Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Decay System 2.0
/bow
Drashk wrote:
How does this system effect me? (User-end discription)
When ever a droid is incapped and auto-stored in combat, or you recharge the droid, it takes Integrity damage. As the droid's Integrity decays, the droid requires to be recharged more often. A droid with Integrity damage can be repaired through the use of a Restoration kit, or can be completely Reconditioned by DE, however repairing a droid in this manner isn't fail proof. The droid's Integrity is dependent on how well it is crafted.
Yea...this sounds about right. The system has to be simple for the droid user to manage and understand, so we don't answer 800 questions about it.
It's pretty easy to say..."The droid takes an Integrity hit if you give it a battery or if it incaps." As long as the system put in place can be kept that simple for the end user, I think we're on the right track.
I really really don't think we want to go for any decay system that's overly convoluted or confusing. It needs to make sense to the non-DEs too.
Droid Function
All droid functions should be linked directly to the charge status of a droid. This includes movement, commands, and all installed modules.By linking the charge status of a droid to all functions we eliminate roving Droid crafting stations that blink *Low Power*, lifeless storage units, and following drones. Linking the charge status would ensure that everyone had to recharge their droid, in order to use the functions that it bestows, which will take more of a role as I continue.
I've always been for this, personally. I do think there will be a camp of people that won't want to see EVERY function of the droid taken away. I would say that, at the very least, no installed modules should perform their function but other stuff might be okay. It's okay (to me) to see a moving crafting droid blink ** Low Power **...as long as it isn't getting used for crafting, for example.
It would be good for us to try to nail down the exact behavior for a ** Low Power ** state.
Droid Decay System
Integrity Loss
Most agree that some sort of decay system needs to be put into place, in order to create a higher turn over in droid sales. One of the better suggestions floating around is to link Integrity to battery usage. If all droids need to be recharged, then all droids would begin to decay over time, which would lead to a great number of droid resales.
I'd add here that our new sales wouldn't necessarily come in the form of new replacement droids but might be Repair / Reconstruction kits and so on.
Integrity Decay Vs Battery Charge
As a droid takes Integrity damage, it loses the ability to fully charge.
You seem to say below that a droid can be fully charged to 100%, if more than one battery is used. I assume you meant that the droid can't be fully recharged to 100% with just one battery, si?
For every 10% of Integrity lost, the droid automatically drains part of the battery charge added.
[snip]
I dig the table. I think this sort of scaling is about where it needs to be. I'd be curious, though, where droid wounds are going to enter into all this.
It's not enough for us to simply have the system focused on Integrity (vitality) but the inclusion of a method to integrate droid HAM wounds need to be a part of the system as well, in my personal opinion.
This will help to end the times of all Surgical droids never taking droid HAM wounds.
Integrity Decay Vs Incappacitated
Each time that a Droid is Incappacitated and is then auto-stored, it loses 1 point of Integrity. This rule makes it so that there is a chance to keep the droid from losing Integrity instantly. In order to keep the droid from auto-storing, it simply needs to be repaired.
*Alternate suggestion* To create a more aggresive system, each time the droid is Incapped, it loses 1 point of Integrity
I think it should be the latter, personally. The former method seems to open the door to more problems. For example, your droid incaps and you go to heal it. However, you get a 'lag-store' of the droid due to the fact that your heals don't get through in time.
I've seen this personally. I'd be spamming my heals or repair kits and it should be working...but it doesn't take. Any situation like that is taken out entirely if we simply make it a 1 point loss immediately upon incap. Simple...easy.
Integrity Decay Vs Recharging
Each time that a droid is recharged, it loses 1 point of Vitality. This is a rather aggresive approach to droid decay, but it also takes into factor the proposed changes to Experimentation.
We can have this be the case and adjust how aggressive the decay is in other places if we need.
It makessense to have 1 Battery = 1 Integrity point lost.
Integrity Experimentation
Droid Chassis
The Durablity rating of a Droid Chassis would be changed to an Integrity rating. This experimentation field would effect the base Integrity rate of the droid it is installed into. This would be yet an additional bonus provided by using an Advanced Chassis. A Failed Experimenation would result in an Integrity rating of a+0 bonus. A maximum success result is equal to +100.
Hmmmm...I dig the concept a lot. Are you saying that a Max. result would give a droid with 200/200 Integrity?
Or that the +100 is simply a weighted value used in the formula below?
