Droid Engineer Archive

I'm a MCH on bloodfin and I'm extremely interested in DE (out of all the "crafter" classes), so I started a new character on Eclipse to become a DE...

1. Started a newbie artisan character with 250 credits in my bank


2. Did delivery missions and bought cereal from the bazaar to grind up to Engineer and Novice DE.


3. Did AFK sampling to get to Survey IV


4. Did more delivery missions to buyMineral Extractorsand Wind generators.


5. Did more delivery missions (EVERY DAY) to pay maintenance on the extractors.

This is what I have to say after aweek of maintaining my10 lots to get grinding material:

How the heck does anyone ever make it to the 1st skill box, much less master droid engineer?

this is taking forever. and it's not fun.

(at least ch and smuggler were both "fun" togrind.... I really feel for you guys more than ever)

That's why DE is a common requirement for the FS slot - it teaches you patience and virtue

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BlueMorgoth wrote:

That's why DE is a common requirement for the FS slot - it teaches you patience and virtue

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And it also teaches you the real meaning of the word "grind".




/bow

Respectfully,

As I started the game in the first week knowing I would be a DE, I didn't have anybody to fund me, nor did I have a large guild.

So... yeah, it took me a few weeks to even get the first box. At least they hadn't nerfed the delivery missions yet at that point... but I got in late, so missed the factory exp thing....

Don't forget to throw in a healthy dose of despair, neurosis, and a yearning for Droids to be fixed.

13 hours, the right materials (i think 500k steel and 180k fiberplast is what it took) and some macroing and you are master DE, end of story

I started making droids today, omg lol complexity is high, material needs is varied a lot.


very interesting really.


I am still tinkering with it and a complete noob, but a master noob roflol

I'll say this for the road to DE that I took: when I finally did reach master DE it was very rewarding, and I pretty much knew every detail of every schematic there was

Only grind MSEs until you get Blueprints II or III.. one of those will include the Advanced Droid Frame Unit. Takes 150 steel and 70 fiberplast to make, but gives approx. 430 XP points.

Getting to that first box takes FOREVER. Here's how I did it: I looted all my kills during that time and collected many of the old Project Deadeye discs. I sold them for between 10-30K apiece depending on the time of month it was. I used that money to buy lots of harvesters & resources, and a house to put all my stuff in. I haven't looked back yet. Since Act 1 is over, I'd suggest teaming with big groups and sharing the loot, and selling it. I already have a few rare & expensive items I'm hoarding in case I'm ever strapped for cash again.

When you finally start selling good droids, don't charge too little for them. 1500c for an advanced R5 is costing you money, not making it. 1000c for a probe droid set and 2000 for seekers on the bazaar kills sales for the rest of us, and isn't making those people any money in the long run.

I was an architect first so I just used the cash flow and resources from that trade to fund making master DE. Whatever you choose, you MUST have another source of income while you are grinding. I recommend holding off on DE for now and build your character to make money another way... then return and finish the grind when you can afford to practice on 800k worth of resources.

I agree with the above, you must have another form of income. I made Master Weaponsmith and Minor Archy before I ever even tried for Master DE.

You will have a short gaming experiance if you try for Master DE first.

Arkkyles Model 101 Outpost
Coronet, Corellia
-206 -5704

Master Artisan
Master Weapon Smith
Master Droid Engy
Minor Archy 4/3/2/0

CavemanGamer wrote:

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according to swgcraft.com, a mse droid yields 2.06 xp per unit of resource used, and a something called "droid storage compartment" yields 2.04 xp per unit, but the latter only requires one type of resource (any kind of metal).

So, would it be faster to gather the 602,353 units of any kind of metal to grind to master, or would it be faster to grind to 464,923 metal and 131,582 chemical to do it using MSE droids?

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I'm not sure the Droid Storage Compartment actually gives droid crafting XP. That schematic is in a kind of funny position. When you make one, you'll notice it uses your Artisan experimentation rather than your Droid Engineer experimentation. It seems to be an Artisan component that they just bumped up into the DE tree. No droid uses it. Until the Customization Kits came along, no DE item used them. Their primary use is to add an input hopper to a crafting station. In short, it's an artificial professional dependency.

How is this relevant? Well, I don't remember for sure, but I think it also gives you General Crafting XP rather than Droid Crafting XP. I could easily be wrong on that, but that would be one reason you wouldn't want to do that.

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let's see. a personal extractor can get how much mineral per day? 2k?

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On a 100% deposit, a personal extractor would bring in 2880 units per day (2 units per minute times 1440 minutes per day). 2000 is closer to what you will realistically expect to see in normal use.

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my only thinking is that keeping 2 wind and 8 metal extractors going for 1 kind of resource would be easier than keeping up with different kinds of resources whenever the shift happens.
[...]
so, 602k will take 8 mineral extractors operating at 100% effeciency 38 days to get to Master DE...

so at 50%extraction rate, it would take 76 days?

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My tip on that, based mostly on hindsight, would be to acquire medium harvesters as quickly as possible. Putting off grinding DE directly for a few days will save you a lot of resource-gathering headaches down the road. On Corbantis I can easily find medium harvesters for between 10k and 15k apiece.

As far as "76 days," it took me a bit longer than that from launch day to get to MDE. I wasn't nearly as fast as many, but I could do it a lot faster a second time if I wanted to.

People who are reporting significantly faster times for mastering the profession are going to have to make arrangements for acquiring resources other than mining their own. You could get there a lot faster using highly experimented heavy harvesters, but that assumes you have some cash to start with, both to buy the harvesters and to keep them running. Or you could just buy the resources. Find a professional surveyer who would be willing to sell you 500k units of nasty grinding-quality steel for, say, 1.2m credits or so. Spend another half million for a load of crappy fiberplast. There are many options in between the extremes, too. For instance, you could buy just your power in bulk, usually for less than one credit per unit if you shop around. Like in the real world, in SWG time and money are in many ways interchangeable. You just have to find the tradeoffs that are best for your situation.

Also, don't go just by efficiency of the schematic. MSE droids give you a little over 130 droid crafting XP. Advanced Droid Frame Units give you 440, or 462 if you "practice" them. You'll need a few less resources, but you'll take more than three times as long to do it.

Great! Glad you are understanding our pain. Work your butt up to MDE and watch all the noobs ask you for 5k R2s!

If you've got Master Artisan I'd suggest making new harvesters, I've got two mineral harvesters, I experimentedon extraction rate,bothhave 5 extraction rate, on an 80% spot I've got about 4.5k off each of them a day, I've already got over 40k of steel off them already, and they're easier to place since they only require one square on the map, 4 mineral and 2 chemical and you're looking at 11 days to get enough steel and fibreplast to grind adv droid frames to master.

If you don't have master artisan, then I suggest you get it first, once you come to try and make actual droids you'll find it's virtually a requirement (someone quoted something like 53 components that require MA parts to make the full range of droids).

But definately get better personal harvesters, you'll save yourself a lot of time havesting, I wish I'd been able to make harvesters like these when I was grinding to MDE.