Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Focus (Interplanetary Survey): Information, discussion and bug-reporting (04/23/04)
I've been having problem crating these on TC. Not sure yet if it's my crated EPGs/EMMs or the schematic or what...but I've /bugged this more than once and will make it a top priority for the short term.
If any TCs have tried crating these yet, and been successful, please let me know. The factory appears to stop at the end of the first crafting cycle and automatically stops (no crated items is ever created but some of the components/resources are used).
/bow
Respectfully,
What he said.^
This is only good for a tiny minority of our prospective market - the industrialized resource moguls. (NOT the huge market of 'most crafters')
It must return an indication of value at the very least along with the stats to make this useful to the majority of crafters. Sure, DE's don't particularly care about the stats of most of the specials. Our experimentation lines on subcomponents outside of combat modules have no visible/detectable impact on our final product. We can make everything with junk resources and still use a finishing resource to up HAM. And finishing resources are cheap (fiberplast, lube oil, both can be used to finish R3's and ADV Probots - that's just one example). Just need to hit some good 999 oq stuff and you're on your way.
Try that kind of viewpoint with weaponsmiths and they'll /gape at you and mutter "god, I wish".
Rhodium steel is on Lok! Yay! The weaponsmiths use that, right? They'll do anything for it, right? They don't need to have stats! It's RARE, RIGHT???!!
Nope. If it's crap, it will be ignored. The idea that just the presence of a resource being reported would be enough for everyone is not true. Other crafting professions NEED high quality rares, not just any old junk with the right name. They require stats. They need an indication of the resource quality. They won't harvest junk, and they won't buy junk. Why? Because it will make their final products into bazaar food.
Take a look around. Talk to regular crafters. Talk to your resource moguls. The usefulness of this droid is currently a fraction of what it could be if it just reported the value of stats rounded to the nearest hundred. Or even the lowest 1 and the highest 2 stats. Or even just a couple of asterisks, I know they work great for swgcraft.
An argument based on a DE-crafting assumption (any rare will do) does not translate to the market. Weaponsmiths, Doctors,& Armorsmiths DO care about stats on rares.
The market is interested in WHAT has spawned, not IF something has spawned. Very few people will be excited to learn , "Lordy lordy! There's Lokian Wheat ---- on LOK? WHO'D A THUNK?"
All humor aside, just step back and look at this a minute. The market has been begging for something SO darned close to this that the disappointment will be huge. The dissatisfaction will be large because the players will see this droid as 'ruined potential'.
(and yes, I have an outstanding order for several hundred of these, but the orders are only from resource specialists. Normal crafters, when told of this, say without a pause, "Then it won't do me any good at all. Too bad, It's almost usable".
One guy compared it to a sportscar with a steam engine - you can drive it, but what's the point?
Ackeko wrote:
Ok, I'm gonna shoot this from a customer standpoint.
Assumption made: Email contains list by planet that includes resource type (ie Class 6 radioactive: Worthlesium)
I'm a doc. I track the following for my guild -
-Lokian wild wheat
-Tat fiberplast
-Talusian water
-Dant berries
-Class 4 Liquid petrochem
-Dolovite Iron
-Domesticated oats
-Reactive gas
So, let say I want to make these droids useful to myself... well, I have3/8 items that are not static (ie, always there - only the stats change). In order to find these resources, I must either a) rely on word of mouth and swgcraft.com or b) travel... alot.
Lets say I can get our DE to make these for cost. Thats going to be around 150-200cr each by my calcs. I will also need survey tools which I can make.
Lets say that I check 2 times a week for my 4 resources. I am assuming that like the BH droids, I can only fire 1 at a time and I have to wait for the email before I can fire off another. Since I need 3 different surveys done, on 8 planets (obviously I'm on one, so I don't need that one done) that is 24 different surveys to completely check the galaxy for my 3 items. This means that these incredible time saving droids will cost me exactly 6 hours of time, assuming that none of the resources I want are found. And realistically, I shouldn't even bother with a gas survey. There's reactive gas on any given planet 95% of the time anyways.
