Droid Engineer Archive

Somebody stop me, or else I'm just gonna keep goin'!

Seriously, I just need to state that all of the info I've been putting up here, especially the quoted droid descriptions, are from the wonderful book, The Essential Guide to Droids. For any DE's out there that actually DON'T have this book, I'd highly suggest it, but with a warning: With 100 of the most common droids in the EU in this book, you DE's will find yourself calling for more droid designs all the time after getting this book! (Shameless plug now ending)

On Medical droids...

Sinistral said that, "As such, Droids should be an additive. Not a replacement, remember we are playing a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) ...", and I whole-heartedly agree. However, I think that medical droids could provide a fair amount of healing in homes, and onboard ships. I don't think they should have the same level of healing ability as medics or doctors, but they could still prove highly useful to the explorer, battle-weary soldiers, overloaded doctors, or the BH who often works alone.

They SHOULD help the medic/doctor work more effectively/quickly, especially with use of more/varied Med Droids at a certain location, or if a ship/home owner could keep several, and those droids would complement each others' abilities as well.

*MD Medical Specialist series --- has several variations:

+MD-0 and MD-1--- Diagnostic/lab technicianmodels, cheapest, aids medics and other Med droids.

+MD-3 --- Pharmacists, could help Medics make stim packs, as well as smugglers make spice; also assist medics/med droids

+MD-5 --- most common, the "country doctors of space", "...can capably treat treat most injuries...", best at treating damage/assisting others, could possibly heal wounds, or better yet allow Medics to heal wounds without med center/camp.

*FX Medical Assistant --- cheap, older models, immobile, and not as effective as other droids, but still dependable. Could assist other droids, or operate Bacta Tanks (For quicker wound healing) if Dev's ever allow us to have them.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Bacta tanks! You want to murder the Medic/Doctor profession!" Not true, I think that they'd help the doctors/medics a LOT, allowing them to treatmore patients, more quickly, without having to drain their Mind pool so much. Then, perhaps Doctors would be inclined to open up their own businesses where they could set up said bacta tanks, and maybe leave medic droids, to act as vendors while the doctor is away, to operate them.

Heck, then maybe adventurers could pay the vendor/med droid for use of the bacta tank and medical droids, so that players could enter a doctors office in need of healing, and not be out of luck just because the doctor is away. The doctor/medic wouldn'tearn XP this way, but it'd help the credits come in a little, help us poor fighters, and allow the Doctors to build and actual business. I mean, thats the difference between a combat medic in real life, isn't it? The medic stays to the field, and the doctor has a practice with equipment and such. Just an idea.

And for those who can't afford to run back to a city mid-mission, perhaps could have bacta tanks onboard their ships or in their homes. However, they'd be incredibly expensive, and would require a med droid or 2 to operate. And maybe if droids were the sole operator(s) of a bacta tank, it wouldn't heal as fast or effectively, but at least would be an option to those with the funds. Like Holo said, they want to encourage people to rely on other players, but not punish those who want to solo more often.

Besides, droid operated Bacta tanks wouldn't just be for soloists; They could be perks for PA memebrs who keep one at their Guild hall, or onboard a ship for adventurers whose medic friend had to leave the day they had planned for a big mission.

I just think that all of these droids, and their abilites, would would really add to the immersion factor (Droids = Star Wars Ok, maybe not, but they certainly help), as well as help out SO many professions (Medics, BH's, Mayors), and benefit many aspects of the game (Player home upkeep for player cities, ship/vehicle repair, merchants).

Sorry, I'm done now. (I hope )

Sinistral, your idea of allowing structures to hold Installation droids, and binding a droid to a house, is exactly what I'd want, or at least something similar to it....and I'm starting to wonder if we should put this in the Discussion forum as well...

This stuff would make a hugedifference in gaming for almost everyone in SWG.

Good ideas overall, but please.... NO CERTS!!!!!

certs for droids areNOT the sollution.

