Droid Engineer Archive

This list is updatedas neededand is meant to supplement the work done by the current correspondant and provide an idea of where this profession currently stands. Please read it over and provide any information you have regarding any of these issues, or any new issues you may have discovered.

I am a Master Droid Engineer on Bloodfin (Lime Akob). I also participated in the beta as a DE and bring a lot of knowledge of the profession from those days. I also read just about every single post in the DE forum and have a good idea of where this profession stands. However, I am one person and need your help to make sure that we've got all the real bugs nailed down, so we don't have DEVs chasing issues that don't exist due to confusion on our part.

Many, many, many thanks and respect to all those who have contributed to this list and to the Droid Engineer profession in general. My personal thanks to Tyim for starting this thread during beta. Special thanks to any dev that cares to respond to this post.

1.Recent Updates
2.Bugs
3.Uncertainties
4.Dev Issues
5.Wishlist

1. Recent updates
A.Added "Dev Issues" category to track what the devs say they're working on, but have not yet completed.
B.Removed uncertainty regarding droids and shuttle travel. How it is working now makes sense.
C.Updated uncertainty on armor resists degrading.
D.Updated uncertainty for datapad radial menu for store/call and moved to bugs.
E.Added newuncertainty regarding droids not being called while inside a building insidea city.
F.Moved several existing issues to dev issues and added several items from the plan to dev issues.

2. Bugs still in evidence
A.Droids are not giving any UXP.
B.Droid names use the standard name filter.This may beby design, butwe're calling it a bug because droids should use a modified name filter that allows for numbers in the name. Yes, Artoo-Deetoo works fine, but I've seen NPC droids wandering around with REAL droid names. So we should be allowed to do the same.
C.Droids with no attack capabilities none the less have attack speeds and damage base modifiers in the datapad.
D.Experimentation on droid parts has no noticeable effect on final droid. Resources also fall into this area since resource properties influence the experimental property values. There is no point to experiment either on droid components or the final product. The droids seem to all function about the same.
E. Droids often stop following without reason. This is a generic pet problem as it happens to all pets, not just droids.Pets seem toget stuck on invisible zone boundries.Walking up to about 10-20m from thepet and re-issuing a 'follow' command fixes it (most of the time).
F.Item Storage Module 2s coming out as Data Module 2s during the assembly stage. What you seem to get at the end is a Data Module 2. This is only a NAME problem. The module is said to function as it should - as an ItemStorage Module 2.
G.Multiple crafting stations in a single droid breaks the crafting modules in the droid. Only one of the modules seems to work when this happens. Crafting modules also seem to break when the droid's crafting field intersects crafting fields from other droids orstationary crafting stations.
H.Droid deeds shouldn't be tossed into the misc area of the bazaar. They're deed versions of entities. Give droids a proper home so that people can actually find them with ease.
I.EXPLOIT: Cluster modules not only fit into cluster module sockets, they fit into service module sockets.This allows cluster modules to fit into cluster modules ad infinitum. Thishas the added effect thatcluster module slots are nowpointless and allows any number of modules to be placed in any droid. Clusters should only fit in cluster sockets. Otherwise you're further exploiting the idea that the droid frame used is irrelevant.
J.Skills for the Droid Engineer don't reach +100 at Master. Droid Assembly and Droid Experimentation only go as high as +55. Droid Customization (currently useless) goes to +64. Other engineering professions get skill adds like assembly/customization/experimentation at novice. Droid Engineers get squat.
K.Repairmodules do not functionat all when placed in an LE Repair droid or Power droid.
L.Medical modulesaffect the effectiveness of stimpacks. Reports say that a stimpack is more effective when a medical module-equipped droid is nowhere to be seen (unless it contains a level 6 module).
M.Droids and components have been changed so that some of the experimental values have been removed from the schematics. However, these values remain during crafting and experimentation. As such, they are always 0%. If they can't be altered, don't show them.
N.Droid deeds need to show ALL the modules installed and any important properties associated with those modules.
O.EXPLOIT: By telling a droid to stay, running 800m (need to cross a server zone?) or so away and calling another droid, you can effectively call all your droids at once. I've not been able to reproduce this myself. Can anyone who was previously able to do this reproduce it?
P.Droid Storage Compartments use Artisan Experimentation instead of Droid Experimentation. It's a DE craft, it should use DE skills, not Artisan skills.
Q.Item storage modules do not work with Surgical Droids (basic and advanced). The option to use item storage is not available in the radial menu.
R.Droid customization is so borked, it isn't funny. No xp is gained from colouring droids, the colours don't always hold.
S.Droid customization tools give General Crafting xp instead of Droid Crafting xp when crafted.
T.Droids suck batteries like there's no tomorrow ever since they no longer recharge on store. Please find a happy medium.
U.After calling or storing a droid, the datapad radial menu doesn't immediately update to reflect the status of the droid, causing the store item to appear after storing the droid. This seems to be a general radial menu problem as I've also seen it when I unregister my vendor.I have to open the radial menu a couple timesbefore unregister switches to register.