Droid Deed
Droid Modules
Droid Armor
I like the overall concept of tying together all of these items into the Integrity system. It means that how DEs craft every item becomes that much more important to what makes the "best" droid. I've always been a big proponent of working the 'quality' markets and this concept is simply perfect, along those lines.
Well done, my friend....
Integrity Repair Systems
Droid Restoration Kit
The Droid Restoration Kit allows anyone to repair some of their droids Integrity loss, associated with combat and charging. The number of points that this kit can repair is based upon the kits Power rating. The kit can repair 1 to 10 points of Integrity loss per use. On a successful roll, X number of damaged Integrity points are restored. On a failed roll, X number of Integrity points are permanently lost. On a partial success, 1/2 X Integrity points are restored and 1/2 X Max Integrity is lost permanently. (X is equal to the Power rating.) The Droid Restoration Kit would use the same roll that is used to repair weapons and armor, which has a fairly high rate of failure.
- 1 Diagnostic Circuit
- 1 Capacitor Discharge Unit
- 1 Unit Delivery Cartridge
- 1 Redundant Power Supply
- 1 Repair Unit Casing
- 20 Units Metal
- 15 Units Lowe Grade Ore
- 15 Units Chemical
- Experimental Charges: OQ 66% UT 33%
- Experimental Effectiveness:
- Power OQ 66% Con 33%
- Success Rate OQ 33% Mal 66%
Basically, this is the 'Vitality' repair kit for droids. I agree that this should be usable by any player. I would still be interested in where/how droid HAM wounds would fit into this larger system.
Droid Reconditioning
Once a droid's Integrity drops to 0/0 the droid is considered destroyed. As long as the droid as 1 point of restorable Integrity (IE 0/1) the droid has a possiblity of being Reconditioned by a Droid Engineer. A Novice (or Master) DE would need to use a Reconditioning Tool to completely restore a Droid to full Vitality. Using this skill on a damaged droid is not 100% fail safe and is based upon the Droid Customization skill and the amount of Integrity damage. The higher the percentage of permanent Integrity damage there is, the lower the percentage chance of successfully repairing the droid. To restrict the use of Reconditioning, this could be a one time only skill, per droid. Droid Reconditioning is an all or nothing proceedure. The Droid Reconditioning Tool is a limted schematic available through certain Junk Dealers, or a DE specific quest.
Hmmm....is Droid Reconditioning a skill mod or a tool? You seem to suggest both.
Of the two, I sort of like it as a skill mod that's obtained via a DE quest. That means that DEs can really choose to be 'repairmen' or not. /shrug
Additional Changes
Power Droid
To make the Power Droid more attractive to a customer, its recharge function never causes another droid to lose Integrity, nor does the Power Droid ever need recharging. Instead, each time that the Power Droid recharges another droid, it takes 1 point of Integrity loss.
Dig it. Perfect. I see these items causing need for more Power Droid sales to occur...(well, it will help some anyway).
Auto-Recharge Module
The Auto-Recharge Module would allow a droid owner to stack X number of battery charges into a droid, so that it could auto-recharge itself when ever it becomes low on power. The number of charges would be dependent on experimentation. Charges used by this module would be counted towards Integrity decay.
- 40 units of Aluminum
- 20 units of Inert Gas
- 50 units of Steel
- Experimental Integrity: OQ 50% Con 50%
- Experimental Effectiveness:
- Battery Storage OQ 50% Con 50% (Up to 100 Charges)
Comments?
This is a good idea as a first step, I think. The dev. time/work should be easier since it's basically just a modified version of the Stimpack Dispensor module.
That leads me to...
Is this whole thing getting too big?
I really do think we need the decay system but I worry about letting it get so huge and out of control that it's almost more trouble than it's really worth.
I'm wondering if we can't come up with tweaks to this that would:
- Be easier to code, due to existing content/work done by the Devs
- Lead to less growth in our Droid parts/components list (which is already spiralling out of control)
This is a great start, methinks. However, I caution everyone that this sort of thing isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Right now, it's all just talk and getting the best proposed system we can. From there, we'll have to see what the PTB's say...and we can move on it from there.
I'll clue TH into this thread so that they can see the direction we are thinking...
Well done, as always, Drashk.
Respectfully,
Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 07-03-2004 12:00 PM
Gavvot wrote:
Wehn you look at the other crafting professions, experiment on everything is a bad idea. Almost as bad as experiment on nothing.
For Tailor and smuggler experiment doesn't count at all. That is wrong, for sure.
For weaponsmith I don't know very well.
