Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Simple fix to the Droid Engineering dilemma.
I disagree Raystonn. Not all droids should be usable by the common citizen. The more advance models should require skill/ability/knowledge to opporate. Especially combat droids. It make's sense.
In any Star Wars movie, did you see a simple commoner controlling a Droideka? or Rodger rodger? No.
What makes you think anyone should be able to control those adv. combat droids?
Oh, i see BlueMorgoth, voluntarily throw us into the weaponsmith catagory. You do realize that all the other crafting professions can use their products.
Weapons dont think, they take skill to use. A swordsmith maybe able to make a great sword, that doesnt mean he will know how to use it. Reverse that, a swordsman cant make his own sword. So, it makes sense that they cannot use their crafted weapons.
On the flip side. A droid engineer is just that. An engineer. Lets compaire. Does a Computer Engineer know how to operate and design a computer? Yes, i believe so. Same goes for a DE. They have working knwoledge of their product, they program it. DE's dont aim the weapon for them, the droids programed to use its own arsinal which doesnt even remotely place us in the weaponsmith category.
Think.
-Relic-
In my post I did not say that we should take away the ability for Droid Engineers to use the CL15 Probots that we already create. Those are still available to us in either Holo's or my plan. Also, if you delve alittle deeper into the same view that I had earlier you will understand quickly that most everyone will be able to use any Droid. I posted something better out in the General Forms talking about a point system based on the skills you have learned. 1 "Combat Droid" point per skill allowing for a total of 59 points if you do Master Bounty Hunter. This will both satisfy Droid Engineers who want to be able to sell all droids to everyone and the Developers that want to stop Newbies from using high LVL Combat droids.
Holo has mentioned that it was never the developers view to limit Droids at all. Droids should be more previlant than Creatures, but right now they are not. This is mostly because of the nurf which was put in place because of the lack of a Certification system. Like you said using a CH type certification and making DEs like BEs is not what I signed up for, but allowing Everyone to use Everything is not the best choice either since those newbies can have great power the first day they play the game as long as they know how to make the money to purchase a droid.
Adding a simple skill mod to all skills or maybe even specific skills will keep newbies with newbie pets and give masters the ability to use master pets.
Nell, maybe you should go read the whole thread...
Really, with that sollution, it'll be the same problem in a different pile as to the problem with the Pre-Nerf Probot days and the Cowardly Gurreks we have now.
I've said my peice in that other thread, so i wont carry the same argument here.
But it's not the same problem, because with my idea (stolen from Raystonn =]), the high end droids will require heavy constant maintenance. So you'd have to have a constant cash flow to support it, meaning if you weren't high enough level to make that kind of money regularly, you'd have to work your ass off for it.
The pre-nerf probots and the gurrecks don't have heavy maintenance costs attatched to them, whereas with my and raystonn's idea, the droidekas would.
And I replied to you in the other thread, hopefully you can see my side of the story.
Battle Droids, Probots and other minor stuff for everyone (because under lvl15), droidekas DE only.
"The rest of these pro certification boneheads are pushing a cert system that would alow only certain combat professions to use certain battle droids, effectivly stipping us of our ability to use our own droids."
Wow, who are those guys? I've yet to see a Droid Engineer try and kill their own class by doing something like that.
If the small chance you were referring to me and my "Execution..." Thread. I used having 1 Tree filled would grant some power. I used Pisto/Carbine/Rifle 4 as an example. I then said across all starting professions. Such as Engineering 4/Exploration 4/etc.
Anyway, I like the idea by someone that after a certain amount of Skill Points were spent in your Skill Pool would grant similar power.
Making Droidikas DE only is not what I signed up for. I guess we first have to understand who would have choosen the DE class to understand what we should do. Here are mainly the two people who signed up for the class:
1) People who want to make money.
2) People who want to make their own droids.
I tend to believe that the majority of the DEs actually fall under category 1 and this might be because I fall under this category. Those people under #1want to make money and could almost care less if they could use their droids, but being able to use the droid is a plus to this class. To be able to make money as a DE you have to have a useful product and a lot of people that want to purchase that product. Right now we don't have a useful product and if the devs put in DH class then there won't be anyone we can sell to. This is especially true since they are going to make MDEs wait for MDHs to catch up with the rest of the server base.
The DEs under Category 2 are more interested in the Combat portion of the game and could almost care less that they sell any droids, but being able to make money is a plus to these people. Putting in a DH class would keep those people from being able to use the droids and make it so that those people just waisted 2 months of their time on becomming DE.
So with that in mind DEs want:
1) To be able to use thier droids.
2) To have a large customer base to sell to.
The devs want:
1) To keep Newbies from being able to kill anything in the game on day 1.
