Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: Combat Droids
Get your attn? 
Post your thoughts on these ideas or flame away, whatever floats your boat:
1) Remove the 3rd tree from the DE tree, move the customization and experimentation mods to the 1st and
4th trees.
2) Insert Combat droids into the now vacant tree in the following order,
a) Int. Combat droids: Troopers, standard cannon fodder, relatively low HAMs, armed CDEF carbineweapons that have to be made seperately, this gives novices artisans a useful market for their waresand limited to armor lvl 1 or 2, one module only. They provide some combat supportrelative to their skill lvl to produce, but basically cannon fodder like they were in the movies.
b) Adv. Combat droids. IG assassin droids, (for variety and appearance, would look goodfollowing bounty hunters and smugglers) limited to lvl 2 or 3 armor, one module only. Improved lvl weapons,DLT20s or scout blasters lvl weapons. Still a reasonably low HAM not a "tank".
c) Expert Combat droids. The improved Super troopers, increased weapons, built in now, not external. Armor lvl 3 or 4, improved HAMs.
d) Master Combat droids.The Battle droid commander, lvl3 or4 armor, still only DLT20a lvl weapons, BUT with a Battle droid commander, now you can also call out up to 2 battle droids as well. Finally a use for those formation commands on droids. If the Commander is incapped the regular battle droids either freeze or fight with reduced effectiveness.
d) Master Droid Engineer. The holy grail of DEs the Droideka,requires weapons built by an weaponsmith, shield generators built by armorsmiths, and a power core from architects. Requires double the resources of the Binary load lifters. Being such an intense powerful droid, you can only call out a support type droid (repair/recharge) when this bad boy is deployed.
Of course this would require lifting the one droid per user limit that is has been imposed on the Galaxy at large.
your ideas to the reworking of the tree are close to mine. Specially the battle commander.
so they are good. Question is how to allow the certs. I do not believe the devs will never allow MAster Droid ENgineers to be able to use Droidekas without getting combat skills.
Just the attotiude they have against non combat oriented classes.
Even those with elite elite classes. WHich is the shame.. you penelize people from seeing other content cause they choose to allow the economy to even exsist.
so.. here is what i suggest.
anyone can use intermediate droids.
anyone with level 4 of combat can use advance
novice elite combat can use expert
tier 2 or 3 can use master combat
master elite combat can use droidekas
Master Elite crafters can use advanced
Novice Elite-ELite can use expert
Tier 2 ELite ELite can use master
master elite elite can use droidekas
Novice SL can use Master combat droids
Master SL can use 3 droidekas at once.
I know the cert system is a complete guess at this time.
As for comparing to the Pre-nerf probots, well only the Droideka would fit that comparison at all and compared to a Rancor of Frenzied Graul thats not unrealistic. Yes a cert system would be needed to keep those out of newbie hands.
Battle droids with CDEFs would be approximate to our Probot now, CDEFs max out near 60 dam, current Probot damis 50. Given a Low HAM and low armo lvl on the battle droids they would be weaker individually then the current Probot , so in no way overpowering,but then they would be easier to produce and be the cannon fodder that they were in the movies, effective only enmasse. The higher rank droids would still be only approximate non-ch pets. My non-CH pets now are between 2200-2700 Ham, with up to 30% resists kinetic / energy and hit from 150-170, so the droids I'm proposing, except the Droideka, compare evenly with what anyone can buy now from a CH.
As for the Droideka, anyone who puts in the time to earn the faction points can get an even more powerful "pet" if they are imperial... AT-ST.
/curses no edit button.
If you look at most of the weapon systems I proposed they arevery basic weapons anyone can get, CDEFs basic battle droids and even the battle commander droid is only armed with a DLT20a etc. the cert for this is granted 1st rank of marksman, Intermediate box, with an avg.dam. lvl of 100-170. so still very comparable to non-ch pets. Of course the Battle commanders allow you 2 additional droids out with him, but compare the droids I'm proposing to faction pets and you'll see these are much more inline and balanced. Additionally, if you had your battle commander in use, you shouldn't be able to pull out the 3 storm trooper pets that anyone can get with time spent factioning.
I see Droid Engineers as the inorganic equivilent of the CHs, CHs take living breathing baby animals mold and train them to be the bio-weapons they are in game. We take the raw materials we find and mold and shape that into the droids you see in game. Who else could possibly know the ins and outs of Droids better then their makers, its nothing like combat skills for weapons. The weapon is fired by a person who trains and practices and learns the advanced moves to use the weapon they acquire.. A weaponsmith knows how to make a weapon, he doesnt learn the muscle control, breathing, movement or other aspects of shooting or using a weapon like the combat classes. The droid is the weapon and weilder rolled into one package, who else but itsdesigner/programmer would know best how to use it. The engineer who designed your computer you're reading this on knows it better then the avg. shmoe who walks into the store and buys it, hence DE's as they move up the tree should be able to use the advanced droids better than anyone else.
We need more combat droids that are just as powerful as the mass amount of pets there are. There seems to be aloss of good combat droids post your thoughts here.
RESTORE THE PROBOT!!
AT least until you give us a few more real combat droids!!!!
AMEN!
RESTORE THE PROBOT THEN GIVE US REAL COMBAT DROIDS!!!
makse perfect sense - just like how a master BE can usetheir strongestcreatures.
Ashrid, you are correct that this tells us where the state of where the DEVs are at on pets.......headed in the right direction finally. There have been a number of posts by a few red names that have stated that there needs to be a swing from the current 'pet-wars' to something that is more in line to the Star Wars name, mainly combat droids. From what Thunderhearts post on CHs tells me is that 'The Plan' for DEs delievered Friday was nothing but the glazed coating of what is actually headed our way in the next few months. SOE's stance on talking big and not delivering is finally coming to an end. Take a look at what is being said by the DEVs in interviews and posts in the last 2 weeks and compare it to the what was being said prior to 2 weeks ago.
Ever since the president of LucasArts resignedonOctober 9th, there have been a number of changes in how things have been done, whether these changes have been coinecidence or related is you judgement call. Take a look at the a few of the things that havechanged sincethis date. There has been the addition of Thunderheart, a number of posts that are now keeping people updated for the hot fixes on the following day, communication improvements in many profession forums, and a general change in how information is spread from the DEVs to the consumers (us). With Thunderhearts openness in trying to open the lines of communication, it is also very evident that a lot of information is being censored from the public. Most that have read 'The Plan' and compared it to the CH post and can see a huge difference it what is writen. Even the style is completely different. Where one seems thought out and time well spent, the other is very loosily constructed and quickly put together. I think that 'The Plan' that we read was written in the hours between the chat between Sinstosi and the DEVs and when it was released by the PR people to Thunderheart. I would have to guess that there was information in 'The Plan' that certain people at SOE didn't want to be released to the public as of yet, until it was about ready to go to TC, but thats just my opinion.
All i've got to say is: exploding mse droids.
I'm so going to make crates of these.
All i've got to say is: exploding mse droids.
If LucasArts doesn't nix that idea, then I don't know what they are good for.
Grey_Ghost