3. Uncertainties
A.Patrol point list is not saved between store and call, is this by design?
B. Some droids, when given a repair module, gain a 'repair other droid' option in the program menu. Some, when out, add a 'repair' option in the radial menu of OTHER droids. I can only assume that both are possible. 'Converse' droids do not have a programmable 'repair' command, but usually allow the repair option to appear in nearby droids (I've never seen this myself). Seems a little inconsistent. Also, the power droids and repair droids with a repair module do not grant the 'repair' option in other droids.
C. Power droidsare the onlydroid with a non-modular function (ignoring combat capable droids here). Repair droids have had their repair systems removed and changed into a module. R droids have had their crafting functions removed and changed into modules. Power droids remain as an inherent function. Can we get some consistency here?
D. Some of the advanced droids are using 'Converse' instead of 'Program' for programming. Nobody seems to know how to name these droids. Can it be done?
E.Binary Load Lifters (both basic and advanced) seem rather useless. BLLs don't lift any loads, don't have room for any modules. So, from what I'm hearing, they're just a nice droid to look at.
F.Many of the 'level' based service modules stack. However, there arecaps in place which make stacking kind of pointless with thehigher level modules. Also,by stacking lower modules, you can achieve the same effect as a higher level module, reducing the point of using a higher level module. This is further enchanced by the cluster module bug. Also, when crafting the droid, the stacking results show values which do not take the cap into consideration. So a droid while being crafted can show a storage value of 15, but the final storage when the droid is tamed is capped at 10. Which is intended? Stacking or no stacking?
G.Armor resists sometimes degrade.We're not entirely sure if it's only visual, but it seems to affect droids and PSGs in particular when you examine them.
H.Information in the datapad for some droids no longer lists things like the commands programmed for the droid, customization, etc. some of them do. What's the deal?
I.I'm hearing that BH droids aren't using their last charge, making them infinite use. Anyone confirm?
J.Anyone notice if the number of colours available with the customization tool are different than the colours available during crafting?
K.Droidscannot be called while inside acity building.I see no reason to preventus from calling droids in a city. Shouldn't matter if we're in a building or not. If this is intended, then why?

4.Dev Issues
A.Combat modules (usable only by DEs), granting abilities(combat modes, short range blaster, long range blaster, anti-droid reactions, anti-creature reactions).
B.Allow DE's to take out more than one droid at a time (with restrictions).
C.Increase droid repair functionality.Make droid 'healing'work similarlyto the current pet standards.
D.Give droids expendable items to be 'charged' by a repair droid.
E.Add stim and healthpack functionality to medical droids.
F.Increase thenumber of locations wheremedical droids can be called.
G.Allow medical droids to reduce the mind cost of healing.
H.Allow medical droids to auto-stim incapped players.
I.Have all droids take power and wound damage (requires rework of repair droids).
J.Allow power droids to power harvesters (increased maintenance, power droid degrades over time).
K.Allow MSE droids to act as remote bombs.
L.Have more commands trigger animations. Possibly a decoration mode to haveparticular animation repeated. Possibly more personalities.
M.Give protocol droids a stronger role.

