Development Cycle Archive

Thank you for feeling my pain. This useless publish that is still atm keeping my server down for more than half the day. This is a space game with the star wars logo on it. R3 droids that can beat the hell out of probots?, comat droids that a newb with a CDEF can give a run for its money?, droids that dispense stims like pezz?, and so on and so on. this is star wars. There are droids in star wars. At least make being a master DE worth while, and let us be able to make and control, exclusivly more powerful combat droids. Plus make chassis more specific. Like no combat mdules in an R# unit. This profession is the most time consuming and by far the most xpensive. But for what. Noone buys droids period. Besides the little rush for the new models, then word will pass that you can do it better and fasteryourself rather than rely on a droid that you paid for, and eventually gave away, or sold for dirt cheap to someone else. It costs way too much for little or no return. Droids are like vehicles now, given away at starports for new ppl to join a starter city, and once everyone has one THEY ARE POINTLESS. The 1 thing that gave a DE a bit of money to do (droid customizations) are now done by any one. This proffession had great plan i'm sure, as the work you need to do to get it. But flopped somewhere along the way. Star Wars? BAH!!

yea whats the quantities you use though?

I have to agree with those who have found the harvesting module a disappointment. All my characters have hunting 4, and at first I was marginally impressed that the droid seemed to harvest a bit more meat that I normally could, but the inconvenience of using one makes them a non-starter in my book.

I can harvest much faster than the droid can, and despite the publicity text that some players have echoed here, harvesting while still fighting has never been a serious issue. Of all the big complaints people have about broken professions and bugs in the game, I don't remember seeing the ability to harvest while still 'concentrating on combat' among them, and I could frankly care less about that. Here are my issues:

1. Still requires a button. I can click my macro to harvest myself, or I can click my macro to have the droid do it -- no more convenience there, but the droid's a lot slower at it. Automatic harvesting would make these more useful.


2. Doesn't loot corpses. As it stands, I have one macro (like most people) to harvest and loot, which I can use on either NPC humanoids or mobs. With the droid, those jobs are divided and I still have to do the looting. Would be nice if they could also loot and harvest, putting the loot items into a storage module or transfering them to your inventory.


3. Droids are inconvenient generally to hunt with. They're slow and can't keep up with vehicles. They also require power. There has to be a significant benefit to using one if these inconveniences are to be counterbalanced.

A pity the dev's always seem so scared of unbalancing the game that they don't give their additional content much genuine functionality. They'd be better to make additions like these droid modules a little more powerful, and then fix the real balance issues in the game, like broken professions.

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RozhlokLightningskull wrote:

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Chianti wrote:

also... what was the reasoning behind the harvest droid? from what I can tell, if the droid harvests, the owner cant harvest. if the owner harvests, the droid cant harvest? There doesn't seem to be any reason at all to be using this. If non scouts could use it, it would be effective. If the droid AND owner could harvest, it would be effective.

However, as it stands, only the droid OR owner can harvest? Is that intended?

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They harvest better than the owner (but at a level that scales to the owner's ability to harvest) and you can set him to harvest while still in combat with something else. So you kill something, then send your droid to harvest and while your droid is making the trip you can fight off the rest of the mobs that are aggroing you. This makes it a heck of a lot easier to harvest rather than running all over the place trying to figure out who you harvested from and who you didn't.

BTW, there's no way in heck they are going to make this usable to non-scouts. If you want to harvest stuff you'll just have to pick up novice scout with your non-Jedi and harvest.

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This game is destined to fall right on its face. As they keep trying to balance evrything out, they keep making this game worse. I had really high expectation for the expansion too, but I know how that will turn out too now. I really fail to see how they are going to tie in space with this exhisting game. Besides coming to land and repairing your ship then leaving again. And all the new proffessions? All the old ones will ba abandoned. What use is there in being a commano in a ship? You gonna roll down your window and use that great aiming bonus? I think not. They wont even give more skill points to spend eigther. This game is a joke now, and only getting worse. Seems like they Had someone with a vision working there and fired him because the game wasnt completely balanced and brought in some idot that used to make final fantasy games for nintendo 15 yrs ago!!! This game is getting more and more awful with every patch. WE NEED STRONGER COMBAT DROIDS!! dont care how you do it, just do it.