You can launch these one after the other, no need to wait for the first to report back in. So total time spent on launching these survey droids is dependant on how many you need to launch to cover the resources you wish to know about as well as how fast you can send them away with the radial menu. I am guessing 1-5 minutes to launch 10 of them (not on TC so I dont know how they are launched. I think it is a radial menu thing)
So now, after spending 6 hours of time, I know for certain that I am not missing out on anything. Woo....
HOWEVER! If I DO find something... I STILL have to travel there to see if its any good. And in order to do that, I STILL have to locate a source... so what has this saved me? Nada.
In fact, if I want to get the best resources for my guild ASAP, I still have to travel to every dang planet to sample the dom. oats. And hey, while i'm there, why not open a survey tool and save myself 6 hours and 24 droids?
Basically, all I will use these for is checking lokian wheat around the 12 day mark to see if it has switched. Since I live on dant, the 15 minutes is comparable. Other than that, without the stats, I will simply have to pass on the droids and continue to use 3rd party websites (www.swgcraft.com) to find the resources I want.
The truth is, on my server (Lowca) swgcraft lags on resources by about 6 hours. On places like endor or dath, maybe a whole day. But 99% of the critical resources are tracked anyways. I can live with missing a day on some uber spawn.. I'll live.
I'm sorry DE's, you have been dealt yet another "here, won't this kick in the teeth be great!"
As far as I'm concerned, DE and BE are by FAR the most broken classes in the game. This one aint helpin your cause.
BTW... Chefs are SO gonna love these droids!! I mean hey, now you can see if there are berries available on Talus without ever leaving Lok!! Oh..... wait... I can tell you that right now... there is. And if you wait a sec while I pull up another webpage, I can give you the stats
SWIIIIIIIING!...... and a miss.... go fig....
Kaldeth wrote:
Ackeko wrote:
...
Lets say that I check 2 times a week for my 4 resources. I am assuming that like the BH droids, I can only fire 1 at a time and I have to wait for the email before I can fire off another. Since I need 3 different surveys done, on 8 planets (obviously I'm on one, so I don't need that one done) that is 24 different surveys to completely check the galaxy for my 3 items. This means that these incredible time saving droids will cost me exactly 6 hours of time, assuming that none of the resources I want are found. And realistically, I shouldn't even bother with a gas survey. There's reactive gas on any given planet 95% of the time anyways.
You can launch these one after the other, no need to wait for the first to report back in. So total time spent on launching these survey droids is dependant on how many you need to launch to cover the resources you wish to know about as well as how fast you can send them away with the radial menu. I am guessing 1-5 minutes to launch 10 of them (not on TC so I dont know how they are launched. I think it is a radial menu thing)
So now, after spending 6 hours of time, I know for certain that I am not missing out on anything. Woo....
...
SWIIIIIIIING!...... and a miss.... go fig....
sorry...
Ackeko wrote:
Kaldeth wrote:
Ackeko wrote:
...
Lets say that I check 2 times a week for my 4 resources. I am assuming that like the BH droids, I can only fire 1 at a time and I have to wait for the email before I can fire off another. Since I need 3 different surveys done, on 8 planets (obviously I'm on one, so I don't need that one done) that is 24 different surveys to completely check the galaxy for my 3 items. This means that these incredible time saving droids will cost me exactly 6 hours of time, assuming that none of the resources I want are found. And realistically, I shouldn't even bother with a gas survey. There's reactive gas on any given planet 95% of the time anyways.
You can launch these one after the other, no need to wait for the first to report back in. So total time spent on launching these survey droids is dependant on how many you need to launch to cover the resources you wish to know about as well as how fast you can send them away with the radial menu. I am guessing 1-5 minutes to launch 10 of them (not on TC so I dont know how they are launched. I think it is a radial menu thing)
So now, after spending 6 hours of time, I know for certain that I am not missing out on anything. Woo....
...
SWIIIIIIIING!...... and a miss.... go fig....
Well, that's very groovy!! Now I can just burn lots of worthless droids in a shorter amount of time. hehe
Let's just say that by some miracle, I have all of the elite resouces I will ever need. And lets pretend that all I need now is Flora Food. Iwant this food to have say... 900+ in OQ, PE, and DR.