BTW perhaps R-unit droids could be for stuff like depositing power and maintenance to houses and harvestors or factories, and Binairy load lifters to bring the contents of a harvestors hopper or factory to the player

What?!?! A legitimate use of the Binary loadlifter??

Sounds like the PERFECT use for that droid!

Good ideas for the R-series too, especially since that without vehicle/ships, they have comparitively little use right now.

I like the idea of binding droids to structures - I think there's great potential for integration with the faction bases that people are starting to build, and also player cities when they arrive. Combat droids that would be unbalancing if used as pets could be perfectly acceptable as sentries for faction bases (in limited numbers, obviously).

A couple of notes:

1) Harvesting droids are a GREAT idea. They don't take anyone's job away. They simply relieve the grind of doing 1/2 hour or more of running out to harvesters. I don't need a droid to tell me how much power or maintenance or resources I have in the harvesters. I already know this, as would anyone who maintains their harvesters on a daily basis. In my opinion, power droids should be able to power harvesters, and binary load lifters should be able to recover the ore. Perhaps leave the maintenance payment to droids with higher-brain functions. (You wouldn't want your money entrused to anyone. )

2) A droid needs to be able to execute a mission. If I could program a droid to go from waypoint1 to waypoint2 to waypoint 3, while stopping at each waypoint for a period oftime, while enabling others to access the storage area of the droid -- THEN I could use a droid to deliver material and parts to other players, and THIS would be a tremendous advantage to a player. Additionally, I could assign a combat droid, (or a stronger probot), to escort the droid, to protect it against wildlife. However, even without the escort function, I think the idea has merit, if when the droid comes under attack, he will not be destroyed and removed from the game.

3) Combat droids need to be at least as strong as pets. I believe that fighting machines are an integral part of the Star Wars Universe, and while I technically disagree with the idea of fighting creature pets, I'm completely content with their existence, as long as the droids are equally powerful. I don't have a problem with certifications to use combat droids, but I would also expect that creature users would need such certification as well. Perhaps allow only Creature Handlers the ability to use the most vicious animals in combat.I would disagree with the idea that droids should be weak fighting machines. Perhaps allow DEs to build the most complex fighting droids, but require an expert fighter to use them. The current probot is just about worthless, in my opinion. I, personally, as an expert Pistol Handler in the Marksman Tree, do SO MUCH more damage than my probot, that he's irrelevant, in my opinion. The pre-nerf probot is totally combatible with a Star Wars World, as would be other combat droids. It doesn't bother me to see groups of people going into the field with fighting machines such as droids. Right now, they're going into the field with lions and tigers and bears, and that's justbackwards.

Also, I want to say while I may appear to be constantly bringing up problems in these boards, I LOVE this game. Cheers to the Development Team!

"certs for droids areNOT the sollution"

"Oh and droid certs are a monumentally bad idea!!!!" (Another Thread)

I'm sorry, maybe it's my fault but, I fail to see why this isn't part of a sollution. Maybe you can argue the statement with more detail.

We have Certifications for weapons in the game already. Why not for Combat Droids? They are really justRobot Weapons. Even if they are programmed, think of it as being able to own a license.

It can create a Market for Starting Droid Engineers to be able to make a profit, other wise you have every single Master Droid Engineer making low tech Combat Droids for cheap. Reproducing the necessary 'Grind' no one likes.

Maybe if everyone genuinely thinks having a Skill Based Certification for Combat Droids, we can have a Money Sink to own these licenses, a 50,000 Credit Purchase for the license for example.

Inthe end,I feel, why bother having more then 1Combat Droid (type)? If there is no Certification System, everyonewill just want 1 Droid... Thestrongest one.

I also thought adding this Certification System could add a little purpose or content while working up the ladder. =/

Please if you can refute why we should not have one, please say so.