For Armorsmith, well, additional experiment point bring by skill tapes is a must. You have to have the skill tapes to be good, because every additional experiment point can be used to lower the HAM cost of the armor. That is not a very good situation either.
There should be a balance in experiment where experiment on some stuff but not all is ok.
A simple exemple is this : if you base integrity on the quality of the different sub-component, including modules, DE will have to not only chase all the named resources we need, but all in the best quality possible.
Some resource hunt is ok for me, but spending 90% of my SWG time to do it is a no go.
Gavvot, I think you are missing the point here. This is the entire reason for the suggestion of changing the crafting system. You can decide to experiment fully on a droids quality, the Integrity, or a little bit of both. This is how the crafting system for all professions should be working. Having two seperate stats that can be experimented on opens up a large avenue of diversity. Instead of having to compete with other DE based on nothing more than price, we would see a system that is based on the consumers choice. Some droid buyers will want to find the droid with the best HAM and damage. Others will want to find the droid with the highest Integrity, so that it lasts longer. And others will look around for a droid that is a combonation of both.
Weaponsmiths, Armorsmiths, Medics and BioEngineers (though their system is still some what borker) all have dynamic crafting systems. Each of these professions have multiple fields of experimenation that makes for a lot of variety. Smugglers and Tailors both have borked crafting systems. Smugglers should see a change to this, in the Smuggler Revamp and Tailors will more than likely see a change when their profession is given development time.
I'm sorry that you don't like a more robust system of crafting, but that is closer to how our profession should be. We are seeing it now that HAM values mean something and with the addition of combat modules. I'm sorry if this next comment sounds 'elitist', but many of the 'old timers' have seen enough cookie cutter droids to last a life time. We are ready for a crafting system that will make a difference.
Hum, I think we should do some survey on that with the custmer base.
I know for sure that a customer that use his droid with no problem and sudently his power drop to 80% won't be happy at all.
I also have some doubt about the fact that alot of people don't know how vitality work. The one that use pets usually does.
Like people that use weapon or armor know how the decay work and that at some point the effectiveness of the weapon/armor drop very fast.
Maybe this is a better way.
Basicly what it comes down to is this...
The DEVs aren't going to want to increase charge time to what you are suggesting, not without a heavy price. We were lucky to have recharge time extended to 1 hour. This is why I removed the DPGs from this version. Your suggestion of having a droid loss its charge life 1% at a time will get a lot more negative attention then a droid that loses 20% ofits charge life aftermany hours of use.The way that you are suggesting it, to have Integrity be static at 100/100 would mean that each time a person charges their droid, they lose 1% of the battery life. The moment the average droid user puts this together, they will realize that they don't want to use their droid as often, which defeats the system entirely. Making it so that the droid user gets to use their droid for much more time before they see a droid in its charge status, they will be happier in the long run. Which would you rather in real life? A computer that becomes noticably slower with each day of use, or a computer that you have to scandisk only once a month to keep it running smoothly?
Hum, how I see it, the people that use utility droid will heal integrity and don't care about vitality/wounds (just like right now)
And the people that use combat droid will have to deal with the wounds and vitality, but it'll probably drop faster than integrity.
Or maybe integrity doesn't apply to combat droid and only vitality stay.
The thing here is that the vitality system that is already there is specificly designed to balance combat pet and should work very well for combat droid too.
Yeah it make the droid looks like pet, and I don't like that either, but why drop something that is already here and working?
Again you are missing the point of the change to the system here. Droids aren't strictly Combat or Utility. You can devise to seperate systems for a droid that is composed of both. I consider my Probot to be a Utility droid, since I have all Utility modules installed, however it is a combat droid, since it has the ability to attack, even though it is for only 1 point of damage. We could keep the Vitality system in place, to drop the HAM and damage status, of combat droids, however doing so will only make droids less attractive to any of the combat types. Not only would there be a Vitality stat to repair, but there would also be an Integrity stat as well. Top this off with battery usage, wound damage, and healing and you create something that will annoy the typical shot and kill PC. When the combat revamp comes out, more people would be inclined to pick up a pet over our droids, simply because they would be easier to maintain. The Integritysystem would completely replace the Vitality system and is done so that effects all of the droids that we make. The Vitality system just wasn't created with Droids in mind. It was created for creatures and faction perks that don't have the diversity that our droids do.
It is not how it is working for the moment.
And I think alot of people aren't fond of the 1 hour limit.