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Indene wrote:

Well in my tests of a spamdroid I discovered that (at least for the one I have) It spammed once a min for the first 3 min then dropped off to a much lower rate. I am here typing instead of watching that screen I should turn on time stamping. Also the battery that came with the droid lasts about 1 hour. All in all I don't think it will last in my datapad. I only am allowed 5 droids and I had to destroy one of my very first ( a med droid I got in my first week ingame ) to make room for it. It is not useful enough to sacrifice another of my first droids. Yes I got 5 of them during that first month cause that was SW to me and I (silly me) presumed they would be useful.

-Indene-

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multiply your lone spambot by the dedicated 20 or so spammers with each of THEIR bots and then add in the spambots from the 50-60 people that didnt spam before and its a living hell. yeah ONE person with ONE spambot isnt bad. i am just looking into the eveninghours tonite and tomorow once the spammers find a DE To sell them a spambot. its going to quickly turn a lot of the common used starports into a living hell. the devs are going to go "oh my we didnt see this comming".

its such an obvious thing too.

and im not even covering the exploding robotron bots or the useless harvestor droids or the near useless resource reporting droiding with an hour wait time for one to report in before you can launch another. whats the point in that?? be faster and cheaper to just shuttle to the planet and look for urself. sheesh. this isnt rocket science.

why dont you piss off and quit whining about whiners. If you dont like reading them CLOSE YOUR BROWSER !!!!

that was for in_disguise

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Knocky wrote:

26 Named resources are needed to make our droids now. Don't you think this is a little rediculous?

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Hmmm, now you're in line with the rest of the crafting community.

Look at Docs, Combat Medics, Weaponsmiths, Armorsmiths, Chefs and practically any other crafting profession.

It's no more ridiculous for you than it is for the rest of us.

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Starphire wrote:

I prefer these spambots to the spammers who have a macro that spams a HUGE sentance every 10 freakin seconds, atleast I can not walk near a droid to avoid hearing its spam. And i can walk towards it if I WANT TO hear it.

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so you really dont think that the entry and exit doors to the starport are not going to be jammed with the damn things as well as the ticket droid the mission terminals the ticket counters and the shuttle/starport landing where the players load in???????

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Thunderheart wrote:

Publish 8, Droids Rebuilt, brings to the galaxy 10 new droid modules so that Droid Engineers can create all sorts of new droids for all sorts of players and professions. There is even a new "survey droid" which can blast off to other planets in the galaxy to determine whether or not an off-planet survey is warranted. There are entertainer droid modules, merchant modules, scout modules and even modules for droids to be able to help repair other droids.

In addition to all the modules, droid pet enhancements have been made so that droid customization is easier and more effective, some radial menu changes and droid battery upgrades. Please post your experiences, your feedback and your opinions about these changes.

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Profession: Droid Engineer

Added an Interplanetary Survey Droid - This droid is capable of using survey tools and traveling to other planets to report on the resources present on that planet.

This was going to be a great addition, but from what I have read it does not give stats of the resource. If that is the case it is totally worthless. Crafters need to know the stats of the resources.

Added Merchant Barker Module to the DE skill tree: This module allows for the owner to input a short message that is continuously transmitted to nearby players as they walk by. It also allows him or her to place a waypoint in the droid that is given to any player that requests it via the radial menu on the droid.

I think this is great for crafters, and the fact that you have to have Merchant Adv. IV to use makes it even better, only the real crafters will have these in the cities. But having that be part of thier allotted droid/pet being out is not good.

Added Structure Maintenance Module to the DE skill tree: This module will allow a player to pay maintenance on structures they own from a remote location.

