Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: Droid Decay system, detailed description.

Straker_Atrella
Sun Jul 25, 2004 4:56 pm
#1


The following is my proposal for a Droid Decay system, all the ideas are not my own, many good suggestions have been offered here. From watching many debates, I think this has a decent chance of making everybody happy. Plus it has a consumer benifit as well, and "seems" reasonably codeable.


Purpose:


To create a droid resale market, that would make droids need to be replaced over a reasonable period of time. This must be donein such a manner that the Droid user benifits from the changes as well.


Step 1, The Droid power core:


EVERY droid, except the Power Droid, when built will have a new slot for a "Droid Power Core,"these Cores will come in 3 levels.


Level 1: Gives 2,500 Power Rating - Easy to make using standard no named resources.

Level 2: Gives 5,000 Power Rating - Uses specific resource types such a Aluminum, Extrusive Ore,and Copper.

Level 3: Gives 10,000 Power Rating - Uses at least one named resource, preferbly something that DE's use already, such as Lidium Extrusive Ore.


One of the above 3 MUST go in a droid Power Core Spot. However, you ARE able to load Level 1 versions into normal module spots and clusters. Level 2 and 3 are just to big to fit. The real reason for this restriction is to prevent say a Merchant Barker R3 with 6 level 3 Power Cores. You CAN make one with 1 level 6 power core, and 5 level ones however.


The 2500, 5000, and 10000 Power Rating numbers are subject to twinking. The goal with the 10,000 rating is to provide 24 hours of actual use. The 5000 and 2500 scale down appropriatly from the 24 hours.


Experimentation DOES matter on these items, the numbers above are the minimum values. A max Experimentation would give you about 20% extra. So 12000 on a level 3.


Any droid built before this system was added will be considered to have a 10,000 power core and will be treated accordingly.


How the Power Core Works:


Basically as the droid is out, it uses power. This power use is about the same as now, except some Modules like the Auto Repair would need battery burn turned down a little. With a level 3 Core, you could use your droid for about 24 hours without recharging.


Once a droid reaches a "low power" condition, it begins to burn 1 vitality point every 5 minutes. See the vitality section later for details.


Recharging the Power Core:


Obviously, the droid will need to be recharged, there are 2 options.


1. Droid Batteries: They would be used just like now, but you would use them over and over again, filling the tank. For every 500 points of power, added this way, the droid would lose 1 point of vitality. So that if you charged a full power core with Batteries, you would lose 20 vitality. Batteries are more of an Emergency measure to just give you a little juice, or get you out of a "low power" condition.


2. Power Droid: The prefered method to recharging your droid. These would be useable by anybody. With one shot, they would refill another droid. The droid being refilled would lose 5 vitality points. Power Droids cannot be recahrged however, each time they are used, they lose 5 vitiality points. There power core simply is not everlasting.


What this does is still leave a market for Batteries, yet also gives a purpose and advantage to the Power Droid. People will have a reason to buy them.


HowDroid Power Cores help the droid user:


The biggest inconvienance with droids is that they need to be recharged so often. By changing this so that they would only need to be recharged on occassion, people would no longer need to worry about lugging around batteries with them, or their Droid running out in the middle of a fight. 24 hours of use is a decent amount, you can plan for that.


Step 2, Droid Vitiality:


Droids lose vitality in 3 ways.


1. Dying.

2. From being in a "low power" condition. 1 point every 5 minutes.

3.From being recharged with batteries or a power droid.


What lowered Vitiality means:


At first it means nothing, no changes in your droid.

Yet at the following points, your droid operation does degrade.


50% Vitality, at this point your droid begins to perform worse. It's ratings drop. If it was 109 Harvesting Rating before, it slowly drops. Any function with a rating, such as Combat and Armor slowly begins to fall. Much like Armor and weapons do. HAM also drops.


At 25% Vitality, functions totally stop working, Harvesting, Medical, Food crafting, whatever. It is random which stops working.. For every 5% below 25%, you lose another function. It should also be noted that functions that are still working, still keep dropping in value.


Also, your Storage and Data modules, when they stop working, you can open them and pull stuff out, but you cannot put anything else in. Much like the output hopper on a factory.


Repairing Vitality:


Now obviously, we don't want people buying a new Droid every week. The ultimate goal that we would want through numbers twinking is 1 month under hard use, 2 months under normal use, 3-4 months under casual use.