That is the point. Changing the system so that each battery charge will last 1 hour, reguardless of what modules installed, will make it easy for all droid owners to understand. 1 hour is twice as long as a droid used to be able to function between charges and should be the standard for all droids. This way, the decay rate of 1 Integrity point per charge is unified for all droid uses, not just those that use the droid as a storage bin. After re-thinking how much difficulty it was to get the DEVs to change the battery life timer to 1 hour, we aren't likely to see any increase in the 1 hour time limit....at least not without a cost on the droid.
If they have to do it every hour, that's for sure.
That's why the 100% charge from a station should last much longer than that.
The crafting station is a good exemple.
The color on my crafting droid disapeared long long before I had to put a new battery in it.
And having those stations in all the shops would make it ok.
If they have 5 hours of use from a station, and have to do 800m from any major city to reach a shop with a power station, that is not a big deal really. They won't have to do it every day, just once in a while.
Again, it comes down to being locked down a certain area. How many people are going to want to use a droid on one of the advanced planets if they have to shuttle to a different place to fully charge their droid. I can't see the DEVs extending the maxium charge time of a droid far beyond what it currently is. When higher end droids are added, the combat types will quickly get annoyed by having to return to some other place, while out hunting, to recharge thier droid to full.
Droid batteries are a big part of droid use, and I think alot of people hate that.
It is annoying to have to recharge the droid every 30minute/1 hour.
And it sound pretty useless for repeat sale when all you have to buy is a crate of battery every 100/50 hour of use.
Droid Decay will be a nerf for the users. That is for sure.
Getting rid of the batteries and being able to use droid for a longer period without recharging, honestly I don't know anyone that would concider it as a nerf.
This decay system is based around battery use. Trying to replace batteries while working on a decay system that is based on battery use is counter productive.
Drashk wrote:
Gavvot wrote:
Gavvot, I think you are missing the point here. This is the entire reason for the suggestion of changing the crafting system. You can decide to experiment fully on a droids quality, the Integrity, or a little bit of both. This is how the crafting system for all professions should be working. Having two seperate stats that can be experimented on opens up a large avenue of diversity. Instead of having to compete with other DE based on nothing more than price, we would see a system that is based on the consumers choice. Some droid buyers will want to find the droid with the best HAM and damage. Others will want to find the droid with the highest Integrity, so that it lasts longer. And others will look around for a droid that is a combonation of both.
Weaponsmiths, Armorsmiths, Medics and BioEngineers (though their system is still some what borker) all have dynamic crafting systems. Each of these professions have multiple fields of experimenation that makes for a lot of variety. Smugglers and Tailors both have borked crafting systems. Smugglers should see a change to this, in the Smuggler Revamp and Tailors will more than likely see a change when their profession is given development time.
I'm sorry that you don't like a more robust system of crafting, but that is closer to how our profession should be. We are seeing it now that HAM values mean something and with the addition of combat modules. I'm sorry if this next comment sounds 'elitist', but many of the 'old timers' have seen enough cookie cutter droids to last a life time. We are ready for a crafting system that will make a difference.
I think you're doing too much at once. Let's focus on the decay, and deal with the crafting/experiment later. It just add to complexity and doesn't help anything.
Beside, I didn't said I was against experiment, I think there shoud be a balance between what need experiment and what doesn't. This game is supposed to be also playable by casual player, and speding hours on resource hunt and experiment isn't fun for everybody.
We are far from the cookie cutter now. Combat droid and harvester droid are allready deeply dependant on resource quality, so does survey droid and repair kits. And the stimpack modules, too.
See, we already have quite a few field for experiment, doing more, ok, doing more on everything, hell no.
EDIT : BTW, maybe you don't know, but experimenting on the droid decay of the final deed has an influence on the regeneration rate of the droid. But no body do it for one simple reason : HAM is displayed on the deed, regeneration rate isn't.
Basicly what it comes down to is this...
The DEVs aren't going to want to increase charge time to what you are suggesting, not without a heavy price. We were lucky to have recharge time extended to 1 hour. This is why I removed the DPGs from this version. Your suggestion of having a droid loss its charge life 1% at a time will get a lot more negative attention then a droid that loses 20% ofits charge life aftermany hours of use.The way that you are suggesting it, to have Integrity be static at 100/100 would mean that each time a person charges their droid, they lose 1% of the battery life. The moment the average droid user puts this together, they will realize that they don't want to use their droid as often, which defeats the system entirely. Making it so that the droid user gets to use their droid for much more time before they see a droid in its charge status, they will be happier in the long run. Which would you rather in real life? A computer that becomes noticably slower with each day of use, or a computer that you have to scandisk only once a month to keep it running smoothly?
