vital bit of information for making clones under the new system.The problems are two fold.

• Most of the powerful special moves belong to aggro creatures


• How can a Bio-engineer know what specials a creature has without an external database?

Now while it'd be great for me to sit here smugly about how rangers have a significantadvantage the bottom line is that there are many vocal induviduals who don't like being handicapped by not having ranger skills. I think that this 'problem' should be addressed openly with the designer cause even I can see that a non-BE-Ranger is going to struggle to get the full range of special moves plus they'll need to continually refer to an external database for creatures so they know what animals to sample from for certain special moves.

This is unless they take into your suggestion, that I really like the more I think about it, of people being able to harvest "blood" or something that we can extract DNA from. It would add a new economy to all servers and revitalize the Ranger profession. In addtion, BE's with out ranger ability would just be able to find a Ranger to hunt for them.

Ka'Mala
Bioengineer 0/4/1/3
A-V
Wanderhome

I think rangers should have a bit of an advantage in this (just not a total one, the rest of us need a way to get DNA too ), as they are the masters of the field. Not too concerned about the to-hit or damage really, I know many of them as a CH, and for those I don't, I can probably make a good guess. Specials are another thing, but it is also possible to find these out by fighting things and seeing what they use on you . Of course, this doesn't work well for the non-ranger non-combat type BE's, but I don't know how much of a problem it is - after the initial learning process, wouldn't you know what to hit up for a certain special?

While I understand what you are saying, I go against the current drive by many people in many professions to take skills they want from other professions for free, when they have as much ability to gain the skills as anyone else does.

Yes, a BE/Ranger will have an advantage in creating specific creature types. But much of that advantage can be mitigated by experience (specials, damage etc), leaving the ranger's only real advantage in finding it a bit easier to get samples - you don't need to refer to an external database at all, especially considering how innaccurate the info on many of them is - just make and maintain your own notes. To answer your specific bullet points;

• yep, use mask scent with decent modded clothing and that becomes a huge non-issue most of the time, especially with sampling now reduced to critters that mask scent works against most of the time - i.e. if mask scent keeps failing, chances are you won;t be able to sample anyway


• as the creature re-work being pushed out at the same time as all this will be changing large numbers of creatures specials and other stats, external databases are going to of even less value in the future than they are now. And, quite frankly, if people cannot be bothered to actually collect data for themselves do they then have a right to complain they cannot make the same quality of creature as someone who does the prep work?

Personally, my take is that ifsomeone wants the skills badly enough, they'll get them. Ifa persondoesn't want to spend the skill points to get them, they can't really be important, can they.

I agree with you Tal-N, i think the the bottom line in the whole BE-Ranger debate is a question of what level of advantage a BE-Ranger should or shouldnt have. On one hand its only sensible and fair that a BE-Ranger should get to use his ranger abbilities in a benifitial way on the other hand it should never reach a level of advantage where we end up ina situation where it become 'ranger or dont bother'.

On the id specials, one middle road could be to allow all BE's to identify the special attacks associated with a DNA sample, but you'd still need the apropriate ranger skills to see them when id'ing the creature. That way rangers would still have an advantage, while non rangers would still have access to the info, but they would have to take a test sample first (or know from previous experience)

The other solution is a client-side database which records the specials and suchlike for animals you have sampled, this would be similar to the ranger skill except it only applies tospecies you have taken dna samples from. Thus whenever you examine a species you have once sampled you can see it's special moves. You might even be able to make this need a bit more effort and when you get samples you gradually start discovering the stats bit by bitfor the species from average or higher samples.

it'd be nice to require more DNA samples to adjust the stats with..

and allow multiple samples collected from a single attempt based on skill...

hey.. uhm... so.. we're talking bout the new cloning system.. but.. it's still undecided when it's coming out, right?

maybe if MCH got the pet-taunt ability... iwouldn't mind losing weap skills (ranged weap support) for tracking skills (helps me find things too)

as a master BE and master Ranger, I have this to say.

I have 0 combat skills. By the sheer luck of me, I chose wookie as my race. this gives me a cert to use the bowcaster, 290 damage with 4.5 speed, thanks Crewel. I hit with it maybe 1 out of 5 shots. since it is of rifle designation, Im already taking 2 times the normal damage at melee.

I have made personal sacrifices with my character so that i can have this information about what my target can do. Personally, I hope that the specials on the creature are designated by the DNA. It would provide an actual benefit to being a master ranger. Tal, yer a ranger, you know the utter lack of things the ranger class provides. Over a scout, we get to crawl faster, and can make better looking camps. Harvest bonus doesnt add enough, and the whole + to trapping skill is a lie. Being able to see what other people cant because they chose CH or pistoleer makes it right.

easy solution:

all those stats (dmg, resists, armor, special attacks) show up on each DNA sample. that way a non-Ranger BE cant know them right away, but can find out by taking a single sample. Ranger still has the advantage, but its not an absolute advantage.

We know they show up on the samples, but there are well over 300 species out there and lets say you're after a specific special attack. Are you gonna keep at least one from over 300 dna samples handy and look through them one by one in order to know which planet to hunt on and what species to look for? The bottom line is that if you want to fill a specific order for a clone (and frankly this new system will mean most people will want pets made a certain way) then you're gonna have to spend some time researching what to go after before you make it. For a ranger it's a simple case of going into the wild with a rough idea and using tracking to locate the animals and then examining them to make sure, for a non ranger it means visiting an up-to-date creature database (none currently exist which are complete) and then taking down notes of what to sample from and finally actually locating them.

Not to mention you will never find disease or poison attackson a non-aggro species that means maskscent will be very much a requirement.

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Tal-N wrote:

Are you gonna keep at least one from over 300 dna samples handy and look through them one by one in order to know which planet to hunt on and what species to look for? The bottom line is that if you want to fill a specific order for a clone (and frankly this new system will mean most people will want pets made a certain way) then you're gonna have to spend some time researching what to go after before you make it.

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LOL what are you talking about?

300 dna samples handy? um.. yea that or a PENand PAPER!

what way does a ranger have to record stats on specific creatures? exactly.

the only advantage a ranger has is that he can find the creatures slightly more easily and can check stats without sampling. im not a ranger and i have no problem sampling from aggressive creatures, it just takes some strategy, common sense, and some maskcent tissues (and i was doing fine without those too). the ranger has to do the same research a non-ranger does, its just easier and frankly not much easier (definitely not worth the skillpoints. heh). for most creatures you can just as easily get a mission for them them instead oftracking them down.

rangers dont automatically know stats on all creatures. if a ranger/BE gets a request for a creature with an attack and doesnt know where to find it he has to look through creatures one by one to find the right attack (much like your silly 300 DNA statement) or he has to visit the same database anon-ranger would.

maskcent isnt only a ranger skill, so i dont know why you included that. someone could just as easily get exploration 4 and buy some tissues to enhance it.

rangers dont have much of an advantage at all. the only skill a ranger has that issomewhat usefulto a BE is tracking, the rest are a slight convinience at best. i would rather alt-tab toa database than waste the skillpoints thatcould be better spent on something i enjoy (CHin my case), of course if you enjoy ranger, more power to ya.

i re-read the post about the changes..and if im not mistaken, armor and resistances can be adjusted...