In order to reach that, we do need some way to repair vitiality.


Droid Reconstruction kits are useable by anybody, just like a Weapon or Armor repair kit. They also work much like them. We would sponge off the "minor blemishes," and such system. An actual Droid Engineer, especially a Master would get a bonus however. How well made the kit is, would also give a bonus.


Let's use an example. A droid is at 15 / 100 vitality, which is 15%. It's values are now much lower, it has 3 modules that have stopped working. You now use a Recon kit on it. Let's say you got a mediocre repair, it's max vitality was reduced to 75. So. now the droids vitality is 75/75.


All functions and stats are back up to 100%, after all the droid is at 100%. The only catch is that it will reach a 50% condition much faster this time.


This gives DE's another marketable item, plus they can charge to fix droids,and eventually a Droid will need to be replaced. Rich people may just buy a new droid, poorer people will try and hold onto it as long as possible.


When a Droid Reaches Zero Vitality:


Up until the point that a droid reaches Zero, it can be repaired. If it does reach zero, the following will happen.


The Droid is then removed from your datapad, and an identical "looking"chasis is put into your inventory. Whatever it's last name was is what this object will be named. Now you have 2 options.


1. Stand it in your house as a fond memory of good old R2F9.

2. Give it to your local DE and have him use it as a chasis in building another droid. Recycling it so to speak.


Now these last 2 options are pretty much just for coolness, they wouldn't need to be added. However, it would fix the problem of people being attached to their droids. You would never actually lose the droid, he would just get reworked.


In Summary:


To break it down in the simplest fashion.

1. Droids have a power core, will last for about 24 hours max.

2. Power Core can be recharged by using batteries or a Power Droid.

3. Droids lose vitality from being recharged, dying, and being in a low power state.

4. As droids lose vitality, they don't work as well.

5. Droid vitality can be fixed using a Recon Kit.

6. Eventually a droid will need to be replaced, it can however, be recycled.


In Conclusion:


I honestly think this is what we need. We get droid decay, the customer gets more convieniance. We also get another item to experiment on, giving more diversity and competition. Droid battery sales will not be hurt, plus the Power Droid gets a use.


Thoughts?


Message Edited by Straker_Atrella on 02-17-2005 11:27 AM



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Droid Vendor at Resurection near Theed on Naboo -5757 6222. Both carry a wide variety of maxed Droids, I also carry every type of Droid and Droid supply.

*Straker Atrella: Dark Jedi * Atrella's Wench: Master Droid Engineer / Artisan / Scout / Merchant * Dark Vortex: Ranger / Rifleman * Havana:Musician / Dancer / Image Design * Enigmatica : Doctor / Swordsman* CrazyEyes: Role playing BH.
Drashk
Sun Jul 25, 2004 5:37 pm
#2
Here are the Major problems that I see with this system, if I am reading correctly, are -


  • This is not a retroactive system. This new system would only effect newly built droids,which does not address the problem associated with why a decay system is being added. Unless this system can be made so that it will effect droids that are in current use, it only addresses future built droids. (Some sort of system would need to be set up to handle current droids)

  • The 24 hour charge life. It took a huge stretch for the battery life timer to be increased from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Asking for 2 hours would be pushing our luck.

  • Having any system that effects module use can have some dire consequences. Any system change that would effect module function will ultimately end up with an extremely long debugging process. Think of it this way -



    1. Droid Storage once was so unstable that all items were lost when ever you stored your droid.

    2. Item Storage does not work in Surgical Droids.

    3. Structure Maintenance Modules have a lot of quirks.

    4. We once were unable to put more than one Crafting Station in a droid.


I'm just trying to get the point across that if the system effects droid function in any way, we will be effectively be asking the DEVs to give us a larger potential for bugs. I'm not saying that the DEVs can't handle the process, I'm just saying that doing so might brake us for the next year.



This is a decently set up system, however adding the requirement of an additional component to each and every droid might take a lot longer than one would expect. The other major draw back is that this system would have to be done all at once, instead of being modular. If you can set up a system that can be implemented in steps, you will really have something.







