Droid Engineer Archive

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Vampiric_Hoshi wrote:

I think its time to go back to this debate. I continue to ask myself the question "why shouldn't we be able too" and still fail to find an answer, so here it is in all its glory.

Should Droid Engineers gain the ability to call more droids? Should the amount of droids you can call depend on your Droid Engineer skills? What restrictions could be in place?

Personaly, I think we DE's should gain the ability to call extra "utility" droids dependant on the DE skill. This doesn't make DE a hybrid Creature Handler skill since its not giving us extra combat roles, its simply making the DE a more versatyle suppert/crafter role. It also allows us to display multiple droids at once in order to help improve "personal" sales.

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I do agree that Droid Engineers should be able to call more then one Utility Droid, however under the current design of how droids work this would exclude all R Series droids, Probots, DZ70s, and LE Repair Droids. The only true Utility Droids that we currently have are the MSE, Power Droid, Treadwell, Surgical Droid, and Protocol Droid and BLL.

Here are a few problems what would pop up, if Droid Engineers were given the ability to control more then one droid. Each of these problems would have to be addressed before such a change could happen.

1. Probots and DZ70s - The inherent combat ability of both of these droids would need to be removed, or both droids would have to be 'marked' so that only1 Probot or DZ70 can be called.


2. Combat Modules - Since there there is no differentiation between a Utility Droid and a Combat Droid, Combat Modules would have to be 'ear marked' to so that only one droid with a Combat module could be called ata time.


3. Detonation Modules - This module would have to marked in a similar fashion as the Combat modulelisted above. Otherwise the problem of Bounty Hunters taking up Droid Engineering skills will crop up, just so that the BH can have a one hit kill on a Jedi. Don't take my word on this one, do a search of the DE forum for all of the people who have asked this question before.


4. Scout Trap Modules - This module would have to marked in a similar fashion as the Combat modulelisted above.


5. Stimpack Dispensor Module - This module would have to marked in a similar fashion as the Combat modulelisted above.


6. Auto-Repair Module - This module would have to marked in a similar fashion as the Combat modulelisted above. This one would depend on the number of droids that a MDE would be able to call. If the number was limited to 2 droids total, then this module would not need to be marked.


7. Pet/Droid Code Examined - The complete code for Pets and Droids would need to completely examined, to make sure that the CH and DE code did not stack or we could end up withMaster CH/DE combos that could be Exploited.

Each and every one of these issues would need to be addressed before a Droid Engineer should be given the ability to call more then one droid. The question then comes down to -

Would all of this work be justified, if it came at the expense of some other Issue, such as Droid Decay, additional Droid Chassis, Droid Modules, or bug fixes?

Personally, I owuld give anything short of a Droideka schematic to be able to call more than one droid. The ability to be able to use our droids as they were intended to recharge or repair our other droids alone is something that should have been in the game from the start and never removed.

I have to say I'm in favor of being able to have more than one droid out at a time. But I think that other people should be able to as well. Besides, droids are smart machines that are meant to make things simpler for people.

The rule to prevent combat munching should be simpler. Somthing like:

You can only have once combat capable droid in your datapad at a time.

Much simpler, only tested when you try and use a new droid.

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Vampiric_Hoshi wrote:

Drashk, I don't agree. The term "combat droid" and "utility droid" doesn't currently relate to the chasis, it literaly only relates to the modules inside. So to say an R-series droid is not a utility droid is incorrect when its carrying anything BUT combat modules.

It is not hard or game breakingly difficult towrite in a simple pars check when a droid is called like this:

1)Check to see if a droid isalreadycalled.

2)If the answer to 1 was yes, move on to 3). If the answer is no, call the droid

3) If the current called droid has a combat module (and therefore a combat rating) no more droids can be called. If not, move onto 4)

4) Check if the player has the DE ability to call extra droids. If the player has reached his droid limit, no droid is called. Ifheis still able to call more droidsmove on to 5)

5) Check to see if the droid attempting to be called has a combat module/combat rating. If yes, the droid can not be called. If no, the droid is called.

That is a very simple series if "IF" statements and is a 5-minute piece of coding. Any developer that says otherwise is not telling the truth.

Not an awfuly intense piece of coding simply to allow DE's to get an ability we should have had since the start while making sure we don't really gain extra combat abilities.

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While the actual conditionals may be an easy code, all the little flags that would have to be added and theexisting pet code that would have to be changed (as far as I know droids are still using the same code as creature pets) would be the real problem

For a while i thought having out one combat droid and 2 other types should be ok for a master de but recient things have come to light. About a week ago someone came to me complaining that their harvester droid kept running. I told him that that was a known issue and suggested a harvester droid with one combat module. This worked like a charm, with one combat module the droid had some staying power but not enough to be usefull in combat. If i'm a class that has a true fighting droid out and a droid that has one combat module to give it some guts then i'm sunk. If instead they limit the rating of combat modules and perhaps have +s to that rating as you get certain skills then. As a master de i can make a probot that has a combat ability of between 480 and 510+. I suppose the questions are now where to start the combat rating, where to give bonuses to it, how many droids a person can have out at one time and how to increment that amonut. I really feel as a master de that i should be able to call 3 droids, within limits being discussed. If we didn't allow people to pull the big combat bots until they got some boxes under their belt, we could have a market for some of the smaller droids, like the dz70..