All I can say is, test with your droids. I use my droids quite alot, for crafting, advertising and fighting. A battery crate = 100 hours, In the last month I maybe took 3 or 4 batteries from my crate.
On the real life computer, I sadly use windows, so it mean that I have a computer that become slower and slower everyday, and can have some boots every month, but the boost never bring it back to what was a clean system.
That's why I need to format and reinstall everything about every 6 months.
That's pretty much how this vitality system would work.
Again you are missing the point of the change to the system here. Droids aren't strictly Combat or Utility. You can devise to seperate systems for a droid that is composed of both. I consider my Probot to be a Utility droid, since I have all Utility modules installed, however it is a combat droid, since it has the ability to attack, even though it is for only 1 point of damage. We could keep the Vitality system in place, to drop the HAM and damage status, of combat droids, however doing so will only make droids less attractive to any of the combat types. Not only would there be a Vitality stat to repair, but there would also be an Integrity stat as well. Top this off with battery usage, wound damage, and healing and you create something that will annoy the typical shot and kill PC. When the combat revamp comes out, more people would be inclined to pick up a pet over our droids, simply because they would be easier to maintain. The Integritysystem would completely replace the Vitality system and is done so that effects all of the droids that we make. The Vitality system just wasn't created with Droids in mind. It was created for creatures and faction perks that don't have the diversity that our droids do.
I think you're missing the point too. Even if a droid can do both, he'll loose integrity when recharged, but will loose vitality only during combat.
The typical shoot & kill PC don't care about droids or pet unless they are uber, and it's not going to happen unless you pick CH or the infamous DH profession.
That is the point. Changing the system so that each battery charge will last 1 hour, reguardless of what modules installed, will make it easy for all droid owners to understand. 1 hour is twice as long as a droid used to be able to function between charges and should be the standard for all droids. This way, the decay rate of 1 Integrity point per charge is unified for all droid uses, not just those that use the droid as a storage bin. After re-thinking how much difficulty it was to get the DEVs to change the battery life timer to 1 hour, we aren't likely to see any increase in the 1 hour time limit....at least not without a cost on the droid.
That's the point of a decay based on battery use. There is a cost now, so the increase in battery time is justified. And the fact that you'll have to go to a station is also an extra cost that should be reduced by a lower decay.
Again, it comes down to being locked down a certain area. How many people are going to want to use a droid on one of the advanced planets if they have to shuttle to a different place to fully charge their droid. I can't see the DEVs extending the maxium charge time of a droid far beyond what it currently is. When higher end droids are added, the combat types will quickly get annoyed by having to return to some other place, while out hunting, to recharge thier droid to full.
That's why the battery are still there. If you forgot to recharge your droid to a station when you went to get your buffs before moving to the adventure planet, well, you can still use the battery at a higher decay rate, or come back for a charge.
Fighter currently almost always have to come back every 3 hours at max for buff, recharge the droid would only be an additional step. And Doctor would probably love power droid with a medical module in it.
This decay system is based around battery use. Trying to replace batteries while working on a decay system that is based on battery use is counter productive.
This decay system is based on power use. If you wanna limit to batteries, drop the power droid for good.
The important thing here is the power use, not the fact that you use battery. Battery is just an item, it's not a system.
I don't see how wanting other source of power would be counter productive on a decay system based on power supply. It's in fact for me the complete oposite.
Message Edited by Gavvot on 07-04-2004 02:12 PM
Drashk wrote:
Gavvot wrote:I know that alot of crafters want more experimentations, I also know that alot of crafters hate to have to experiment on everything without having half the points needed to do so. And having to wait for months after mastering the profession to finally have the right resources to expermient with. Adding more experimentations without any other change would only acheive that to be a good DE you'll have to be force sensitive and have skill tapes. I don't want that.
This is how the crafting process should be, when you look at other crafting professions. The DE crafting process is borked, in that half of the experimentation values are pointless. Such a change, as the one proposed would give DE a much more dynamic crafting system that takes us one step further from the cookie cutter droids of old.
Wehn you look at the other crafting professions, experiment on everything is a bad idea. Almost as bad as experiment on nothing.
For Tailor and smuggler experiment doesn't count at all. That is wrong, for sure.
For weaponsmith I don't know very well.
For Armorsmith, well, additional experiment point bring by skill tapes is a must. You have to have the skill tapes to be good, because every additional experiment point can be used to lower the HAM cost of the armor. That is not a very good situation either.
