Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: How Do BE's feel about a proposed Droid Handler?
I'm pretty sure there is fictional guidelines whereby you're not allowed combat droids without special authorisation. It's basically going to come down to certifications again however having a droid handler profession is pointless since it would end up being a direct copy of the CH one almost plus droids are indeed an everymans tool. You don't need training to own a droid. As i said what they need is to have a way for someone with enough combat experience and credits to go up to an NPC and apply for a combat droid licence, as you gain more combat exp you'd earn the ability to qualify for more powerful combat droid licences.
Now these would naturally be an illegal process, the Empire doesn't give weapons to civilians so the NPC you deal with would basically provide false papers and charge alot for the effort. The combat exp would be like the NPC wanting to be convinced that your worth the effort, afterall a rookie who takes a uber-combat droid into battle and gets killed would be found to have false papers on them and that would drop the NPC into trouble. So he/she would want to be assured that something like that wouldn't happen.
Naturally though Imperials and Rebels could recieve combat droids via legal means based on your rank within the faction plus combat exp as well. There wouldn't be a credit fee though in this case since you would have already rendered services to the faction and they would consider that more valuable than credits. If you leave the faction then you also lose your licence, so if you want to keep using droids you'd need to speak to the NPC who does all of the paperwork illegally.
Actually, SL would make a good candidate for droid control.
I hope they keep droids as non combat healing, only repairable via the same process as weapons. And that they get destroyed when they are dropped to zero. That will help differentiate them from animal pets.
EricTheGreat wrote:
here is TH's post
Could you drop a hint when we will see the post about the DROID INVASION, please?
Ill be doing it this week. I had to push it off until some of internal discussions were finished. The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions.
Their argument makes a lot of sense too. A good balance is akin to Bio-Engineers and Creature Handlers; BE's make em and CH's use them. Its really two different playstyles. One is crafting and one is combat/exploration. Adding a class of combat droids to the game has to be similar. Combat droids themselves have to stay level 10 or under for the general population otherwise everyone would rush out and get the better pets. That leaves a wide range of powerful combat droids that needs to be in the game, but to get those droids, players have to spend the time and energy to earn them.
So what we'll have is a Droid Engineer profession and a Droid Handling profession. All players will have access to combat droids up to level 10 and DH's will get a wide range of heavy combat droids to handle.
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We DE's have been arguing against this for months, but TH just didnt seem to listen! What many DE's are advocating, NOT to take away from your non-CH pets, is a certification system so higher level players (say master elite professions) can get a better combat droid to use, whereas they are so strong a non-CH pet just isnt doing it for them and need something better. We want better combat droids, but we want everyone to be able to use droids like they can now, but since there cant be a pre-nerf probot situation come back there has to be a way to keep them out of the newbie hands, so some kind of a certification system.
This happens to be somethign I pointed out when the whole idea of combat droids being added was brought up. In fact I went through and gave level requirements for each of 3 types of combat droid certification with Probots left as they are now where a newbie could use them.
Esentially skill 4 in any novice combat tree grants lvl 1 combat droid cert. Skill 4 in the combat experience line of the elite professions gets the lvl 2 droid cert.(or the most difficult line to gain in for those elite combat professions that dont' have a combat experience line). Then master of any combat elite combat profession grants lvl 3 certification. I'm counting Smuggler, CH, CM and SLas combat professions for determining certifications.
Mastery of a non-combat novice profession grants lvl 1 combat droid certification. Mastery of an elite non-combat profession grants lvl 2 combat droid certification.
Lvl 2 certification includes lvl 1 as well for those that master an elite non-combat but not an novice non-combat.
Those droids were made in factories though.. they were mass produced. I highly doubt that SOE would give that option to DE.
meroc wrote:
Of course there were, where do you think all the clones for AoTC came from
Phluux wrote:
Then again, were thereeven bio-engineers? At this point I'd be happy changing from a bio-engineer that does anything related to animals or tissues to some sort of germ warfare specialist.
I also dislike the idea of a droid handler profession, however I also dislike the idea of putting droids into the hands of people who didnot spend any skillpoints to be able to use a droid. That is the root of the problem which have the devs in a kneejerk reaction to put together an entirely new profession. It will be HORRIBLY unbalanced to put a high level droid into the hands of someone like a master bounty hunter. We'll have the same situation we had when AT-STs were allowed to PvE ... master bounty hunters running around with level 70 battle droids. Having them cost lots of credits and lots of combat Xp would not limit them from obtaining them, afterall, we had situations where MBHs would still get 3 AT-ST regardless of their high faction point cost.
Whatever the solution, it is clear that using up skillpoints should be related to the level of combat droid you can possess.
I like theconcept of buying licenses from a shady underworld figure, but instead of buying licenses with combat xp or credits, you would buy licenses with skill points and a token number of credits.
Proposal (which mimics the balance of the CH profession):
CL 10 Combat Droids >> Anyone can use one.
CL 12 Combat Droids >> You use up 15 Skillpoints to purchase a license.
CL 20 Combat Droids >> You use up35 Skillpoints to purchase a license.
CL32 Combat Droids >> You use up 47 Skillpoints to purchase a license.
CL 48 Combat Droids >> You use up 59 Skillpoints to purchase a license.
CL 68 Combat Droids >> You use up 67 Skillpoints to purchase a license.
CL 70 Combat Droids >> You use up 68 Skillpoints to purchase a license.
The difference with this method and creating an entirely profession is that anyone can use the droids without putting in an extra grind which a droid handler profession would require. They just have to use up skill points so that combat droids will be balanced.
Although having combat droids as high as level 70 will effectively kill the creature handler profession, since there would be no reason to be a creature handler if you can obtain a level 70 droids without work.
It's a dillema.
Perhaps limiting combat droids to low level?
When you look at the issue of balance, a droid handler profession looks like the best solution.
I'm pretty much sold on the idea of making Squad Leader the DH in the game. Lets give them something cool to do. They would direct combat units both soldiers and droid units.
Phluux wrote:
Those droids were made in factories though.. they were mass produced. I highly doubt that SOE would give that option to DE.
meroc wrote:
Of course there were, where do you think all the clones for AoTC came from
Phluux wrote:
Then again, were thereeven bio-engineers? At this point I'd be happy changing from a bio-engineer that does anything related to animals or tissues to some sort of germ warfare specialist.
