Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Focus (Interplanetary Survey): Information, discussion and bug-reporting (04/23/04)
LonelyGhost wrote:
Okay, forst a question, and then some stuff based on the assumption that I already have the answer to the question?
Does the emailed list return the CLas, type and *name* of the resource? Does it return "Ostrine Carbonate Ore - Huuervelasis"? Or simply "Ostrine Carbonate Ore"?
Returns the name, class, type, pretty much everything but the stats. I know I've posted a copy of one of the emails it sent me somewhere in this thread... can find that for exact info (also, it does put it in a nice, easy to read indented/color coded format...)
For people who think the poor DEs got shafted by this publish...nobody is making you buy any of the new droids. No they didn't bring out the sampling module, the concentration map module, they certainly didn't bring out the "send me the best waypoint for a given resource" module. But they didn't shaft the DEs. They didn't shaft any of my deliriously excited customers. They did, however, shaft the people who needed the toilet paper module.
This is the one of the best publishes ever for basic conveniences like remote structure monitoring (IMO -- my factories are always going into 40% condition because I'm not around). We were told they pulled out all the stops to get these into this publish, and I believe it. It was a superb effort and many many players are going to enjoy this.
I think there is ONE module that isn't going to sell, which is the creature harvest module. May sell a few, but the fact is, if I have to loot all the corpses ANYWAY (animals do drop loot, valuable stuff sometimes too), there is simply no reason to substitute a droid's limited abilities (/harvest) for one's own better abilities (/loot + /harvest).
Survey droids though? Gonna fly off the shelf. Here is how the conversation goes for me...
Customer: u se11ing survey drods???
Me: Yep, soon as the publish goes live.
Customer: what they do? return stats?
Me: Nope, they return a list of resource names available on a given planet. You can launch 10 or more at once, to all the planets. They'll send you email with the resource list.
Customer: give me 5 crates
When I explain in depth, the enthusiasm does not change -- people still are jazzed about them. I'm jazzed about them!
But in addition to the list of resources on a planet why not just tell us what quadrant of the planet to look in? For example: "Highest concentration of (resource) located somewhere in the northwest quadrant of the Tatooine planetary map." That way, people will know what planet their desired resource is on, and they will have a general idea of where to look. However, they will still have a hell of a lot of exploring to do, given how big a quadrant of a SWG planet is.
Lexx Muskoka
Master Droid Engineer
Praeclarus, Corellia, Sunrunner
Ok, I think I may have been lumped into the 'they want it all" catagory. This isn't true.
What I want:
List of resources (given)
Approximate (or exact) stats, or some indication of resources value. (We had some OQ 16, PE 28 Class 4 on Lowca once.. now THAT'S garbage 
)
And that's it. I'll find the WP. In all honesty, the best concentrations are usually in the mountains anyways, so I can do without that.
All I'm asking for, as a CUSTOMER, is something that holds enough value to make it worth purchasing.
I know alot of you have super huge orders already... heck, I placed one. Then I found out how they work... and asked to have my order reduced.
dbl post...
Sure wish they would fix this. Oh well
Message Edited by Ackeko on 04-25-2004 11:20 PM
At least in function, they may tweak numbers and resource requirements.
However, they might consider a droid that returns all the stats for a specific resource.
Or even just one stat of that one resource. Anything more than that unbalances the game
and removes "gates" that crafting players have to get through on the "crafting path".
I personally am in favor of the "all stats for one single resource" but I wouldn't be
surprised if I saw it limited to just one stat, or a mean and variance on the stats.
I actually would prefer the mean and variance, as opposed to just the one stat.
At least then you'd have a good idea of if it was a crappy resource or not.
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.sorry...
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?
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)
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.
overbyte wrote:
i'm still worried about those darned vertex crystals - i've NEVER seen them
I just bought some on Starsider.. for 60 credits per unit. That is going to boost the price of this droid considerably since my breakeven on the Vertex for one droid is 1800 credits.
DocSavag wrote:
overbyte wrote:
i'm still worried about those darned vertex crystals - i've NEVER seen them
I just bought some on Starsider.. for 60 credits per unit. That is going to boost the price of this droid considerably since my breakeven on the Vertex for one droid is 1800 credits.
Tarne_Monter wrote:
I don't see the devs changing the way this droid droid works ever.
At least in function, they may tweak numbers and resource requirements.
However, they might consider a droid that returns all the stats for a specific resource.
Or even just one stat of that one resource. Anything more than that unbalances the game
and removes "gates" that crafting players have to get through on the "crafting path".
I personally am in favor of the "all stats for one single resource" but I wouldn't be
surprised if I saw it limited to just one stat, or a mean and variance on the stats.
I actually would prefer the mean and variance, as opposed to just the one stat.
At least then you'd have a good idea of if it was a crappy resource or not.
1. All Stats for Single Resource - That would be an excellent additional droid.
2. One (highest) Stat, or *** (star) system, or mean ratings system: THAT would make this droid sell so well that we would need another factory each.
See, my customers (the realistic ones) when confronted by the arguments about 'gating' in this thread backpedal a bit and then always suggest a ratings system. They'd be HAPPY to do the sampling for the detailed stats. They ENJOY finding the high points of resources (I do as well).
What they want is to use this as a FILTER. Give them an idea of what needs to be sampled. What planets SHOULD they go to, and what planets have spawned just junk. GIve them a 1 through 9 rating on stats or the top 3 stats. Or even just report the number of stats over 700. The thing is, this droid is SO close to being useful for a majority of crafters that it's frustrating. A simple indication or rating will preserve the holy sampling 'gate', but allow this to be used by more people.
As it is, this droid does not give enough information for normal, everyday crafters to use to determine what items to effectively sample and search out. ONLY if a crafter has been watching a particular resource for a shift does this help flora-based crafters. With a simple rating system, the crafter will be able to see just what they may need to go look at.
With a rating sytem/summarized stat system, this will allow the precious 'must sample in game to get stats' runaround to continue (at least until #1 gets put into a sample droid) and still gives usable information to the end user - which means that we would be providing a useful droid for MOST people, not just those very few specialized resource tycoons.
Handsnake wrote:
With a rating sytem/summarized stat system, this will allow the precious 'must sample in game to get stats' runaround to continue (at least until #1 gets put into a sample droid) and still gives usable information to the end user - which means that we would be providing a useful droid for MOST people, not just those very few specialized resource tycoons.
Exactly. The current droid is useful, but not useful enough to the majority of players.
I did finally get an inquiry about it, though. I now have one customer interested in this Survey Droid. Everyone else thinks it's a great idea that was poorly implemented.
As others have said over and over, most people are perfectly happy finding concentrations on their own. That's the "fun" part of the surveying game. The sucky tedious part - i.e. the part that Droids are intended to take care of in the Star Wars universe - is figuring out which resources we need to harvest and which planet they're on.
It's perfectly obvious why we're not getting that, though. If SOE gave us stats on the resources, we wouldn't waste time and credits travelling all over the !*&#$&!^% galaxy. Clearly, SOE thinks that waiting for shuttles is fun.
Handsnake wrote:
They'd be HAPPY to do the sampling for the detailed stats. They ENJOY finding the high points of resources (I do as well).