There should be a balance in experiment where experiment on some stuff but not all is ok.
A simple exemple is this : if you base integrity on the quality of the different sub-component, including modules, DE will have to not only chase all the named resources we need, but all in the best quality possible.
Some resource hunt is ok for me, but spending 90% of my SWG time to do it is a no go.I don't get this.
It will be more easy for the customer to understand that system.
The recharging rate isn't that much higher than yours, it's just more gradual.
I mean, integrity is at 91%, power is at 0, the customer use a charge on it, the droid is charged at 91%.
It's easy to understand, and will in fact force the customer to use the 'droid version of vitality pack' more often.
Yeah, it goes faster, but if the customer can manage the intergity of his droid easily, it shouldn't be a problem.
It works well with the pets.
Of course, with that system, the 'droid version of vitality pack' wouldn't be a quest item but a regular item craftable by all DE.
Many pet owners don't understand the Vitality system, and how it reduces their pets HAM properties. Directly linking Power to the Integrity rating will only upset droid owners more, because their droids power is a gradual decay. Making so that it takes a while for the average droid user to notice a difference in their droids power consumption will make it so that they are more accepting of the change. It may look easier, but it will lead to a lot more people complaining about the system, which is something that Iam trying to stay away from.
Hum, I think we should do some survey on that with the custmer base.
I know for sure that a customer that use his droid with no problem and sudently his power drop to 80% won't be happy at all.
I also have some doubt about the fact that alot of people don't know how vitality work. The one that use pets usually does.
Like people that use weapon or armor know how the decay work and that at some point the effectiveness of the weapon/armor drop very fast.
Maybe this is a better way.
I don't see why linking them.
The most important for a combat droid is his HAM. The vitality deal with that.
The HAM on an utility droid is irrelevant, so integrity should be used there.
Sure, Combat droid will be more work as they have both vitality and integrity, but I don't really see that as a problem. Vitality is already there, and this would bring an integrity system that make sence for all the droids.
The thing here is that the combat droids already have a decay system. Maybe it isn't perfectly balanced, but it is there.
The point of removing the Vitality system from droids is so that we don't have a more complex system. The Vitality system is geared towards pets, not droids. The Integrity system would be strictly geared towards all droids. Having to recharge, repair Vitality, repair Integrity, repair HAM, and heal a droid is asking a lot for a customer base.
Hum, how I see it, the people that use utility droid will heal integrity and don't care about vitality/wounds (just like right now)
And the people that use combat droid will have to deal with the wounds and vitality, but it'll probably drop faster than integrity.
Or maybe integrity doesn't apply to combat droid and only vitality stay.
The thing here is that the vitality system that is already there is specificly designed to balance combat pet and should work very well for combat droid too.
Yeah it make the droid looks like pet, and I don't like that either, but why drop something that is already here and working?
The entire charge process will have to be revamped in order to add integrity decay. And there is already a system on the droids to make them use more or less power depending of the activated modules (entertainer/auto-repair for exemple).
A 100% charge should equal 1 hour, reguardless of what is installed. This will make it so that everyone can figure out how much time it takes before their droid is in lower power status.
It is not how it is working for the moment.
And I think alot of people aren't fond of the 1 hour limit.
I think the main reason they'll be against it is the lack of need to care from the user.
Yes, the customer loose a module, but it's not really a problem for most of them. Doc most of the time want the 3 usual and spend 30 minutes thinking on what to add to an R2.
With a Power Station, the player will have to take his droid and bring to either his private power station, or a public power station in a shop.
This require much more things to the player than thinking of adding or not 1 module when requesting for a droid.
And bring him back to the shop often so he can buy other droidsHaving to use something like a Power Station limits the usefulness of a droid, simply because people associate droids with freedom of movement. People specificly by a droid with a crafting station because they like the freedom of being able to run around and use thier crafting droid. If someone had to go back to thier house just to fully charge they droid, they might as well just use the crafting station sitting at home.
If they have to do it every hour, that's for sure.
That's why the 100% charge from a station should last much longer than that.
The crafting station is a good exemple.
The color on my crafting droid disapeared long long before I had to put a new battery in it.
And having those stations in all the shops would make it ok.
If they have 5 hours of use from a station, and have to do 800m from any major city to reach a shop with a power station, that is not a big deal really. They won't have to do it every day, just once in a while.
The idea I had was that a station would charge the droid for 100% but the battery would only charge for 20% for exemple.
This way, you can charge the droid to 100% either with a station or batteries.