There are 15 types of floral food.
They spawn on every planet.
There are10 planets.
That means there are 150 possible resouces for me to use.
On average, 8-12 of these will shift daily.
If a person were to try and track all of these resources, it would be a full time job.
If the droid were to return the following to me in my list, it would actually be worth buying one of these.
LokianFlower Fruit(Wheatantium) ***
Without any indication to quality, it is pointless to burn up resources that can be put to better use by my guild's AS.
Sorry guys... When they released that these were going to be in game, I immediately placed an order with our DE for some. (In whatever form they were in).
Since I read how these work, and what they report, I have scaled my order back to 1 crate of 10, which should last me about 6 weeks. Then, I'll get another crate of 10.
BTW, if I couldn't get these for cost... I wouldn't bother.
eh, each to their own, I'm already seeinga pretty largedemand for these from my customers.
Well, some of you are starting to see why they are not the great droids claim. And those of you with big orders, see how long those big orders last when the players realize what the limits are.
For the droids to even begain to be usefull:
1) They need to report ALL resources for a given type on the planet sent to (all mineral or all chemical, etc), not just 1 resource per droid sent.
2) they need to report the properties of the resource.
And this make them a sample droid, NOT a survey droid.
For them to be a survey droid, they need to create an overlay map of resource deposites that you can call up with your ctrl-v map so you don't have to spend hours hunting all over the damn planet for a place that:
has high enough density to be worth putting a harvestor down
is not in a no build zone (city, player city, POT, etc)
is flat enough to put a harevestor down. In reality mining is done more in rough terrain, not smooth and in games, REAL devs make it easyer then real life not harder. Here iyou can use rough terrain for a house then a harevstor. STUPID!
Vorg wrote:
Well, some of you are starting to see why they are not the great droids claim. And those of you with big orders, see how long those big orders last when the players realize what the limits are.
For the droids to even begain to be usefull:
1) They need to report ALL resources for a given type on the planet sent to (all mineral or all chemical, etc), not just 1 resource per droid sent.
They do this now...
2) they need to report the properties of the resource.
I doubt it will happen, but either way its not required to make them usefull, just means its usefull to a different group of people. The people who make the big orders are the mass-miners, and they are the ones who don't care about stats. They'll find someone to buy it one way or the other.
And this make them a sample droid, NOT a survey droid.
For them to be a survey droid, they need to create an overlay map of resource deposites that you can call up with your ctrl-v map so you don't have to spend hours hunting all over the damn planet for a place that:
has high enough density to be worth putting a harvestor down
is not in a no build zone (city, player city, POT, etc)
is flat enough to put a harevestor down. In reality mining is done more in rough terrain, not smooth and in games, REAL devs make it easyer then real life not harder. Here iyou can use rough terrain for a house then a harevstor. STUPID!
I'd hope this never happens.... first of all, it takes all the work and entertainment out of surveying. If all you have to do is launch a droid, go to the wp, and plop down a harvester things become very dull. Its the hunt that keeps things interesting. Secondly, it would only be usefull to about 10% of the population, the rest would be out of luck when they come to the spot to find harvesters covering the entire area.
Ok, I'm gonna shoot this from a customer standpoint.
Assumption made: Email contains list by planet that includes resource type (ie Class 6 radioactive: Worthlesium)
I'm a doc. I track the following for my guild -
-Lokian wild wheat
-Tat fiberplast
-Talusian water
-Dant berries
-Class 4 Liquid petrochem
-Dolovite Iron
-Domesticated oats
-Reactive gas
So, let say I want to make these droids useful to myself... well, I have3/8 items that are not static (ie, always there - only the stats change). In order to find these resources, I must either a) rely on word of mouth and swgcraft.com or b) travel... alot.
Seriously folks, like I said, you got kicked in the teeth again on this one IMO. And I feel bad for you. I was really looking forward to being a good customer to our DE.
Kaldeth wrote:
Ackeko wrote:
Well, that's very groovy!! Now I can just burn lots of worthless droids in a shorter amount of time. hehe
Let's just say that by some miracle, I have all of the elite resouces I will ever need. And lets pretend that all I need now is Flora Food. Iwant this food to have say... 900+ in OQ, PE, and DR.