5.Wishlist
A.Give us information on droid power levels in the examine window and/or in the datapad. Also,since droid batteries repair mind,how about using mind as the droid's power level indicator? The action pool would also work.
B.Examining droid should give thesame data as in the datapad (for the owner).
C.We really want certain droids to only be able to take certain types of modules. There have been a number of really good posts on this topic, and due to space constraints, I'll leave it at that.
D.Consider droids that can survey and report back on a particular resource. Perhaps even a high-end versionwith the ability to go toother planetsto determine which resources are available.
E. Consider droids that can help maintain installations. Senda droid out to pay mantenance. Send a droid out to collect resources. Send a droid out to deliver power. There are many ways to implement this as a viable system.
F. Consider droids that can act as standalone vendors in cities, and/or droids that can act as Barkers. Perhaps even let droids deliver goods to a customer in another city or on another planet.
G. Droids to remember if they were stored or called over a logout. Running around in the middle of nowhere and logging out causes your droid to hide back in the datapad. This means having to go back to town or putting down a camp in order to recall your droid. This is undesireable.
H. Now that perma death has been removed and replaced with the pet 'vitality' system, I have to say kudos for the change. However, it doesn't make sense to give vitality packs to droids. Perhaps a DE equivalent could be used? Same deal, just a different name, and craftable by DEs?
I. There have been several complaints regarding the 5 droid in the datapad limit. While there are some compelling arguments AGAINST this wishlist item, it would be nice to at least have this limit reviewed.
J. Create aslicing module. This module would allow smugglers to get a boost to their slicing ability. We're not interested in putting anyone out of a job here. R2 could slice terminals in the movies, why not our droids?
K.Allow us to drop batteries into the droid's inventoryand have itrecharge itself as needed until the batteries run out.
L.Create an entertainment module akin to the existing medical module to allow entertainers to work ouside of camps, cantinas and hotels. This module would be also level 1-6 with each level giving a little extra boost to the entertainer's skill.
M.Saw a request for a training droid as seen in the movies that 'harasses' its target, pulling aggro. Thisidea is intended togive a little variety to the Novice DE's life. Could also be used as a consumable for training the combat classes.
N.Let usname our droids through the datapad controller. Droids shouldn't need to be 'taught' a name like pets do. The name is programmed into the droid separate from the other commands.
O.Add the creator to the droid view information, not just theowner. When you look at a pistol, you seewho made it. When you look at a droiddeed, you see who made it. When you look at a droid, you SHOULD see who made it.
P.Allow droids to be re-deeded forease of transfer. Since we can only have 5 droids in the datapad, it makes it really tough forDE's to take old droids astrade-ins for upgrades (like a car). We either have to immediately re-sell the droid or delete it. Would make more sense to re-deed the droid so that itcould be sold to another customer as a 'used droid'.
Q.Droid "macros" came up. Let us create macro-like droid programs to have a droid execute a series of commands. Not sure how this would be implemented, but it is an idea.
R.Make the droid deeds show pictures of the droid itself rather than a silly deed icon.
S.Enough with the 'tame' thing... let us 'activate' or simply 'use' the deeds to first create our droids.
T.Review thisdeal withprobots being nerfed because they were too powerful for newbies. In the light of every boy and his dog being able to get something 'better' from a CH, this argument holds less water than an MSE Droid.
U.Make BLL Droids useful in 'city planning'. Let us use them to move buildings around without re-deeding. Great for once the player city expansion is released.
V.Please review the customization lifespan. 20 is too short. I have people complaining to me personally that they have to get their customization updated almost daily since they're always calling and storing their droid. I'm sorry, but if my car needed a new paint job because I took it out on the road 20 times, I'd be most displeased.

Yup

How about adding Droid Certs and the unnerfing probots to DEV list. They did "promise" both didn't they?

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Daker-Naritus wrote:
Are the "Dev Issues" rehashing the things the devs proposed, or suggesting them to the devs?

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A.Added "Dev Issues" category to track what the devs say they're working on, but have not yet completed.

I wonder when the DEV's are going to fix DE and add this stuff in......

There is still a bug that happens sometimes when you call a droid. The resists are randomly taken off. For instance, I pull a probot from my datapad, and it has 40% resists to most items, but is vulnerable to kinetic, blast, acid, and electricity. I store and recall, and it either goes to 40% resists to all, or it has a different set of vulnerabilities.

This seems to actually affect the droid's stats, as well. I pulled a droid that suddenly had kinetic vulnerability, and it was incapped in two hits. The same droid that did not have kinetic listed as a vulnerability lasted longer.

Storing and recalling multiple times will eventually fix it. It is most inconvenient to check the stats each time you call a droid to make sure the armor is working.

I can promise you that the armor resists disappearing is not display only.

When my probot loses it's 40% kinetic it goes down FAST.

Verfied real.

Thanks for taking the time to keep putting this list up.

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Slythetove wrote:

I can promise you that the armor resists disappearing is not display only.

When my probot loses it's 40% kinetic it goes down FAST.

Verfied real.

Thanks for taking the time to keep putting this list up.

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Verified here as well.

Gorantoth, thanks for putting this list up, even though it seems it doesn't get the attention it deserves....

Ok, good enough. I'll move it up to the bugs then next run.

Are the "Dev Issues" rehashing the things the devs proposed, or suggesting them to the devs?

Don't forget:

Data storage modules don't work.

Personality droids can't be named.

DE must get novice scout to use droids in the field.

Befriend command is useless.

Oh, and DEs have no way of repairing damage to thier own or others droids.

Good, concise organization of the issues. I do have one suggestion with something you mentioned. you suggested using the Mind bar as a power indicator. while I agree that a power indicator is needed, having the mind bar act as that indicator is not a good idea. For a example, in this model, a droid with 25% power only has 25% mind bar. A couple of good hits to the mind pool and its down. I think a separate power indicator makes more sense.