Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Lets hear your responses to the devs post.
Possible use for BLL:
BLL could be mandatory to build all large structures (and adv BLL for guild halls). By mandatory, i mean to use the deed (not to craft the deed). (same as Garamond's post but less general).
Possible use for Protocol Droid:
Havinga Protocol Droid could allow tocreate and use groups of names in the mail system (the droid must be active (not stored) to perform a mail operation involving groups).
Possible use for R2:
a R2 could act as a centralised & remote terminal for all structures (houses, harvestors, factories,...), allowing the owner to check the statuses remotly and to pay maintenance remotly (but not deposing power or accessing the hoppers).
Adv R2 could enhance this by allowing:
to change the harvested resource remotly for harvestors/generators.
New droid types:
-travel droid: allow to use a shuttle without bying a ticket 1st. 'Using' the droid in a shuttle port/starport boarding zone could display the travel galactic map, then after choosing the destination and paying, the transport is performed immediatly (if a shuttle is available of course).
Astromechs -- i think they're "general droids" and are fine. different versions have more modules is the difference.
Treadwell -- maybe just a visually-different astromech, fine. some other pretty variants on different models would be great, but not at the expense of making the existing models do different things.
Repair droid/Surgical droid -- how about the ability to use StimA/woundA and droid repair kit/repair module on command? Sure they'd pick up a TEF if used in combat, but it gives them a purpose besides looking cool. I don't mind if this doesn't happen for surgical droids, in deference to medics, but the repair droid is, well, meant for this. In order to use the 3rd-party items they'd have to have a storage module, plus a repair/medical module, making them more specialized (no room for a crafting station module unless you want to break its primary function, darn have to buy another droid for that).
Protocol droid -- how about making them into programmable conversational furniture? Persistent in the world when you're away and follows you around or stays where commanded (but still takes up one droid control slot, so you don't get flooded with them). Sort of a programmable signpost and FAQ machine, they could stand outside shop/cantina houses or answer questions about droids or structure deeds near a vendor. Merchants could get the advanced model to bark (but the rest of use could program converse trees). This one is harder, but maybe if you pull some code from vendors and the ballot boxes it's doable. If we don't come up with an inherent function for these, how about give them general module slots and make them another visual variant on R5.
Power droids -- good job! this one is different! Maybe if you add a storage hopper this one could be programmed to deliver power (player-provided power) to installations... Advanced models with a data module might even deliver maintenance payments.
Binary load lifters -- if you're going to implement harvester-hopper-delivery droids this one's obvious. Or allowing 5x or 10x effect from storage modules would be logical and desired by the masses (and a quick fix). I've also heard the idea that they could increase the speed of factories (with a specialization module to make it a specific type). Advanced models with a data module might even allow you to program the droid like a factory, then send it to the factory to execute the run and retreive the results.
Combat -- you already have a combat type sort of, though they're mostly useful as harrasment damage sinks. How about take the next level and have a strike role and a pure-defense role. Like a droideka/advanced droideka for actual damage-dealing combat and a portable defense pod that will fire on all agressors on command. We could be in the business of making pillbox droids.
I'd like to be able to use a Protocal droid to access the status information of my structures as well as letting me know if my harvesters are running or not, due to resource shifting. I think that alone would make Protocal droids very desirable.
AMRA KATRUNER Theed (Gorath) Master Droid Engineer
Just to point out... I haven't seen a single 'NEW' suggestion here that hasn't already been brought upnumerous times before in previous threads on this very forum. It would be much less time consuming for all of you to just find the other numerous threads out there and simply reference them. Many of them even have better suggestions than lots of these. They obviously didn't read any of those suggestions... just what makes you think they will read these?
At last a specific response to our issues. Here's my feedback.
1) Droid Uniqueness and Usefulness – There are currently no inherent functions built into a droid. Add features and functions to different droids to make them each more distinct from each other.
We’ve made some changes as of the last patch, and have many more in the works. We like some of the ones you suggested in the email. What types of droids would you like to see in addition, and what functions would they have?
I haven't noticed any changes in this area, other than some droids no longer may be fitted with personality chips. One suggestion for a new type of droid (or module) would be a vendor droid. DEs are dependent upon Master Artisans and will eventually be dependent on Merchants when elite-elite DE becomes available. Let's make them dependent upon US for a change.
Currently, NPC and droid vendors come out of thin air when a Merchant wants to place one. They should buy them from us.4) Variation in Combat Droids – Combat Droids are too similar, and could use more variation.
We agree. What kind of Combat Droids would you like to see?