Making SWG more Star Warsy. One droid at a time.
Straker_Atrella
Sun Jul 25, 2004 5:58 pm
#3




Drashk wrote:

Here are the Major problems that I see with this system, if I am reading correctly, are -


  • This is not a retroactive system. This new system would only effect newly built droids,which does not address the problem associated with why a decay system is being added. Unless this system can be made so that it will effect droids that are in current use, it only addresses future built droids. (Some sort of system would need to be set up to handle current droids)

  • Actually, as I stated, all current droids would have a 10,000 charge power core. Vitality and charging that core would be dealt with just like the new droids.


  • The 24 hour charge life. It took a huge stretch for the battery life timer to be increased from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Asking for 2 hours would be pushing our luck.

  • The customer MUST get something. By not giving them something, less people will use droids. The only real thing you can give them is more convieniance. Any form of droid decay that doesn't give the customers something will be bad for droids in the long run. Batteries are still used, Power Droids are still used, you simply use them less often. Using them less often would not have a cost. That's different from when we just wanted longer battery life before. We wanted all good, but no bad. This has good and bad.


  • Having any system that effects module use can have some dire consequences. Any system change that would effect module function will ultimately end up with an extremely long debugging process. Think of it this way -



    1. Droid Storage once was so unstable that all items were lost when ever you stored your droid.

    2. Item Storage does not work in Surgical Droids.

    3. Structure Maintenance Modules have a lot of quirks.

    4. We once were unable to put more than one Crafting Station in a droid.


I'm just trying to get the point across that if the system effects droid function in any way, we will be effectively be asking the DEVs to give us a larger potential for bugs. I'm not saying that the DEVs can't handle the process, I'm just saying that doing so might brake us for the next year.


I agree actually. With a good decay system, I don't think we need to actually have droids decay or parts break. However, a large chunk of the droid community seems to want that. Even so far as replacing modules.


I don't think it is as badas you think, at 50%, HAM, combat damage, armor, Harvest ratings,and a couple of others would simply slowly erode. It already does this for weapons and armor, so it couldn't be thathard for droids.


At 25% a random module would just stop working, then every 5% after that, another. Your not changing anything about how the modules work, just turning them on or off. I do agree that great care would need to be taken with storage modules though. Yet again, the code exists already, the output hoppers for factories.


This is a decently set up system, however adding the requirement of an additional component to each and every droid might take a lot longer than one would expect. The other major draw back is that this system would have to be done all at once, instead of being modular. If you can set up a system that can be implemented in steps, you will really have something.


Well you could break it into steps if you really wanted too.


1. Droid vitality, fixing it with recon kits. Plus penalties for low vitality.


2. Effects of "low power" and charging on droid vitality.


3. Droid power core.


I do think it would be better if it was all implemented at once though.









-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Droid Vendor at Resurection near Theed on Naboo -5757 6222. Both carry a wide variety of maxed Droids, I also carry every type of Droid and Droid supply.

*Straker Atrella: Dark Jedi * Atrella's Wench: Master Droid Engineer / Artisan / Scout / Merchant * Dark Vortex: Ranger / Rifleman * Havana:Musician / Dancer / Image Design * Enigmatica : Doctor / Swordsman* CrazyEyes: Role playing BH.
Batleh
Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:01 pm
#4
I personally have major issues with the idea that recharging a droid damages it. Does putting new batteries in a flashlight damage it? How about your walkman? This just seems like a totally contrived idea specifically designed to destroy a droid. Can we please throw out this idea??

I agree with the fact that we need a decay system, but I'm totally against the idea that powering/maintaining your droid will hurt it, and that we're setting up a system where everyone MUST buy new droids every 2 months. This will cause people to be less inclined to buy droids. I'd love to see many many more droids running around, I want everyone to want to have a droid because they're fun to have and give you some added benefit. The idea that recharging your droid damages it basically penalizes someone for using their droid, which in my book is a bad idea.

If droids are blown up in combat, if they're misused and run out of power, yes, let's damage them, I'm 100% behind you. But if someone is taking care of their droid, keeping it powered and happy, let them keep the droid around as long as they want. I'd much rather sell them a new crate of batteries every month for the rest of their time in game than have them decide they don't really need to replace the one that just blew up because they tried to charge it.



Baelor -
Master Droid Engineer
Master Artisan
Master Shipwrite
Proud resident of Bloodfin
Drashk
Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:38 pm
#5


Straker_Atrella wrote:




Drashk wrote:

Here are the Major problems that I see with this system, if I am reading correctly, are -

Actually, as I stated, all current droids would have a 10,000 charge power core. Vitality and charging that core would be dealt with just like the new droids.