SnowDog2003: 1) Yeah you're right, having a Droid just relaying the information to you isn't too useful. I like your points, giving a droid a certain amount of credits with a combonation of your 2nd suggestion (great idea).Having aPower Droid transfer power from your Generators to your Installations could be more realisitc than having them fully power installations in my opinion.

3) Yeah, I wouldn't want to take away from the Creature Handler market. The ideasI orginally posted are on the rough edge.Having Droids and Creatures co-exist as fighting entities should be there as a fair choice to the Non-Profession users. Maybe my original thought of Creature-Turn Pets could relate to those Creature who are too powerful to be used by Non-Creature Handlers.

I'm really enjoying the ideas being brought onto from others. I realize a lot of these issues has been discussed before, and I apologize to those who think I am just re-kindling old ideas.

I think it would be cool for the higher level droids (i.e. advanced droidika) TO have to be put together from different disciplins(sp).

So lets say a DE wants to put one together for a customer. If he wants to make it as strong as possible a DE only has basic knowladge of weps. So the weaponsmith should have at master level some weapons only usable by DE's (i.e. Droid blaster rifle attatchment) And if the DE wants to make it resistant he would need to get Heavy Droid armor componants form a Armor smith.

So to make a very elite droid it would have to be drawn from three professions. and take a huge amount of resources (some of them rare). See in your camp on combat droids for high combat professions.but the actual tough droids should be pretty expensive i.e. 200k or more. These droids shouldnt be totally invincable either. they should be very vulnerable to blast as well as other damage.

Just my thought i'm not in a crafting profession but i love droids, yet havent used any yet becuase i see no point. I would love to have a combat droid at my side in battle. Lets hope this can happen soon.

Klarnnrr: Great idea having Highly advanced Combat Droids require components from other classes. It has been mentioned before but, I will reply to it here. As long as it's for Advanced Models I wouldn't mind having dependancies with other professions. Allowing low level Droid Engineers to be able to have their market, which will expand greater and be diverse with the advancment of the Profession.

The more I think about it, the more I think that every droid should have a special purpose, just like in the movies. Here are some more notes:

1) Power Droids should be able to (a) Extract power from power plants, like windmills and solar plants; (b) Bring the power back to the owner, or take it to another harvester and deposit a defined amount into the harvester. They should also be able to (c) Authorize the deposit of maintenance fees into the harvesters. I don't think you want to require the use of 2 droids for harvester maintenance, especially if we use the Binary Load Lifter to remove the resources from the harvesters. They should also be able to recognize when a harvester is not functioning, and continue with their mission programming WITHOUT depositing any more material or money into the harvester. Human intervention is needed when the harvesters go down.

2) Surgical Droids should be the only droids with a Medical Rating.

3) Probots should defend.

4) DZ70 droids should be used by the Bounty Hunters

5) R2s, R3s, and R4s are AstroMechanics, and should be valuable in the Space Expansion Upgrade.

6) Protocol Droids should be able to translate all speech on command, (like 'echo', only in the Humanoid Basic language). Maybe allow them to be built with the Crafting Stations.

7) Treadwells: I don't know what they do.

8) Binary Load Lifters should be able to move heavy material and resources. Allow these droids to remove resources from harvesters. Allow them to carry more stuff in their Storage Modules.

9) All Droids should be able to have Storage Modules and Data Modules.

10) Design a simple programmable interface for droids, along the lines of (a) Go to WayPoint 1; (b) Deposit 720 Credits; (c) Deposit 1200 Power; (d) Go to Waypoint 2; (e) Remove all Power; (f) Go to Waypoint 3; Authorize Access Bob; Pause 600; Go to Waypoint 4 -- etc.

11) Allow Data Modules to hold a couple of missions (It's no Big Deal, really!)

I was going to add that one way to keep the droids relatively safe from harm in the wild, is to simply allow them to be able to move at a faster speed than their chasers -- not that you'd want them to always move at the accelerated speed.