Droid Engineer Archive

Question #1 - Can we bring Droid Engineering in line with other crafting professions by allowing experimentation to result in a differential between products. i.e. better resources equal higher HAM, firing rate, damage. Armor modules that can accept bio-eng adv. composite segments to vary the resists on droids. Medical components higher than 110.

Question #2 -Can we implement a usage decay rate to droids. Weapons and armor decay with usage, generating repeat business for those professions. Even Ford designs automobiles under the assumption that the customer will eventually need a replacement.

Thats it,

Esraug

Master Droid Engineer

Eclipse

Okay, I'm going for essay questions here.

QUESTION 1: General Droid Balancing Strategy
Droids fill every part of life in the Star Wars universe. Continuity demands that droids be able to perform practically any task a sentient being can perform. On the other hand, balanced gameplay demands that no pet perform any task that a player character can perform. Have you formed a general strategy for compromising between these conflicting demands? Does the present limited scope of droid functionality owe more to a conservative balancing strategy or to a shortage of sufficient development time to add more functions? As we enter the game's fifth month, what has changed internally in terms of attitudes and strategies for development of the Droid Engineer profession?

QUESTION 2: The Combat Droid Schism
If the past two weeks have shown us anything, it's that Droid Engineers do not share as much common ground as many of us once thought. You asked us what we wanted and got it from both barrels. Should we be surprised if you never ask us what we think ever again? Seriously, from our position it's hard to tell if you are able to come up with a cohesive signal buried within our collective noise. Are you? Do you have a better idea of what would be the greatest good for the greatest number than you did two weeks ago? Furthermore, can you help us to focus our own internal discussion by at least explicitly ruling out some possibilities from the fringes of the discussion? I think this is important because often people's opinions don't scale trivially with restricted scope. A person who prefers A over B might instead prefer a more restricted B' over a more restricted A' if A and B are taken off the table.

QUESTION 3: Notes From the Scrap Heap
Were there additional droid features intended for release, but which didn't make it for whatever reason? What features and why were they dropped? Of course it is to be understood that telling us about any such features would not constitute a promise to implement any of them. I'd just like to hear what your brilliant unrealized ideas are. Not only would this be potentially very interesting in itself, but it would also help us to understand the vision, constraints and priorities that went into the design of the current DE profession. A better understanding of how we got where we are will help us to frame the discussion of where we're going.

1. Are there any plans to limit the modules and level of those modules in droids? (A MSE is still just as useful as the Advanced R3).

2. Will the normal Protocol (not ADV) and the BLLs ever have a function in the game?

3. How am I to get return business on a droid? I sell a medic his R2 with food/chem and medical module in it and will never see him again, as he won't take this droid out in combat often enough to make the vitality loss a big thing. All I get return business on now is the Seekers/Arakyds, occasionally a Probot suffers too much vitality loss, and according to the plan we might get Power droids to sell and get return business.

Can these issues 1.Recent Updates, 2.Bugs, 3.Uncertainties from Centralized Droid Issues (30/10/03 11:30am PST) be addressed before new droids and modules are added? http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=33835

With the upcoming addition of vehicles, can you clear up the debate as to whether Droid Engineers will be able to make some of the vehicles added? And if we are not gaining the ability to produce vehicles, who will be?

Question: What was SOE's reasoning behind droid permadeath? What was the reason(s) why droid permadeath was eventually lifted?

I was never a fan of droid permadeath, and never understood why it was implemented. Maybe this questionwas answered a while back already, but it would, I think, give some insight into SOE's thought processes.

Here are my two cents.

1. A time table for future changes.

2. A answer to the certification and combat droid debat.

3.When will the current droids be useful.

Will conent of the vehicle and even the space addon expand our Profession? Or will new Professions make us obsolete? What will these be?

Question 1) when are they going to fix experimentation line so we have more that 55% at master unlike 110% for other craftings masters and will it ever have meaning to experiment on droids. its kindoff sad that i can use the lowest quality resourses for my best products, unlike other crafting classes that have to search for that special gem.

Question 2) can we get some sort of driod stim on the lines of a pet stim or player stim to heal a droid, with the new incap droid goes to data pad this is just another reason for players not to buy a droid. If they don't have novice scout skill they have to go all the way back to town or their house just to call the droid back out... very very bad.

Pssst...Gnirak, the answer to your #1 question is in the next publish with Player Cities and mounts

ah thanks haven't read that yet wooo hooo

1: Will our name ever be on a droidafter it is tamed?

2: Will experimentation ever mean anything?

1) Can we please get a clarification on what "combat modules usable onlyby DE" was intended to mean in the original DE plan so we can make informed decisions while discussing the plan?

Please don't answer with "What do you think?"
Please let us know what the actual intent of the statement in the plan ment.

2) Can droid experimentation be fixed, both for 100% experimentation and for skilled DE producing superior droids?

3) Can we please name droids "R2D2"? You know what I mean - the name filter.