Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: REQUIRED READING: Centralized Droid Issues (19/08/03 9:00pm PST)
I can answer one of your questions. The droid crafting station does act as a personal crafting station. I have one installed in an R2 unit and am able to access and produce all of my schematics. Although, I don't think the quality is as good as out of a big unit. Which makes sense.
One of the biggest continuing problems I can see is the fact that even at MASTER level we get only 5 experimentation points, 55 droid assembly, 55 droid experimentation, and 69 droid customization. Yes, we actually CAN make changes in our final droid through customization, however this amounts to a grand total difference of 6 in HAM for a probot with a failure to an amazing success in experimentation (from 819 to 825). No one cares about a 6 point HAM difference. Why can't we craft superior droids when using high quality materials and experimenting them up?
Experimenting on the individual parts seems pointless in the final product as well, though I do it as a matter of pride and practice. Using components of high appropriate qualities produces qualities with negative numbers before experimentation, even with 'great success'. Upon successful experimentation, this negative number can go as high as.... 2 with an amazing success. What do these numbers even mean?
We NEED to have our experimentation mean something here, and we, as DEs need to know what these experimentations actually do for our end product.
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Panatlee Thillik'arzk
Master Droid Engineer/Novice Sharpshooter/Master Artisan
Naboo, Lowca
South of Theed at -4283, 3379
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More...
Because we DEs can only have five droids in out datapad, we cannot possibly test every droid module in every type of droid that can hold them, without wasting a lot of resources and time and destroying the droids after testing. This should not be a profession of trial and error, yet that is basically what we have had to do. Either all modules should work in any droid that can hold them, or upon attempting to install we should be informed something like "This module is not an acceptable component for this droid". Anything to prevent the trial and error method. After the 'big patch' where so many droid issues were supposed to be 'fixed' there were many people wanting surgical droids with food/chem crafting stations and item storage. This was a logical choice for many medics. But the end product was expensive junk that actually HINDERED the healing ability instead of enhancing.
Please, we need detailed descriptions of what individual droid models can and cannot do, because we need to be well informed about our products.
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Panatlee Thillik'arzk
Master Droid Engineer/Novice Sharpshooter/Master Artisan
Naboo, Lowca
South of Theed at -4283, 3379
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^^^^^Also for the wishlist. I'd like to see weapon modules that you can add as you get higher. A probot is a probot damage wise no matter what you put in it. I'd like to see modules that increase damage as you get higher in the proffession. Either that or allow weapon crafter products to be mounted.^^^^^
Gorantoth, since yours is the list of record, it was suggested that I post the link to ideas for the protocol droid in this thread, too:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=18118
Summary:
Magic 8 Ball
A simple and fun addition to this droid would be a mode that allows you to ask the droid a question and get a cryptic answer according to the personality of the droid. For example, a command like /query could be used, i.e. “/query Will I die if I try to solo this nest of crazed durnis?” Protocol Droid answer: “I believe you could make that assumption, sir.” Tobar also added the idea for an odds command: "/odd navigating past apack of Gurrcatsundetected" Protocol Droid answer: "The odds of navigating past a pack of Gurrcatsundetected is 7,320 to 1!". The odds would most easily be implemented if the estimates were random numbers as opposed to a complex system that can understand what was requested and pull out a real figure.
Programmable Dialogue
Saw this suggestion on the boards the other day, and love it. Adding the capacity to store preset conversational strings seems like it wouldn’t have a lot of programming overhead, and would save us DEs having to explain what droids do 40 times a day, as we can just save it to our protocol droid and have them tell the customer.
Translator
This would be the most significant and welcome use, but it probably would take a good deal of programming, as the language system would need an overhaul. Protocol Droids should be allow the user to understand all languages, whether through a translated string from the droid, or simply showing the translated text as if you knew the language. The mechanism for this probably wouldn’t be too difficult, but it would require rethinking the entire language system to make it useful. This has been discussed at length on this and other boards, but I believe the BEST solution would be to implement languages as a skill. All non-native languages that you learn count 1 skill point against you, and you would be given the ability to unlearn a language just like any other skill. This would make protocol droids highly sought and true to their place in the Star Wars world.
Iread the issues but didnt see his one. I created a surgical droid with storage and I cant access the storage. No tab comes up on the radial menu.
--Dolomite
Closing this thread. Please refer to the new one:
REQUIRED READING: Centralized Droid Issues (28/08/03 12:00am PST)