Was also going to be a nice addition, but needs to be able to add both maintaince and power to harvesters. If it can not do this it is also worthless. If you have to go and deposit power in your harvester, you just pay maintaince at the same time. House maintaince isn't that big of a deal, these should have been focused on harvesters. I also thought I heard something about a droid that would retrieve the resources from harvesters. What happened to that?

Added Auto Droid Repair Module to the DE skill tree: When this module is activated, it sends out a “healing pulse” which repairs every other nearby friendly droid within a 15’ radius. The pulse fires every 10 seconds and heals an amount equal to the droid’s Auto Repair Power. The more auto-repair modules that are added to a droid, the higher this attribute will become.

This may be usefull when we actually have droids that we can use in combat. Right now Combat droids (as well as pets) are a liability, not an asset, in combat.

Added Stimpack Dispenser Module to the DE skill tree: This skill allows a player with Pharmacology IV to load up a properly equipped droid with Stimpack A’s. Once loaded, any player within the droid master’s group may issue a /requestStimpack command to receive healing.

Have to see how this works, but would have been better if it were B's instead of A's.

Added Musician Playback Module to the DE skill tree: This module allows an entertainer or a musician to record a musical track onto the droid. The droid will then be able to play back the music that was recorded as accompaniment in the player’s band. Multiple modules of this type will stack and allow multiple musical tracks to be recorded, although only one track can be played at a time.

Sounds cool.

Added Entertainer Lighting Effects Module to the DE skill tree: These droid modules can have up to 5 unique lighting effects that can be used by dancers and musicians.

Also sounds cool.

Added Scout Trap Module to the DE skill tree: This module will allow any player with the novice scout ability to program and arm a droid with player made scout traps which will then fire when given the command by the player.

Might be cool for scouts and Rangers, never used traps even when I was a Scout or Ranger except to level.

Added Creature Harvester Module to the DE skill tree: This module will allow any character with the Novice Scout ability to program and control an equipped droid to advance on the look-at target of the player and harvest the resources on the creature. The player can preset the droid to harvest one of the three types: meat, hide or bone. Or the player can just let the droid pick a random resource type.

Sounds worthless as well, Players with scout can harvest faster from what I have read. Would have been better to make it so non scouts could use it but harvest less than novice scout can. But if used bu a scout/ranger it adds to their harvesting ability.

Added Detonation Module to the DE skill tree: This module grants Bounty Hunters and Smugglers the ability to destroy his droid causing damage to every enemy target nearby. The destruction is ordered by the /detonateDroid command or via the droid’s radial menu.

Have to try this. If it doesn't do really good damage it will not be worth buying the droid just to blow it up.

Droid deeds now have the appearance of the droids they represent and are customizable. The customization will carry over to the droid pet when generated. (Correspondent Issue)

Does this mean my droid will not be random every time I call it. If so YAY !!!!!

Fixed Droidsmith Tool Belt schematic to use the proper item in the Tool Set slot.

Good for them.

Fixed a problem with installed modules not displaying properly when examining droid deeds and control devices. (Correspondent Issue)

Good for them.

To reclaim radial menu space, the droid pet Store and Recharge radial menu selections, as well as droid Inventory and Datapad selections (if available) will now show up as sub menus under the Droid Options root menu.

O.K.

You can now see the number of charges available when crafting or examining a droid repair/reconstruction kit

Also good for them.

Droids

Anyone can use a droid customization kit on a droid pet (although experienced droid engineers will have more customization options available). (Correspondent Issue)

Cool.

Made "Recharge" the default option on the "Droid Options" menu.

Also cool.

Droid customization kits now have an extended lifespan before the custom colors fade. (Correspondent Issue)

And also cool.

Displaying remaining battery power when examining a droid pet (Correspondent issue) Increased the effectiveness of combat droids so that they are more effective.

O.K., but I do not examine my droid, How about making it part of the HAM so if is targeted you can see if it is low.

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