Architect Archive

I was thinking today about the issue of structure decay and stuff... and I was wondering, why not kill two birds with one stone? Architects have a problem, in that their buildings never decay as long as you pay maintenance. So aside from the forgetful person, or the person who goes on vacation and doesn't pull up their harvesters first, we'll eventually run out of customers (assuming no one new joins, which isn't the case). But certainly we'll never see the kind of demand that we saw during the first month of the game.

Droid Engineers have a problem as well, in that most of their droids are rather pointless. The Binary Load LIfter doesn't really lift any loads or anything, repair droids only repair other droids, medical droids don't actually heal anyone.. they're no different from droids with a medical mod. Power droids only power other droids, etc. So why not implement a system that satisfies both? Remove maintenance and slow the decay rate, then implement the ability for droids to repair structures. Architects can make the vital components for the structure repair modules for droids and such, giving them some extra business there. And then it can also work somewhat similarly to repairing other items in the game, in that as you repair a structure, its maximum durability decreases slightly, so that eventually you'll have to buy a new structure. Not only would this increase the business of droids, but it would keep us in the market as well.

Another benefit to this is that it could be a start of a revamping of the way droids work. With most droids dedicated to non-combat uses, PvP tags on the droid aren't an issue, meaning there should be no reason that a droid can't be automated to perform certain tasks even in the absence of the owner (since PvP flags properly syncing is the reason pets have to stay so close). Things like Binary Load Lifters could be programmed to automatically unload harvesters and deposit the resources at your house using a system similar to the patrol system (feed it the waypoints of your harvesters as patrol points, and your house as the finish point, and off it goes). The same could work for power droids and repair droids. Surgical droids could heal damage, or at least heal wounds in camps or something. But whatever they do to expand upon it, starting with the structure repair/power ability for droids would be a good start. Not only would it add something many architects are asking for, but it would add something droid engineers are begging for as well.