Looks like I didn't read correctly.....DOH


The customer MUST get something. By not giving them something, less people will use droids. The only real thing you can give them is more convieniance. Any form of droid decay that doesn't give the customers something will be bad for droids in the long run. Batteries are still used, Power Droids are still used, you simply use them less often. Using them less often would not have a cost. That's different from when we just wanted longer battery life before. We wanted all good, but no bad. This has good and bad.


No matter how a decay system is present to the customer, it is the DEVs that have time and time again refused to put the droid battery life over 1 hour. There have been quite a few changes to the battery charge life of a droid and each and every time, the DEVs have kept the charge time under1 hour. We will be extremely lucky if we can get the DEVs to give us a charge time of 2 hours on all droids. The entire system that you are proposing completely revolves around a droid that will last up to 24 hours without the need to recharge. I just don't see this happening, which is why the Droid Power Core idea has always been flawed. No matter how the idea is coated, I don't think the DEVs will ever be willing to let droids function for longer than 2 hours without needing attention.


I don't know how long you have been a DE, since forum registration dates can be decieving, but the power issue has been around for a very long time. It is one of the few issues that the DEVs have taken the time to fix, without much prompting from the DE community. Once upon a time, Droids would be automatically recharged by storing them in the datapad. They fixed this issue, which created the issue of droids discharging their battery while stored in the datapad. The DEVs fixed this issue as well, but kept the lenght of time that a droid would stay charged to just under 30 minutes. It wasn't until Publish 7 that the battery life was finally raised to 1 hour, even though there were a ton of requests for it to be raised just a little higher.


Basing a proposal on the ability to charge a droid more than double what they currently can be is like asking the DEVs to simply give everyone the ability to control Level 20+ droids. There just isn't enough cost to the player involved in such a system, plain and simple.


I agree actually. With a good decay system, I don't think we need to actually have droids decay or parts break. However, a large chunk of the droid community seems to want that. Even so far as replacing modules.


I don't think it is as badas you think, at 50%, HAM, combat damage, armor, Harvest ratings,and a couple of others would simply slowly erode. It already does this for weapons and armor, so it couldn't be thathard for droids.


At 25% a random module would just stop working, then every 5% after that, another. Your not changing anything about how the modules work, just turning them on or off. I do agree that great care would need to be taken with storage modules though. Yet again, the code exists already, the output hoppers for factories.



Here are a couple of the possible bugs that I can see poping up, if modules are linked to decay



  • Modulesstay broken, even after the droid is repaired.

  • Stats not returning after the droid is repaired

  • Loss of items inside broken storage modules

  • A larger occurance of broken module functions

  • Removal of the module stacking system, in the crafting process

All of these concerns should have a lot of baring on the situation. I'm not saying that this is what will happen, but from past experience, one of these, or ton of others, could pop up without warning. Many on the DE forum weren't around at the time, but there for almost a week, Droid Engineer became a profession that was so borked we couldn't craft a single R-Unit, MSE, or Power Droid, because we asked for the ability to customize the color of our droids. Can you imagine the amount of debug time it would take to fixthe problems that could/will pop up if decay is modular?


I'm justtrying to bring home the point to many in the community, that if decay is linked to the modules installed, we may be askingfora lot of potential bugs as well.









Making SWG more Star Warsy. One droid at a time.
Drashk
Sun Jul 25, 2004 11:48 pm
#6


Batleh wrote:
I personally have major issues with the idea that recharging a droid damages it. Does putting new batteries in a flashlight damage it? How about your walkman? This just seems like a totally contrived idea specifically designed to destroy a droid. Can we please throw out this idea??

I agree with the fact that we need a decay system, but I'm totally against the idea that powering/maintaining your droid will hurt it, and that we're setting up a system where everyone MUST buy new droids every 2 months. This will cause people to be less inclined to buy droids. I'd love to see many many more droids running around, I want everyone to want to have a droid because they're fun to have and give you some added benefit. The idea that recharging your droid damages it basically penalizes someone for using their droid, which in my book is a bad idea.

If droids are blown up in combat, if they're misused and run out of power, yes, let's damage them, I'm 100% behind you. But if someone is taking care of their droid, keeping it powered and happy, let them keep the droid around as long as they want. I'd much rather sell them a new crate of batteries every month for the rest of their time in game than have them decide they don't really need to replace the one that just blew up because they tried to charge it.