The DH class is a dumb idea and so is rolling the usage of the droid into the DE class. They need to just add the ability to use the droid into all classes, so that its based on Time Played or Skill made or XP made. Adding overhead on the high lvl droids is a good idea also, but I think the Devs believe that Newbies can make money too easy especially after they are able to use the high lvl droid.
(On the flip side. A droid engineer is just that. An engineer. Lets compaire. Does a Computer Engineer know how to operate and design a computer? Yes, i believe so. Same goes for a DE. They have working knwoledge of their product, they program it. DE's dont aim the weapon for them, the droids programed to use its own arsinal which doesnt even remotely place us in the weaponsmith category.)
You have a point relic. But that point is in a vacuum. Your missing the rest of the world that goes with it. I work for a company that makes processors (I want to make sure that I don't violate the companies policy on community relations, whatever that is, so I can't say which one) in the fab, and I assemble computers on the side. I can program in basic, which doesn't see much use these days, and thats about it for programming. Even at the "high tech" company I work for, I still run into people who don't know how to operate a computer outside of the specific tasks they were trained on, or how to build one, upgrade one, or anything about basic troubleshooting. Just because you can assemble something doesn't mean you can use it effectively, no matter what the product is.
Also, your failing to take into account that the big concern isn't over the non-combat droids, it's about the combat ones. Now here in the states it's perfectly legal to own a gun, unless you've commited some crime. It's not legal everywhere to carry it concealed. Or to have a full automatic weapon. To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure if it's perfectly legal to use it to defend a stranger on the street from getting mugged. However, with the right certifications, you can do these perfectly legally. I myself am going for my concealed carry permit here in about a month, soon as I take the required class. The same applies to combat droids. These are war machines, weapons. They are designed to kill things. And if what was shown in episodes I and II are anything to go by, fairly potent ones at that. Let's face it, episode I would have been real short if Obi was able to slash through the droideka's shields. These are not the sort of thing you hand out to every megamoniacal wannabe who can scrape togethor 30k. Add in a little bit of galaxy wide paranoia concerning combat droids (there was that war not too long ago), and it's really easy to see why either side of the GCW would say that yes, you need to have the correct certifications to gain use and control over the powerful combat droids.
Sorry, your argument, while decent and perfectly valid, is not sufficient to justify making DE a combat class, which is what will happen if you make DE's fully capable of using everything they make. My opinion of course, I am willing to listen to counter points from anyone, but please, make them relevant and preferably, new and not just a rehash of everything that's already been said.
If you want to have the ability to use combat droids, you are going to make DE a combat class. DE is not a combat class, pure and simple - it is an artisan class. It is crafting. If you got into DE so that you can do combat, sorry, but you didn't read the labelling on the box properly. Your expectations are wrong. If you want to go do combat, pick up BH, Squad Leader, commando or any of those lines, then go buy a number of combat droids from your local neighbourhood DE that is not interested in doing combat. Being a DE is not about being a combatant. Sorry to disappoint, but really, you should have read the instructions on the cover better. In fact, the intro when you create a new character explicitly says that the artisan classes are specifically non-combat crafting professions. What part of non-combat don't you understand about this profession? If you wanted to do combat, why did you sign up for the one set of professions which explicitly state the exact opposite? Want to do combat with droids? Give up your DE skill ranks, go pick up combat ranks in the other classes and wait for your certifications to be handed to you so that you can use them.
And as far as other examples going about what artisan classes cannot use their creations: Tailors and the various camo/sneek suits (ie, yeah I tried to wear one and it said I wasn't allowed to). Armoursmiths can't use all their armour products (some of them we use in DE). Face it, artisan classes are divided into general use and trained use categories. Architecture and clothing are usable by everyone, just like the real world. Weapons (of which combat droids are a form of mobile heavy weaponry), clothing etc are not usable by everyone in the real world.
And to the poster earlier about newbie getting CH in one day, why can't he do the same with droids - well good on him! He's actually earned the XP to get CH, just done it a little faster than the rest of us. At least the effort has been put in to get it. They're not picking up a lvl 30 creature as a novice scout, which the current "anti-cert" people here are advocating we should be allowing with droids. If you putin the time to get the XP to pick up novice commando or something like that to allow you to control combat droids, great! Congratulations, you've put in the effort, here's your reward - some cool toys to play with. We don't care that you took a day or three months, they've still spent the effort and XP to obtain those skills. Allow anyone to use combat droids at any level is only asking for the CH problem to be repeated, but far, far worse. That's bad.
Somebodywrote:
Certifications for droids in any sense of the word is complete and utter b.s.
Do you ever buy something and have to read the manual?