Droid Engineer Archive

Sorry Jenden ... I hope I didn't ruin the post... I'll just deal with whatever they throw at us... I can't seem to

a) hear anything from a dev

b) give out any info

So I'll be there craftin something. Night all....

Message Edited by patchman70 on 11-07-200503:44 PM

Message Edited by patchman70 on 11-07-200503:58 PM

Message Edited by patchman70 on 11-07-2005 03:58 PM

very well written, I agree with EVERYTHING you said. Now if only it would actually make a difference /cry

I'm trying to at the very least get the reasoning behind the groupings.

Message Edited by Jenden on 11-07-2005 12:49 PM

Looking at this respec window from TC-*forgotthename*, it is working as intended that we dont get all weapons.

No serious WS will take engineer if they dont get the master box, i assume. So its just that we DEs can fool around a bit with weapons and cant compete with real munitions people (since we are short 25 exp. and assembly and are missing some schem.)

I've not seen Master DE schematics in the new skilltreeeither (thinking of the v6 flight computer at least)

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IrecAckorg wrote:

I've not seen Master DE schematics in the new skilltreeeither (thinking of the v6 flight computer at least)

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None of the Master Boxes with Schematic Lists are available in game (also Management IV of Merchant). However, the Tailor Correspondent tested a conversion of a Master Tailor she had on Corbantis (I assume) and the schematics that are currently in the Master Tailor box was available.

A serious Weaponsmith would choose Munitions. A serious Droid Engineer would choose Engineer.

In my case I would just need to reshuffle my skills around :

Armorsmith/Weaponsmith = Munitions

Droid Engineer/Master Artisan = Engineer

Architect *shrugs*

Chef *shrugs*

Just need to decide whether Architect is more important to me than chef. But considering Architect was my joint first crafter skill it would probably be that. Heck .. might end up with 4 crafters and 1 fighter Will have to see what my fiance is gonna do .. his character is a Shipwright so may be able to let him handle Architect too

Message Edited by Xrystal on 11-08-2005 07:30 PM

Hi all,

I am afraid I am a little confused here, and I apologise if it sounds like a stupid question. If I am right are the SW/DE/A professions all going to be one or at least kept SW/DE as most DE I know are also SW as they are the most natural grouping. Could you clarify this please?

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MobiousVs1 wrote:

Hi all,

I am afraid I am a little confused here, and I apologise if it sounds like a stupid question. If I am right are the SW/DE/A professions all going to be one or at least kept SW/DE as most DE I know are also SW as they are the most natural grouping. Could you clarify this please?

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That is what was originally planned (I think), but the current implementation has Architect/SW, DE/some WS (not all), AS/WS, and Chef/Tailor.

if you read the WS forum you may not need to be worried about this merge anymore. All weapon subcomponents seem to have 0 stats anymore, many have been removed, Experimentation is only for Damage and the "best possible" weapons is easily crafted. I do not think that many of the current WS will keep that profession and the other will probably end up in the AS/WS tree.

Those who like complex crafting will probably (until maybe also changed in later publishes) go for SW tree or the DE Engineering tree, becuase these two seem to be the last two interesting crafting trees with some complexity to it. Well, maybe food still is, I don't really know that, but getting wilderness resources is going to be a pain once the current pool is used up.

DE's should be paired with shipwrights not with weaponsmiths and shipwrights should not be paired with archs

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Jenden wrote:
Posting this on the correspondents board.

Aside from the general fact that players can not pick which two crafting professions they want (giving more than a 50/50 shot of players ending up with only half the desired skills) DE's are concerned about the pairing with weaponsmith for a couple of reasons.

Droid and weapon crafting are almost polar opposites. Weapons are (currently) all about quality and mass production, with fairly low sub-component parts and little resources used. They are also enhanced through various loot drops that have to be acquired from combat oriented players. Droid engineering on the other hand is all about choices and options. The modular system gives allows us to make each droid unique, and encourages more of a custom/handcrafting business.

The only reason the droid market is currently stable is because of the low number of droid engineers. As it is the NGE is going to severely depress droid sales (more on that below) but to at the same time make DE (as part of engineer) one of (if not the most) common crafting profession sales are going to bottom out (specifically on BH droids, more on that later as well). Even if only 10% of the people who primarily take engineer for weapons make droids, that will still more than double or triple our current numbers (guesstimating here, but I think I'm pretty accurate). For most DE's having them go make weapons to make up the loss isn't really a viable option (see #1). The professions are just too different for the majority to find much interest in the other.

DE/WS is currently not a popular combination (see #1 for reasons), which means that most DE's that do want to try to make the most out of their skills will have to sell off a large number of their existing parts/resources and purchase new ones. This is not a fun experience for anyone involved.

Some of the reprucussions of the NGE on the droid market:

I mentioned that droid sales will be severely depressed with the NGE, this is because the primary motivation for players to buy new droids currently is because they are switching professions. A player that is locked into a single profession needs at most 5 droids for their entire career, 4 of those being storage droids that are often sold in bulk cheap. The single other droid for most professions is a combat droid. However, it was mentioned that CH was removed in the NGE because that kind of creature combat didn't work well in the new system. If this holds true, then even the combat droids will not be needed (not that they're particularly useful to high end combat types anyway).

Bounty hunter droids are currently in demand due to player missions for BH. With the removal of player missions sales will drop (assuming they are still used in the new system). Furthermore, BH droids are relatively simple and easy to produce in quantity, and have a similar clientel to that of WS. This leads to the likely conclusion that the market will become flooded (more so than it currently is) by people taking engineering primarily to make the weapons.

Our primary business has been with non-combat types (either by supplying combat droids for defense or crafting/harvesting/medical droids). With crafters being a smaller group, and no longer needing defensive droids since they do not draw aggro these sales will go down as well. The harvesting droids are, from what I've been able to determine, no longer used for anything (since harvesting is no longer a skill), so those will not be sold anymore. I do not know about medical droids in the new system, but if those are not useable/useful that will cause sales to fall even more. This leaves droid sales with essentially astromechs (only used in 5 ships), a few combat droids (assuming they are still useable in the new system), storage droids, and BH droids. this is not enough to keep our profession afloat.

Message Edited by Jenden on 11-07-200511:56 AM

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arnt we merging with Ship wright not weaponsmith, weaponsmith goes with armorsmith, tailor goes with chef & arhcetect goes solo. :? (hope home builders get some love soon more house verents ect.

greetings, fellow DEs.

i'm writing as a master droid engineer/master shipwright. this combination seems to me to be a perfect fit for "engineer" in the NGE.

apparently, many shipwrights feel the same way. many of us thought we would be paired with DE when news of the NGE first appeared. now that DE is paired with WS and SW is with architect, some of us are trying to make our concerns known to the developers and persuade them to change the trader profession distribution before the NGE goes live.

you can the most recent relevant posts here and here.

PLEASE comment in these threads and the let the devs know what you think. i wonder how much of an effect the combined voice of the DE and SW correspondents would have...

thanks,

-dc