Droid Engineer Archive

To all the classes who think DE's having combat droids would be "unbalanced", remeber one thing...

WE MAKE LESS MONEY THAN YOU!!!!!

We sell maybe 3 things

1. Medical Droids to medics

2. Crafting Droids to crafters

3. Probots

Each one of these things ONLY needs to be bought ONCE and ALL of these can be combined into ONE probot. Our items can't be sold for much since they're not that usefull.

Every combat profession buys several different types of weapons (which decay, can be experimented on to sell for more, don't require tons of tells on how to be operated, arn't nearly as buggy...etc...etc). Armor decays also, I own more than one set myself, and can be sold for much more. Tailors sell several outfits, Peopleconsume food and spice (I know chefs pretty messed up now too). You see where I'm going with this.

Through in all the bugs and boringness of our class and we really could use something like combat droids to spruce it up. That's the only reason I became a DE in the first place. Do creature handlers get to tame they're own creatures and fight with them, and sell them to others to make money?? Yes! Why can't we?

So lots of people flock to DE now, so what. We get more of a voice to the devs now, instead of having 4 on every other server like now. Personally I think the grind will keep MANY players away, expecially if the devs do this right (only can be built at master DE or something, not too powerful, etc.)

I just want to enjoy this profession, I don't think I'm the only one who dreamed of running into battle with 3 destroyer droids rolling along side of them. (that's what they are! not "droidekas". I hate that name lol)

I think I'm starting a new thread....

how many more of these threads are gonna be there? majority of the people want it man, give it up.

there will never be the need for a droid engineer equivalent to that of a weaponsmith or armorsmith. Droids don't have decay, there aren't "minor changes" that make differances like bio engineered pets, and they can be mass produced.

to make the class viable I believe they should be more of a combat / crafter class, while it would annex some of the true crafters, it would open the class up to a wider array of people.

While I feel for the crafters worrying about lower prices, I'm an economist at heart... the offset should be experimentation, so that the real crafters who take time to stock the best ingredients and hunt down de affecting tapes produce a better product.

-Azerin Dangerflirt
Colonel, Imperial Army

As little as we see combat droids in Episodes 4-6, we do see a lot more combat droids (IG-88 and 4-LOM) than we do people with killer pets following them around (The rancor keeper in RoTJ is the only one I can come up with). I think droids should be at LEAST as visible in-game as other types of pets. Unfortunately (or not, depending on your view), one of the only ways to get droids "out there" is to have combat droids. Combat is a large part of the game and people will do whatever they can to max-out their combat abilities. Hence 3,000 cowardly gurrecks running around between Bestine and Anchorhead.

That being said, the title Droid Engineer says to me: This guy's an engineer. He makes stuff. My ex-droid engineer wasn't very happy making droids, but that was his job. Since I wanted an Imperial Droid Engineer, I learned Pistoleer and then I had a Combat Engineer. Then I joined the Empire.

In my opinion, droid engineers are craftsmen. If you want combat, take a combat class as your second class.

If you're going to have the "crafter/combat" mix, that doesn't do anything to make other professions dependent on Droid Engineers, but it will draw many people to the Droid Engineer profession just to have the pets. These people will be grinding to get experience just so they can have the skills to control battle droids, and flooding the market with droids. This will push the pure crafters out of business, or at least make the competition tougher for them. In my opinion, adding the combat element to the DE skill tree will make the crafting side more difficult, and I'd think that the people who are currently DEs would be concerned about that, since crafting is what they got into it for.

I have a different idea for how to make droids that are useful in combat but limited in how they can be used. My idea is droid control structures, with limited range of control. There are many different ways in which this could be implemented.

One way is to make it so anyone can place a droid control structure anywhere, and the structures are made by architects with many, many components provided by DEs (not just master artisan components). Each structure controls one droid, and the player can only have one droid control structure, or the structure takes up a large number of lots. The structure could be something that the player drops and picks back up, but you might as well not use the structure if that's the case; the player could just move the structure from one spot to another.

Another method would be to make the structure so that it can't be moved, but it's destroyable. The player could destroy it himself if he wants to place another one elsewhere, or the enemy could destroy it. If this is the case, then it might be interesting INSTEAD of making the structure crafter made, to make it something that you buy with faction points. You could place it like a turret, using your lots and paying maintenance, or donate it to a faction HQ like a turret. It could be a structure donated in the placeof a turret, and possibly control several droids. I think the droid control structure should be incredibly difficult to destroy, though. Certainly tougher than turrets, which disappear soon after being donated. Anakin got a lucky shot in TPM, but most of the time your best bet should be to take out the droids, first.

If the faction system were implemented, then structure controlled droids could be made MUCH more powerful than droids currently are. They couldn't be used in PvE, and their best use would be in defense, so it woudln't be easy to use them for experience gain. In fact, to insure that they're not just plunked down in the middle of a bunch of krayts or something as tanks, they could have kinetic vulnerability instead of the normal faction vulnerability of blast. These would be used mostly for defense, or in a well coordinated offense (you can't get a droid back once you turn it's control over to the structure, though, so using them in offense would be a gamble).