It may be a personal issue, but if you check the poll on battery usage, its what the community is in favor of.


Due to Droids being so diverse, recharging is the only constant thatwill effectevery droid. A system that causes damage to a droid that is in the low power state is too aggresive, since people will often call out their droid and forget that it is out while they go off and do something else in the game. Keeping the system where it is only geared to combat is not aggresive enough, since majority of that droids in circulation are non-combat droids.


The principle that a droid slowly decays as it is recharged is indirect relation to rechargable batteries. We know that due to current technology, a rechargable will only last x number of charges. Recharge decay follows the same train of thought, but unlike rechargable batteries, droids can be repaired over and over, so that they can be recharged again. This is where the maintaining you speak of comes into play, however even the best maintained piece of equipment will eventually decay....






Making SWG more Star Warsy. One droid at a time.
Straker_Atrella
Mon Jul 26, 2004 12:26 pm
#7




Batleh wrote:
I personally have major issues with the idea that recharging a droid damages it. Does putting new batteries in a flashlight damage it? How about your walkman? This just seems like a totally contrived idea specifically designed to destroy a droid. Can we please throw out this idea??

I agree with the fact that we need a decay system, but I'm totally against the idea that powering/maintaining your droid will hurt it, and that we're setting up a system where everyone MUST buy new droids every 2 months. This will cause people to be less inclined to buy droids. I'd love to see many many more droids running around, I want everyone to want to have a droid because they're fun to have and give you some added benefit. The idea that recharging your droid damages it basically penalizes someone for using their droid, which in my book is a bad idea.

If droids are blown up in combat, if they're misused and run out of power, yes, let's damage them, I'm 100% behind you. But if someone is taking care of their droid, keeping it powered and happy, let them keep the droid around as long as they want. I'd much rather sell them a new crate of batteries every month for the rest of their time in game than have them decide they don't really need to replace the one that just blew up because they tried to charge it.





The reason that Droid Decay is usually tied to Battery usage is this. First, it is the only true constant we have. ALL droids use power, whether they are in combat or not. It has been agreed by the droid community, that some type of droid decay is needed.


Also tying betteries to decay allows us to give the consumer more convieniance. This is the only way to truly give them something back.


Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of new modules and cool things, yet then people would just buy one droid and keep it forever.


First you need to accept that money is obscenly easyto get for most people. I can make 1 million in a 3 hour buff session just from missions. DOc's make a lot from buffing, Scouts make a killing from Harvesting droid. They WILL want to replace their droids.


Your casual users will like the new system, simply because they wont need to use batteries so much.




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Droid Vendor at Resurection near Theed on Naboo -5757 6222. Both carry a wide variety of maxed Droids, I also carry every type of Droid and Droid supply.

*Straker Atrella: Dark Jedi * Atrella's Wench: Master Droid Engineer / Artisan / Scout / Merchant * Dark Vortex: Ranger / Rifleman * Havana:Musician / Dancer / Image Design * Enigmatica : Doctor / Swordsman* CrazyEyes: Role playing BH.
Straker_Atrella
Mon Jul 26, 2004 12:36 pm
#8




Drashk wrote:



Straker_Atrella wrote:


Drashk wrote:
Here are the Major problems that I see with this system, if I am reading correctly, are -

Actually, as I stated, all current droids would have a 10,000 charge power core. Vitality and charging that core would be dealt with just like the new droids.


Looks like I didn't read correctly.....DOH


The customer MUST get something. By not giving them something, less people will use droids. The only real thing you can give them is more convieniance. Any form of droid decay that doesn't give the customers something will be bad for droids in the long run. Batteries are still used, Power Droids are still used, you simply use them less often. Using them less often would not have a cost. That's different from when we just wanted longer battery life before. We wanted all good, but no bad. This has good and bad.


No matter how a decay system is present to the customer, it is the DEVs that have time and time again refused to put the droid battery life over 1 hour. There have been quite a few changes to the battery charge life of a droid and each and every time, the DEVs have kept the charge time under1 hour. We will be extremely lucky if we can get the DEVs to give us a charge time of 2 hours on all droids. The entire system that you are proposing completely revolves around a droid that will last up to 24 hours without the need to recharge. I just don't see this happening, which is why the Droid Power Core idea has always been flawed. No matter how the idea is coated, I don't think the DEVs will ever be willing to let droids function for longer than 2 hours without needing attention.