There are 15 types of floral food.
They spawn on every planet.
There are10 planets.
That means there are 150 possible resouces for me to use.
On average, 8-12 of these will shift daily.
If a person were to try and track all of these resources, it would be a full time job.
If the droid were to return the following to me in my list, it would actually be worth buying one of these.
LokianFlower Fruit(Wheatantium) ***
Without any indication to quality, it is pointless to burn up resources that can be put to better use by my guild's AS.
Sorry guys... When they released that these were going to be in game, I immediately placed an order with our DE for some. (In whatever form they were in).
Since I read how these work, and what they report, I have scaled my order back to 1 crate of 10, which should last me about 6 weeks. Then, I'll get another crate of 10.
BTW, if I couldn't get these for cost... I wouldn't bother.
So you are looking for flora resources? Cool. which survey tool do you use today to track them? the flora survey tool? Ok. and you are going to each and every planet in the galaxy to survey for this flora using the flora survey tool? Cool. How much does this cost you in time and money? This survey droid wouldn't be useful to you? not even a little bit in terms of time or money?
To find out what flora are on what planet you send a survey droid with a flora survey tool. You get the same information back in the email as you get by opening the survey tool. Sure you will still have to survey, find a high concentration, grab a sample, examine it for the stats and determine if there is any use of it for you.
Do you survey each and every planet today for a good spawn of some high stat flora food? Or do you only stick to the planet you are on?
Ok... I really hate to get into arguments liek this, but seriously, if you're gonna sell em... you should know what you're talking about. There are exactly 15 flora food resources... everything from berries to wild oats. They are on EVERY planet ALL the time... they never "unspawn". The catch here is... and this is the part you really need to pay attention to, I already KNOW that there are domesticated oats on Rori. Sending a survey droid to have it come back and tell me that is utterly pointless!! Without the stats, I STILL have to fly there. AndI STILL have to sample the damn oats.Where have I saved money? I HAVEN'T. Where have I saved time? I HAVEN'T. In fact, it cost me more, and took me longer...
The same applies for all of the resources that aren't a very specific type. Such as Class 4 Liquid Petro Chem. If I just need high OQ chem, what good does launching 9 droids do me? I KNOW there's chem on every damn planet... YAY!
Like I said in an earlier vesion of this post.. realistically, these droids are WAY better when used in conjunction with swgcraft.com. As a stand alone product, they cost vs. value factor makes these WAY too expensive for what they do.
To me this survey droid will help me branch out and survey other planets as well. I am a MDE and most of my good modules require special resources. Not something that is always available on my home planet. With these survey droids I can get information back on those planets I am interested in at a fraciton of the cost in both money and time, then actually travel to them. (Sure I get off cheaper since I make the survey droids myself) But since when did a WS, AS or a combat profession worry about cash? A WS or AS needs good resources to make their weapons or armor attractive to the buyers. BE's and Chefs are also in need of good resources. a BE to make good tissues and/or additives for the chefs. Chefs to make good stat food and drinks. Docs to makie high power heals and buffs.
Every crafting profession have something they need that are either specific to a planet or specific by a name. Lokian wild wheat might not always be there. Would you rather head to Lok, wait at the ship to come in get off, fire up the survey tool, see that it isn't there and maybe miss the ship back?`Or would you spend 15 second to launch a survey droid that would cost you maybe... 1000 creds (Not sure what prices will be on these, server specific and such)
This point was already somewhat conceeded. I stated that I would personally be sending droids to check when lokian wild wheat changes. Though at this point I can tell you that its right around day 13 on Lowca. So yes, this may save me 1 or 2 trips to Lok from Dantooine every cpl of weeks. But hey, I'm usually less than 1 hop from Lok 4-5 times a week anyways. Since I am checking floral resources on almost every planet anyways.
You can't go to a planet and back for less then 1400 creds. No mather how you cut it. Nor can you do it any faster then it does to launch a survey droid.
Sure. if the droid find a resource that is useful you would have to go there and survey for a good concentration and place harvs, but atleast when you went there you would know that the resource existed. Before this droid goes live you have to guess.