But batteries would have faster decay on the droid otherwise people will never use the stations.
This way they will still use the batteries, yes, much less often than now, but they will still have some, just in case.
I don't see where there would be a problem with that.
Also, the 100% power on such droids shouldn't be 1 hour of use, it should be longer.
EDIT : Hum, thinking of it again, it would be an auto-recharge module without a module. I think I need more thinking on that one.
Again it comes down to being limited to the need to return to somewhere to charge your droid. Batteries should stay at a 100% charge rate, except when the droid is damaged. Batteries are a big part of droid use. To mess with this system, by making them less effective, would bring about negative feelings, especially with the addition of a Driod Decay system. This would be considered by many as a double nerf.
Droid batteries are a big part of droid use, and I think alot of people hate that.
It is annoying to have to recharge the droid every 30minute/1 hour.
And it sound pretty useless for repeat sale when all you have to buy is a crate of battery every 100/50 hour of use.
Droid Decay will be a nerf for the users. That is for sure.
Getting rid of the batteries and being able to use droid for a longer period without recharging, honestly I don't know anyone that would concider it as a nerf.
Jenden wrote:
Time to be the third wheel of this argument...
The more we are, the better it is. There is always more ideas in 3 or 4 heads than in one.
Gavvot wrote:But this experimentation is pretty much vital to his proposal. Throwing in a new variable, integrety, without determening how you obtain it or where it comes from does work. If you'd like it to be a set number (such as vitality), then argue for that, but its not something that can be shelved.
What I mean is,if you really want to change the way experiment is handle on droid crafting, I think it's better to do a droid decay with a set number like vitality and after that, maybe for our next revamp, ask for a complete rework of the experiment part. Adding complex experiment on that alone does only achieve one thing : Delay the introduction of droid decay.
The problem I have with your suggestiions is that every DE with the same resources makes identicle droids. Droids aren't like armor where everyone and their brother will want the highest resists (HAM in the droids case) and you just throw the rest of your points into whats left. If someone is getting a pure utility droid, they would most likely rather have more integrety than HAM (since the droid would last longer). I'd like to be able to offer my customers what they want as opposed to having all my droids with maxed out HAM and nothing else.
I understand that, and I'm not against it, but the fact is that before even adding more information that the customer should take care of, we should at least have all the current relevant informations available, and we are far from it. HAM is one thing, try to find the resit of a droid on his deed...
The two headlining modules you mentioned, harvester and combat modules, are exactly the cookie cutter droids we want to do away with. Sure, resources come into play, but there is no way for customer 1 to get a different harvesting droid than cutsomer 2 (assuming both DE's have similar resources, which is often the case). Now, if customer 1 wanted a harvester droid that didn't get incapped as soon as something accidentaly attacked it but customer 2 wanted one that would last him for a good long time then they would be different droids. The survey, repair, and stimpacks you mentioned are indeed this kind of customizable parts, we just want to extend this to the rest of the droid.
The survey repair and stimpack dispencer experiment fields add variety, it doesn't make a DE different than the one in the next shop, it just give him more stuff to build. If I was doing survey droids for exemple, I would offer Full time experimented, full quantity experimented and half/half. The vast majority of other droids already offer big variety. The issue with harvesting module and combat module isn't that they need more experiment fields, the issue is that they do stack too much, making it so that the only option for harvesting droid are R3 and probot, same for combat droid.
I'm ok for more variety, even if right now, I only have the time to make about half the stuff we can do, and still have trouble with stock. I just think that experiment isn't the way to go for that.Hmmm, its the first I've heard of it, I'll have to check it out. Last I knew the Devs took it out but forgot to take out the graphics for it, forgot they meant to take it out and re-enabled it...
Well, I didn't do extensive test, but I think I've read in publish 8 somewhere that it has been reactivated.I think a lot of this depends on your profession and also the fact that drashk is talking about storage, movement, and crafting with a droid requiring batteries. I'm not sure how the newrecharge rate would figure in there (lots of people haven't charged their storage/crafting droid in months). I knowDocs on the other hand that go through 2-3 batteries a day (8-12 charges).
That's 8 to 12 hour of buffing, they aren't doc, they're buff-bot.
But again, what I don't like with this is that it's a complete revamp of how power is handled by the different module, it's alot of work, probably even too much for a revamp. I understand it, and agree with it, but realisticly, I don't see this happen....if only galaxies were on linux...
I still wonder, when you register, they ask what system you use, and linux is one of the option
Thats pretty much what we're shooting for, though at a bit more accelerated rate than 6 months.