I know what your saying, but it is the only real way to give customers something back. They have to have a logical reason to wanting shorter battery power. Probably so that there is a downside to droids. We would simply be replacing that downside with another. I think if as a community we fell behind a system like this, they would consider it.


I don't know how long you have been a DE, since forum registration dates can be decieving, but the power issue has been around for a very long time. It is one of the few issues that the DEVs have taken the time to fix, without much prompting from the DE community. Once upon a time, Droids would be automatically recharged by storing them in the datapad. They fixed this issue, which created the issue of droids discharging their battery while stored in the datapad. The DEVs fixed this issue as well, but kept the lenght of time that a droid would stay charged to just under 30 minutes. It wasn't until Publish 7 that the battery life was finally raised to 1 hour, even though there were a ton of requests for it to be raised just a little higher.


Basing a proposal on the ability to charge a droid more than double what they currently can be is like asking the DEVs to simply give everyone the ability to control Level 20+ droids. There just isn't enough cost to the player involved in such a system, plain and simple.


While they may need to charge it less on a daily basis, they would need to now worry about it decaying and wearing out, even repairing it's vitality. We would be replacing one downside with another. Droids in effect would work very much like the Armor and Weapon decay system.


I agree actually. With a good decay system, I don't think we need to actually have droids decay or parts break. However, a large chunk of the droid community seems to want that. Even so far as replacing modules.


I don't think it is as badas you think, at 50%, HAM, combat damage, armor, Harvest ratings,and a couple of others would simply slowly erode. It already does this for weapons and armor, so it couldn't be thathard for droids.


At 25% a random module would just stop working, then every 5% after that, another. Your not changing anything about how the modules work, just turning them on or off. I do agree that great care would need to be taken with storage modules though. Yet again, the code exists already, the output hoppers for factories.



Here are a couple of the possible bugs that I can see poping up, if modules are linked to decay



  • Modulesstay broken, even after the droid is repaired.

  • Stats not returning after the droid is repaired

  • Loss of items inside broken storage modules

  • A larger occurance of broken module functions

  • Removal of the module stacking system, in the crafting process

All of these concerns should have a lot of baring on the situation. I'm not saying that this is what will happen, but from past experience, one of these, or ton of others, could pop up without warning. Many on the DE forum weren't around at the time, but there for almost a week, Droid Engineer became a profession that was so borked we couldn't craft a single R-Unit, MSE, or Power Droid, because we asked for the ability to customize the color of our droids. Can you imagine the amount of debug time it would take to fixthe problems that could/will pop up if decay is modular?


I'm justtrying to bring home the point to many in the community, that if decay is linked to the modules installed, we may be askingfora lot of potential bugs as well.



Again, I agree with you, I have been against modules breaking, for a while. Yet it seems like something many people want.


That is why I think that under this system having FUNCTIONS break instead of modules is the way to go. Module stacking doesn't matter, the function is what breaks.


While I'm not saying it would be easy, much of the code does exist already. Your weapons stats are lowered as they degrade, yet when you repair it, they all come back.


That's what I really like about this system, your working off of ideas and functions that are already in the game.












-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Droid Vendor at Resurection near Theed on Naboo -5757 6222. Both carry a wide variety of maxed Droids, I also carry every type of Droid and Droid supply.

*Straker Atrella: Dark Jedi * Atrella's Wench: Master Droid Engineer / Artisan / Scout / Merchant * Dark Vortex: Ranger / Rifleman * Havana:Musician / Dancer / Image Design * Enigmatica : Doctor / Swordsman* CrazyEyes: Role playing BH.
Batleh
Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:38 pm
#9
Drashk wrote:

It may be a personal issue, but if you check the poll on battery usage, its what the community is in favor of.

Due to Droids being so diverse, recharging is the only constant that will effect every droid. A system that causes damage to a droid that is in the low power state is too aggresive, since people will often call out their droid and forget that it is out while they go off and do something else in the game. Keeping the system where it is only geared to combat is not aggresive enough, since majority of that droids in circulation are non-combat droids.

The principle that a droid slowly decays as it is recharged is indirect relation to rechargable batteries. We know that due to current technology, a rechargable will only last x number of charges. Recharge decay follows the same train of thought, but unlike rechargable batteries, droids can be repaired over and over, so that they can be recharged again. This is where the maintaining you speak of comes into play, however even the best maintained piece of equipment will eventually decay....





