Bio Engineer Archive

I've got a question about the mask scent tissues that BE's can make to put into clothing. I'm assuming the answer is "no", but I'll ask anyway. If you wear clothing that gives you more than +10 Mask Scent, do you get the bonus even if you don't have the Mask Scent ability granted by Exploration 2? The reason I'm asking is that I'm faced with dropping Exploration 2, but I really need Mask Scent if I'm going to be an effective BE one day (I'm working my way up DNA sampling now, and find that it's pretty essential). And it seems to make sense to me that the Mask Scent tissue should work without the need of the Mask Scent skill, as the description that I've read makes it sound like a passive ability that responds to the wearer's stress level, rather than an active skill such as staying downwind of an animal (which, I assume, is what the /maskscent skill represents among other things).

So I guess my follow up question (assuming that the tissues don't work without the /maskscent skill) is: Has anyone mentioned this to the devs to see if it's possible to change this? It would probably help us sell more tissues than we do now, since I'm sure alot of people would like to drop Exploration 2 if they could. It would help us out alot, since Mask Scent is a skill that we rely on alot, but is not in our prerequisites. And it's not like having /maskscent without Exploration 2 would be a game-breaking ability. It's not some exclusive thing that only master scouts should have.

I actually think it would make more sense to make /maskscent a Novice Scout ability, and to divide the bonus up between the Exploration and Hunting trees, then every class that has Scout as a prereq would be able to /maskscent. But at the very least, I think that BE's should not be forced to pick up 2 extra boxes just to do something that is practically a requirement for the class.

Or maybe I'm just being whiny because I don't want to have to drop Novice Pistoleer to keep Mask Scent.

yup. answer is no. I've tried this myself.

I don't have exporation either given that I'm master doc/Master BE and I would rather have the limited survey ability than mask scent.

When I need DNA I solicit the help of my guild's Master Ranger to get me there. He can apply camo kits to me which give me some semblance of cover. He's also a master CH and is there to pull me out of trouble should I get hurt.

Then the question is, though I doubt anyone has an answer, is if a ranger camos you, does the mask scent bonus help then?

That is an interesting combo actually, hook up with a ranger.

It is fully intended on the part of the developers that a modifier (like bio-enhanced clothing) not work unless the recipient has at least basic skill already.

And yes, it does suck. Royally. But it does make sense. How can you modify something that doesn't exist?

I'd say just drop down to Pistol 4, honestly. I briefly had Novice Pistoleer, and the damage difference didn't seem worth it.

You can at least get a combination of shirt/pants/coat/bandolier made that would max out your potential plusses to Mask Scent. Unfortunately, you will need at leasttwo items...no piece of clothing can be made that can has separate slots for more than one Reinforced Fiberplast Panel (what Scent Neutralization goes into).

Is melee defense and defense against stun something gained at a particular box or do the tissue enhanced clothing that use these modifiers work for anyone?

My understand (and it makes sense actually) is none of the BE tissue enhancers increase your skill level. They enhance the skills you already have. The mask scent doesn't give you a higher skill of masking, it gives you less of a chance for the mask to break. You can't wear mask scent and have it work if you don't have the skill already. This applies to the other enhancers as well.

We wouldn't want a commando with no med skills going around healing people because he (or she) is wearing a coat with medical heal enhancements or a creature handler healing minds with no entertainer skills because they wear entertainer heal enhancements. It throws the whole professional balance off kilter

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Echinacea wrote:

And yes, it does suck. Royally. But it does make sense. How can you modify something that doesn't exist?

I'd say just drop down to Pistol 4, honestly. I briefly had Novice Pistoleer, and the damage difference didn't seem worth it.

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Well, as I said, the "/maskscent" skill is an active ability. But clothing made with the tissues are a passive scent masking. The skill represent's the user's ability to stay downwind of an animal, or to use the natural scents of a region to mask his own scent. But in the description of the tissues, it says that they emit a chemical that dulls the scent senses of creatures, and that it works more effectively with more perspiration. Now, I know that's just a nice description cooked up by some intern to sound better than "it adds to your maskscent skill", but it does make sense that whatever the clothing is doing is passive rather than active. So it should work even without the skill. Perhaps just at a lesser effectiveness.

Here's how I'd like to see Mask Scent work, in general:

At Novice Scout, you get the /maskscent ability at a very low level. At each box of Exploration, you get a few more points of Mask Scent, but not quite as much as is given currently. At each box of Hunting, you also get a few points of Mask Scent. So that at 4-x-4-x, you have as much ofa Mask Scent skill as you would currently have at 4-x-x-x. The modifiers from the clothing tissues should be applied separately, and should work whenever the person is wearing the clothing (technically, they should either change the description to state that it neutralizes your scent, or they'd have to make it affect everyone in the area). So, let's say I have 50 Mask Scent granted from skill boxes, and another 10 in modifiers from clothing. As long as I am wearing my Mask Scent clothing, I should always be walking around with the effect of having level 10 mask scent active. When I hit my "/maskscent" macro, it adds the 50 from my active skill, giving me 60 mask scent.

I don't think this would be game breaking in any way, or replace the Scout ability of Mask Scent (since the limit of what you could get from clothing is pretty low). It would also allow all BEs to have some Mask Scent ability without having to take Exploration. Which is something we should have as a prerequisite for our class since by Master we should have a pretty good idea of how to sneak up on an animal undetected in most cases.

Can anyone see why this would be a bad change to how /maskscent works? I don't think it'd be a difficult change for the devs to make, though I admit it'd be a very low priority one. But if it'd make life just a tiny bit better for enough BEs, it may be something worth asking to have put in in the coming months.

Anyway, as for my own situation, I'm pretty sure I'll just drop Novice Pistoleer. I haven't used Health Shot 2 much lately and I've got myself a pair of nice FWG5's now, so it's not as necessary as it was when I was doing all my pistol XP for Smuggler. I guess next time I just have to choose two professions that don't require 4 base classes to start from. heh

Maximum mask scent would be:
master scout skill +2 pieces of +13 or bettermask scent clothing + jawa beer (whatever the max value is on that).

rangers do not have better mask scent then master scouts. They have cammo ability which at the master level is better than master scout level mask scent.

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Mr-Wizard wrote:

I looked thru that FAQ and didn't see it and tried a search and comes back to many searchs everytime.

So how much mask scent can you have?

The limit of it(like 100, 125)?

I have exp 4 and have threepieces of clothes with +15 I think it is.

Would that be the max?

Does adding ranger help to sample higher level dna?

Thank you,

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Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 02-04-2005 10:40 AM

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ArthurDentOnBria wrote:

Maximum mask scent would be:
master scout skill +2 pieces of +13 or bettermask scent clothing + jawa beer (whatever the max value is on that).

rangers do not have better mask scent then master scouts. They have cammo ability which at the master level is better than master scout level mask scent.

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Mr-Wizard wrote:

I looked thru that FAQ and didn't see it and tried a search and comes back to many searchs everytime.

So how much mask scent can you have?

The limit of it(like 100, 125)?

I have exp 4 and have threepieces of clothes with +15 I think it is.

Would that be the max?

Does adding ranger help to sample higher level dna?

Thank you,

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Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 02-04-2005 10:40 AM

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So it is around 130?

Master scout is 100

Then 26 or clothes, but I have three pieces

And then java beer which on my sever is usually around 12 to 14.

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