This answer is acceptable. I'd like to see the Trade Federation combat droids as a model we can sell to customers, and Droidekas for DEs-only. HAM and attack values should be revisited for DZ70, Adv DZ70, Probot, and Adv Probot. There is little difference between the Adv and "base" model, and the gap is too large between DZ70 and Probot.
Specific features of this droid that I can think of:
- only good for a particular planet (won't search the entire galaxy)
- is a one-use droid
- resource selection based on specific resource (e.g. Durisrip), not resource class (e.g. Corellian Fiberplast) maybe give it a sample of the resource you are looking for? The amount of time the droid will search is dependent on how many droid battery charges you load into it
- failure message indicates reason for failure (e.g. out of power, concentration not found, destroyed by mob, mechanical failure)
- maybe a different type of droid for mineral, gas, solar, water, wind, chemical, flora which is chosen at assemble time. Either separate droid schematics or a module that can be added to the droid. If a module is used for this, allow the droid to only accept a single module of this type.
- droid stops as soon as it hits the concentration - owner still has to hand-survey to get to highest concentration
- maybe an advanced version that can be sent to another planet (user has to choose planet when deployed)
- maybe different search pattern that can be chosen when deployed (e.g. spiral, directional cone). This way multiple droids can be deployed from a single location with possibly different results
- possibility to be destroyed by mobs that are encountered as a failure?
- possibility of mechanical breakdown as a failure?
I see the use of a droid like this having the following positive side effects for the game
- the un-fun factor for hand searching for resources is reduced. (Or maybe some people actually *like* to do this?)
- the time-sink of searching for the best concentration is still present, though reduced
- repeat income for DEs as long as the droids aren't too expensive to produce (of course
- repeat income for Artisans if droid batteries are required to extend the range of the Survey droid
negative
- it will allow anyone to locate high concentration of resources and this might affect the resource market. Perhaps limit the use of survey droids to Survey III or something. Or maybe the different types of survey droids become usable at different levels of Survey. Survey I = wind, solar; Survey II = water; Survey III - flora, gas; Survey IV = mineral, chemical.
Shinjin wrote:
it will allow anyone to locate high concentration of resources and this might affect the resource market.
I don't think it would affect the resource market that much. Survey IV is trivial enough to get to already that anybody who is interested in finding resources is very quickly an expert at it. Besides which, it could only drive the cost of resources down and I'd list that in the "positive" column.
Jabetha
How is this not a new idea? I would be intrested in seeing the dicussion that came of it.
"Remove combat droidsand put them all in a elite elite profession that is combat orienteated. everything but the low power droids require that profession (similar to the CH proffesion.Give droids CL's and only let non Elite elite DE's us CL 10 or below ones)"
Hi, all.
I'm not totally familiar with the droid types in the movies and comics, but I do have some ideas for some modules for them.
*Slicing- Although it doesn't seem decided whether a droid should be able to do it by itself or be a bonus to smugglers, I would like to mention that some of them apparently have traps that destroy the container and its contents. Perhaps the red wire/blue wire menu for the smuggler could be changed to red/blue/give to droid. The higher level of the slicing module, the better chance that the droid will be able to figure out which is the one to pick. Level 1 slicingmodules could start around a 50/50 chance to pick the right one(like a person) on up to somewhere around 85% chance for level 6.
*More armor types- The heavier the armor, the slower it heals. Make a light, standard and heavy armor. As the level of the armor increases, the protection it gives goes up slightly, but the regeneration rate stays the same. Light armor 1 gives a littleless protection than 6, but has the same rate of repair. The armor ratings could stack and the repair rates could average between modules of different types. I also wouldn't mind seeing armors that are made for protection against specific damage types and maybe an internal structure module that increases HAM but has no protection value. A module that is similar to the personal shield that armor makers make may be asking too much, but it maybe something that can be looked at.
*Weapons modules(toss this around and thentake it with a grain of salt if you don't like the idea)- Change combat droid blueprints to have a weapon specific module slot or two and reduce the amount of materials that they use to make them(to make up for the extra modules). DE's can make modules thatare the weapons on the droid, adding specific damage types and ranges, like blaster and carbine types and maybe even someother stuff, like a lightning cannon equivilant.This would help make every droid to be a custom model, which is the way I think it should be.
I'm still in the MSE portion of my DE training. I picked DE because even though it's one of the more broken professions, it will definately be the one with the most possibilites when it's done. I'm glad they're at least giving us a chance to toss some ideas up to make it that way.
-Leedon, Tarquinas Server
(Who can't seem to log in as himself in the forums)
Actually use JimBruno's post to discuss the combat droids. Thanks JIm:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=14234
on a note...the IG assassins would be nice if u could equip them with an actual ranged weapon of some sort