Okay, so I'm probably being petty here, but are you seriously saying that "inorder to protect the few who might leave their droid out and let it run out of power accidently, we're going to penalize everyone who keeps their droid powered"? You know that the "low power" mechanic is already in the game right? Look at vehicle decay. If someone leaves their vehicle out and it doesn't autostore, it's going to blow up. Imagine the uproar we'd have in game if we said:
In order to protect the few cases where someone doesn't properly store their vehicle, we're going to make it so that your vehicle doesn't get destroyed when it's health runs out, but we're going to shrink it's health every time you repair it.
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go over well at at all.

In regards to the "current technology", the key phrase there is "current technology". The Star Wars Universe is full of hyperdrives and repulsor lifts and space ships and giant walkers and stations that can blow up planets, and with all of this other wonderous technology, they haven't come up with a better energy storage system than a ni-cad battery? I can think of several other technologies that we're currently playing with that don't have this sort of decay limitation (fuel cells, superconductive storage cells, etc).

Yes, I agree that we need decay, but I do not agree that "decay upon charging" is the way to do it.



Baelor -
Master Droid Engineer
Master Artisan
Master Shipwrite
Proud resident of Bloodfin
Beery
Mon Jul 26, 2004 1:57 pm
#10
"I'm totally against the idea that powering/maintaining your droid will hurt it, and that we're setting up a system where everyone MUST buy new droids every 2 months. This will cause people to be less inclined to buy droids."


I agree. As an entertainer and droid engineer I'm especially interested in droids that help entertainers. One thing is for sure, if a new droid had to be purchased every two months, entertainers would just manage without them. Most entertainers can't afford to buy a new droid every six months. The reason I became a DE was because I simply couldn't afford to buy droids that cost between 50K and 100K each. I just couldn't do it on an entertainer's salary (heck, entertainers don't even make a salary).


I have no problem with decay. In fact I think all items should have a slow decay. But the decay should be very slow - i.e. 100% in a year, whether or not the player is playing the game. Also, items should be reparable up to a percentage oftheir original condition (or, if it has been repaired in the past, to a percentage ofthe condition ofthe last repair)- so you can repair a droid just like a swoop bike or speeder.


I think the lack of wear and tear is having a very negative impact on the game economy. It's forcing prices muchhigher than they should be. Institute a decay on all items and the economy will stabilize at a reasonable level.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since June 2004, running one of the game's first completely nonviolent characters. Testing the limits of non-combat MMORPG play and trying to have fun into the bargain (although the developers make it difficult).

Combat is no longer compulsory.
OckVofad
Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:24 pm
#11
The battery decay system is what a majority of DEs want for a decay system (See poll).


The people whoneed droids (Doctors, Crafters, People who want extra storage without lots etc) will continue to buy them even if they have to replace them every 3-4 months. I disagree that the "sky will fall" ifthe decay system is changed.


We finally have droids that people NEED (Andthey will need them even more after JTL). People have no problem replacing armor and weapons. I dont think they will havea problemreplacing a droid.


Entertainers are not an example of someone who needs a droid. The current Ent modules are an enhancement not a necessity. If we had a module that allowed you to buff outside a cantina I'd bet you would be willing to replace that droid.


The power core idea is a good one IF we could get the devs togo along with the extended use. I would say lets submit it as an alternate proposal.


As TK has mentioned this is not going to happen anytime soon so no need to get heated over it.





Visit OckTech DroidWorks on Bloodfin
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I'd like an HTML tag Please
Batleh
Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:40 pm
#12
Straker_Atrella wrote:


The reason that Droid Decay is usually tied to Battery usage is this. First, it is the only true constant we have. ALL droids use power, whether they are in combat or not. It has been agreed by the droid community, that some type of droid decay is needed.

Also tying betteries to decay allows us to give the consumer more convieniance. This is the only way to truly give them something back.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of new modules and cool things, yet then people would just buy one droid and keep it forever.

First you need to accept that money is obscenly easy to get for most people. I can make 1 million in a 3 hour buff session just from missions. DOc's make a lot from buffing, Scouts make a killing from Harvesting droid. They WILL want to replace their droids.

Your casual users will like the new system, simply because they wont need to use batteries so much.





