Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: New Idea for BioEngineers
If you're talking about a meat shield sure, it's easy to craft something with 9k Health, high kinetic resistance, sure you can achieve a lower CL just get at least 500 fortitude for armor and 500 hardiness for the 9k Health, but I'm talking about creatures generally trying to fit the 50 range on par with creatures you can tame or used to be able to tame (Frenzied Grauls are still pretty uber for a 56). Alot of the AoE specials will not transfer over to the creatures you craft which are on some pets, ie Gaping Spider Recluse with the poison spray or the screecher's AoE disease. As far as skill goes in crafting lower level creatures versus stunted growth, some pets we cannot craft which possess great special attacks like poison spray etc... As aMBE/MCH(with no combat skills) I use pets a great deal to harvest meats or complete missions, I found that the combination of a tanking pet and 2 ranged pets (ie Gaping Spider Recluse babies) seem to be a great combo for taking down anything (this is probably a bug but might be intentional since you could argue venom is venom) because the ranged attacks on a baby do as much damage as an adult. And I totally disagree with you on the fact that it's skill that encompasses creature crafting, sure we have some formulas given in the advanced guide but who's going to bust out a calculator? It defeats the whole purpose of having fun if you have to punch in numbers into a calculator for each template. If I wanted more equations to solve, I'd take a few more units of upper division math, and even then it's just a bunch of proofs (anyhow I digress). I'd call it more guesstimation rather than skill, what they SHOULD do is add in a way to gauge what creature level the template is at this point (without regard to the minimum levels of creature skins you choose later) of crafting in order to give the crafter a better method of controlling levels rather than waiting until the final combine to know at what exact level the creature is. Stunting growth is a good way to manage creature levels better in addition to what a few people have been saying that they like their pets small for the novelty of it so in some cases they want their pets to stay babies since they're so *cute*. It would be very hard to craft a creature 56 or below who could beat a frenzied graul 1 on 1. BioEngineer got some love but they're still a long way from being fixed IMHO.
As far as buffs go, if chefs can already craft them, cool, but I was hoping for more of Attack Speed/Damage/To Hit type buffs since if we try to craft creatures with high values in these stats they'd skyrocket the CL into space.
And yes, even with your attempt at giving an example, I still think creature crafting is not worth it. All the countless hours of DNA sampling, looking up creature stats online, traveling, dying, running, creature levels going over/under the target level after combining are simply not worth the time spent. There needs to be more control in creature crafting or ways to boost creature stats temporarily.
As far as using "baby pets" to form a team, why not get creative enough to make a low level pet with strong poison and ranged attack, which will have better stats than the babies you're using now.
There are items in game that raise the damage of what you use them on significantly for a limited period of time. They are called power-ups, and they work with weapons. If you want to do that with a creature, you're in the wrong line of work.
BE crafting is more about thinking things through, learning and experimenting than any other type of crafting. It sounds like you would be better served mastering combat medic or another skill of that type, and simply finding a master BE willing to make pets when you need them to use as a CH, or possibly taking on a combat profession to increase your damage output, BE just doesn't sound like it suits you.
The idea of pet buffs is not a bad one, it is just already done in a different form than you suggested, and they are unlikely to duplicate the content. The "stunt growth" ability sounds a bit more like a CH ability than a BE, though using a BE made device or medicine to accomplish it is reasonable, though I think it is unlikely, as it would result in level 10 or lower creatures with armor and very much higher abilities in terms of specials than are appropriate now.
BE suppliments to allow a creature to grow to a strength beyond their natural limits or to help repair/regenerate vitality loss have been suggested but never implemented, for much the same reason. There were discussions of this nature several months ago in the Ch forums, before the major CH changes went live.
LLan
LLan
Captainlooney wrote:
What's with the hostile tone?
Your exaggerations about how weak pets are that we create is probably responsible for the reaction that you got, and rightly so. If you've ever used a 60% kinetic armored critter with a good amount of HAM you'd realize just how much effective HAM that really is, and how little need there is to buff it except under the most dire of circumstances (like entering the Corvette).
But in any case, pet buffs exist, chefs make them (when you can pull them away from making brandy that is). I've even thought it would be a very cool addition to my pet vendor to offer pet buffs. I plan to do that after my novice chef friend gets his operation going. I think potentially, once the non-ch pet thing gets sorted out, it could be a really good seller, particularly to the non-ch crowd.
Captainlooney, you might look again at the post, without assuming a hostile attitude, which seems to be coming more from you than from me or anyone else answering you. I mean it, as a simple, honest suggestion, BE just does not sound like it suits you.
Pets are a total package, and what you want to do is arbitrarily increase the damage without having to accept the higher CL that is part of the package. They are a balance of damage, resists, armor, HAM and effect, and it is picking the right one for the right job that makes you successful, not simply overwhelming the opposition by brute force.
Your approach of using a tank and damage dealers is not a bad one, but what you are asking for is to have the damage without the cost, the same as a novice marksman insisting they should be able to use a lightning cannon or a flamethrower. You get that damage trading something for it; in this case, the total CL you are controlling, which has a clearly imposed limit. By using babies with their adult damage ranged attacks, you are really taking advantage of a weakness in the game mechanics to exceed the design, and some might consider that an exploit (probably AFTER they used the babies to gain CH exp to master 
)
If you want to be able to stunt the growth of the creature to a given level, the only appropriate way would be to have the damage and resists scaled back to the level they would be on a creature of the CL at which you stop the creature's growth. Since that would defeat the overpowered pet's usefullness, I don't see it as much more than a novelty if it were implemented appropriately.
LLan
That's a CL 22 in my datapad right now, which can easily tank 2 rancors at once.
What were you saying about pet crafting not being worth doing since anything under 70 cannot have decent stats?
BTW, Chefs can already make pet foods which are significant buffs (for pets only), but they do not seem to be working as yet.
Stunting a creature's growth at a specific level is really little different than crafting a pet to those stats at that level, it just takes more skill and forethought to craft it than to let it grow to X level and say stop, and it does not allow for the resists to scale up, which is an important factor in the pet's overall level.
LLan
Captainlooney wrote:
Here's an Idea, why notgive BioEngineers the ability to craft pet buffs, would sure stimulate more revenue for our profession if they're able to increase a pet's abilities temporarily without upping the Creature's Level (of course to balance out the buffs they should be percentiles of creature stats instead of set numbers so non ch pets don't get too poweful). Creature crafting as is isn't worth jack other than novelty, it's too hard to gain good stats on a creature without going over 70, and even at 70 it fails in comparison to some existing creatures in special abilities, ranged attacks, or raw power. They also need to give BioEngineers some way to create packs that allow the BioEngineer to stunt a creature's growth in order to better manage the Creature Handler's limited Creature Control levels (finally be able to have a good mix of 3 pets instead of just 1 giant pet).What do you guys think?
Not to be mean or harsh, but if you can't craft good pets under CL 70 that are better than equivilent creaures in the wild, you're doing something wrong. As the poster above me said, we can definately make mid level CL pets with very good stats. In fact, our mid level pets will definately be much better than wild pets of a similar CL. Our pet crafting is anythiing but a novelty. The only thing limiting our sales are the number of CH's on our server and the fact that a pet can almost last forever.
The only place where wild pets are better than BE is some of the creatures with specials we can't use (AoE, Force, etc)