There could also be some interesting strategy to this, such as requiring other types of droids besides combat droids for the droid control structure to work. Using one of the structure's droid slots for a power droid could give a boost to the combatdroids' shields, or a repair droid donatedcould repair the combat droids when they're not in combat. A medic droid controlled by the structure could give the defenders (or an offensive force gambling all their droids and control structures ona win) an advantage by aiding the player medics in healing players and NPCs. Probots could give the HQ's owner or other nearbyImperials a warning when rebels are approaching by flying back and making that alarm noise from ESB.

For cities, you could make private, faction droid control structures off-limits incitiesuntil such time as cities can be made factionally aligned. In the mean-time, there could be a civic droid control structure that controls droids which aid the militia, attacking only players with a /citywarn.

my thoughts (answer from someone who never triedany elite crafting professions.)

add in 2-3 more combat droids (perhaps some require rare dropped components to be more effective) and let master DEs call more then 1 droid.

I'm not a DE so my opinion may not count for much, however, the last thing I want to see is the Driod Engineers becoming Driod Handlers. It's just seems ridiculous to me and would probably only serve to create another fiasco similar to the Creature Handlers to date.

The concept of a DE going into combat with 3 droidekas (should they ever materialize) is just as ridiculous as a CH with 3 rancors or an imperial with 3 AT-STs. I know, I know, those issues are being addressed, but I think you get my point.

If the DEs want to be Handlers then I suppose thats their option and I respect that. But just don't forget the rest of the galaxy that's been waiting for a decent combat droid to use, whether its a probot as they existed a few months back or an actual combat droid chassis thats comparable.

And NO, I'm not going to buy an R2 unit no matter how many blasters you can attach to it.

Cheers,
Ffolks - BH/Ranger

I woudl beg to differ on the existence of combat/crafter professions.

They are combat medics. Get a look at their ingredient list, the number of schematics to craft their own weaponry.

The template exists, and I continue to believe that you don't have to base the future of DEs as either counterparts of CH or armorsmiths or pure crafters. They can be a mix if their players want them to be.

My 2 cents is the game will be much better off if they are tactical specialists rather than pure crafters or mech CHs.

Jacore

Give us droids, lots of droids but for the sake of all that is Lucas do not make droid engineers a combat class. Leave us a crafting class and let us sell our droids. If you want certifications on some droids put the certificationswhere they belong... in the combat classes.

If you make us combat classes, then as mentioned in someone elses post, we need to see tailor ninjas and attack chef's and lets not forget thecombat harvester wielding architect...For that matter why not let a merchant use apistol, all the ones in south central LA are better at it than most soldiers.

When you guys created this game you made an effort to give us two distinct styles of play and gave us enough skill points to pick up a combat class as well as a noncombat class.

If you want to help the DE profession.. first fix whats broken ... 4 month of reporting the same bugs is rediculous... then add some new stuff... go to the official star wars web page there are over 100 droids listed there... there are new module ideas and new droid ideas all over the droid forums....

--Dolomite--

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Thunderheart wrote:

I have a question here.

There is a real seperation of thought here...

Some want DE's to be a "crafter-only" profession while others want the "combat/crafter" mix...

What are your thoughts?

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The separation isnt that simple, in fact:

1. some want DE's to be a "crafter-only" profession with no combat droids at all.


2. some want DE's to be a "crafter-only" profession with combat droids usable by anyone


3. some want DE's to be a "crafter-only" profession with combat droids usable by anyone with a certification system (to be determined).


4. some want DE's to be a "combat/crafter" mix (that is with combat droids usable by DE's only)

The (1)population isreally marginal.
(4) dont fit in the DE / artisan tree and is all about dabbling (same as most CH).

So the real debate, imho, should be between (2) & (3).

I'm more in favor of (3) cause (2) was proven unbalanced (aka pre-nerf probot).

Kage

TH:

I know there are way different schools of thought here but I would like to point something out:

Many of us have played Knights of the Old Republic and I for one found the character of HK-47 one of the coolest concepts ever, and very much in keeping with the Star Wars atmosphere. Yet, most folks want this gameputin the hands of players--not pets, not even droids. If you exchange pets for droids then you've not accomplished a thing. That being said,I think there should be a wide variety of droids.

I see no reason there could not be combat droids but again the rule should apply that a player with a combat droid should never accomplish more than two players could.

Regards,

Sarien

It was a long time ago in the SOE site that says Droid Engineer can make droids for combat purpose, shortly after they nerfed probots to nothing they removed that comment. Are they even legally allowed to do that? I don't want to fight anyone or anything really

but, when a player ask you to make a combat droid, you automatically starting your probot routine.... that's NOT what I want either.

I just want different droids to make, not like weapon crafter they have lots of guns to make, now you might tell me all the pistoleer only want FWG5 anyway, yes but their experiment works, each and every gun is different. ours... works too, 810 HAM to 819 HAM.. yeah real sweet.

I would have to say i want the DE proffession to be BOTH craft/combat. Make it so non-de's can have a few lower combat droids and the master de to have better combat droids. In doing this you will meet both requirements for DE's who just want to craft and the DE's who want to craft and do combat.

So my vote is Yes Combat droids for DE's only AND combat droids for non-de's.