Yes, I agree with decay, however, who says we have to force every droid to have to be replaced? There are a lot of combat droids out there, infact, they're the majority of what I sell now days. Those droids will decay through combat use. If we add low power decay, they'll decay even faster. That's going to be a lot of droids to repair/replace. If normal droids start to decay when they're out of power, that again is more droids that we have to repair and replace (oh the buff bots will hate that). Coming up in JTL, it's sounding like to do specific things in your ship (redirect power, minimal repairs, etc), you're going to need a droid. If your ship gets blown up, your droid should take a hit to. Again, more droids that will have to be repaired and replaced.

And I'm a bit confused, how is battery based decay better for customers? I tend to agree with Drashk that it would be unlikely that the devs would up the amount of time that a battery charge lasts, and even if they didn't need to put a battery into a droid every hour, they'd still need a battery for every hour the droid was used (based on your numbers above). They still have to find, buy, and use the same number of batteries.

And the reason that I'm so focused on battery based decay is the fact that a power droid is still pretty pointless even with this new system, as you can't recharge your own droids with it. You need to find someone else who has one, and "hey I can recharge someone elses droid" never has been a good selling point for these things. Then again, who knows, we might find that there will be people with powerdroids spamming in starports /yelling "Recharge your droid! Only 5k!". Yay, more spam.

I very much understand how trivial money in this game as an elite. That's not the point. Money isn't the issue. It's the fact that I feel that basing decay on re-charging your droid is the wrong way to do this, and will lead to a negative customer experience. And you also have to remember, not everyone in game is a combat elite, not everyone can pull in a million credits per doc buff, (and don't let the docs hear your say that, they'll start charging 100k for buffs instead of 10k). Entertainers, newer players, non-master crafters, etc all should have a reasonable expectation of being able to buy a droid and keep it around for a good long while.



Baelor -
Master Droid Engineer
Master Artisan
Master Shipwrite
Proud resident of Bloodfin
TheRealTK421
Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:41 pm
#13




OckVofad wrote:


The battery decay system is what a majority of DEs want for a decay system (See poll).


Well...I think the decay system is what's wanted. Battery use just seems to be the most obvious, and likely easiest to code, solution to get there.

That's why we've all been leaning that way, I'd suspect.

Even before Drashk (and others) made more serious proposal, I'd always thought that battery use would be the path to our decay system. I just see other possibilities as being == too much coding time/work.


The people whoneed droids (Doctors, Crafters, People who want extra storage without lots etc) will continue to buy them even if they have to replace them every 3-4 months. I disagree that the "sky will fall" ifthe decay system is changed.


I do too. As it stands, we're a reasonably low-cost / high-value crafting profession right now. JTL will only heighten our market still. I don't see decay as messing with our markets so much as making droid use more closely fit how it should be. Using a droid should break your droid (after X amount of time). We have to just figure what a fair number for X should be (and how to make that occur). I'd say we're close...but there's still some open issues on the table, for sure.



We finally have droids that people NEED (Andthey will need them even more after JTL). People have no problem replacing armor and weapons. I dont think they will havea problemreplacing a droid.


Not if they use it. That's a huge reason to base decay off batteries. It is then up to the user how quickly their droid decays. More use, faster decay. As it should be.


Entertainers are not an example of someone who needs a droid. The current Ent modules are an enhancement not a necessity. If we had a module that allowed you to buff outside a cantina I'd bet you would be willing to replace that droid.


No players really "need" a droid. However, most now recognize that it would terribly inconvienent on their playstyle if they stopped using a droid.

Anyone whose gotten used to crafting anywhere, anytime knows what that's all about. I'd probably drop crafting altogether if I had to be tied to a PCS in my house/shop.


The power core idea is a good one IF we could get the devs togo along with the extended use. I would say lets submit it as an alternate proposal.


We have to see if they are willing to monkey with it at all first, regardless of the proposal. At the same time, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be working to put together the best possible proposal that addresses likely issues beforehand.


As TK has mentioned this is not going to happen anytime soon so no need to get heated over it.



Yup. We are not going to see anything like this anytime soon. JTL comes first, then DC (in terms of 'new' stuff). Fixes will be ongoing, of course.



/bow

Respectfully,






TheRealTK421 a.k.a. "Doughbacca"
SWG DE Correspondent
Co-Founding member of Ahazi DENet & SWG DEA (Droid Engineer Association)
"I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. ...I'm certainly not. And I'm sick and tired of being told that I am."


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