Well, me too
I'm kind of up in the air with this one.... I think vitality for combat droids as it is now is fine, but I wouldn't have a problem if it was switched over to integrety either. I do lean more towards just switching it over to integrety for 2 reasons. First off, its generally better when you use one system for all droids. When you start mixing and matching you start confusing people. Secondly, if you stick with vitality you have to use integrety on the droid at the same time (for those probots with utility modules in them). This means the owner has to deal with vitality packs and integrety packs, as well as a loss in HAM and battery life. Thats a bit harsh I think (something like double decay).
I agree with you, that is a bit harsh. However, mixing integrity with combat will result in an imbalance. The combat droid will die much faster than utility droids. That's the same problem as using vitality for both. Combat is always over destroied. That why I think so far the best option is to keep both separated. I don't see any other solution.
You also have to remember none of this will even start happening till after JTLS, by which time we'll have had the infamous combat balance. Hopefully all the combat professions will be nerfed down to a reasonable level, at which point even the most uber of combatants will be able to make good use of a combat droid. Even now with a probot dealing a nice steady 200dps from the background its like having an additional bleed on the target.
I think that if we limit what we ask for to something realistic on the dev workload side, it might be doable before JTL. Beside, I don't think it's a good idea to speculate on the usefull ness of the droids after combat revamp. What tell you the droids won't be hit by the nerf bat?
I'm still pretty much up in the air about alternate charging methods... not much to comment on there now.
For me, it's optional to the decay system, but launch it at the same time as a droid decay based on power would reduce the feeling of the customer base that it is a pure and complete nerf.
I think that we are going too fast.
Before trying to find a way to decay, we should discuss about what life time is ok for a droid.
I think that a droid should last about 100 to 300 hours.
That's why I'm not fond of the idea to decrease the power effectiveness with the integrity.
With an integrity of 100 that drop from 100 to 0 it's easy to manage.
Also,on the power station vs battery decay use, I think that might work like that :
A power station recharge would last for exemple 3 hours, and drop 1 integrity, charging the droid at 100%.
Meaning 100% = 3 hours.
A battery charge would charge the droid for 1 hour, so 33%.
And drop the integrity by 1 too.
But, to avoid that people charge for 100% with 3 batteries at once, to be able to charge your droid, his power must be at 0%, and there would be an option on the droid to, at the user request, drop the power to 0%.
Still not sure for the power droid, maybe he should charge for 2 hours, or 3. More than a battery, for sure, but maybe less than a station. And also remove 1 intergity on the droid per charge, the power droid itself would loose one integrity every x charges.
x behing for me between 1 and 5.
Time to be the third wheel of this argument...
Gavvot wrote:
I think you're doing too much at once. Let's focus on the decay, and deal with the crafting/experiment later. It just add to complexity and doesn't help anything.
But this experimentation is pretty much vital to his proposal. Throwing in a new variable, integrety, without determening how you obtain it or where it comes from does work. If you'd like it to be a set number (such as vitality), then argue for that, but its not something that can be shelved.
Beside, I didn't said I was against experiment, I think there shoud be a balance between what need experiment and what doesn't. This game is supposed to be also playable by casual player, and speding hours on resource hunt and experiment isn't fun for everybody.
The problem I have with your suggestiions is that every DE with the same resources makes identicle droids. Droids aren't like armor where everyone and their brother will want the highest resists (HAM in the droids case) and you just throw the rest of your points into whats left. If someone is getting a pure utility droid, they would most likely rather have more integrety than HAM (since the droid would last longer). I'd like to be able to offer my customers what they want as opposed to having all my droids with maxed out HAM and nothing else.
We are far from the cookie cutter now. Combat droid and harvester droid are allready deeply dependant on resource quality, so does survey droid and repair kits. And the stimpack modules, too.
The two headlining modules you mentioned, harvester and combat modules, are exactly the cookie cutter droids we want to do away with. Sure, resources come into play, but there is no way for customer 1 to get a different harvesting droid than cutsomer 2 (assuming both DE's have similar resources, which is often the case). Now, if customer 1 wanted a harvester droid that didn't get incapped as soon as something accidentaly attacked it but customer 2 wanted one that would last him for a good long time then they would be different droids. The survey, repair, and stimpacks you mentioned are indeed this kind of customizable parts, we just want to extend this to the rest of the droid.
See, we already have quite a few field for experiment, doing more, ok, doing more on everything, hell no.
EDIT : BTW, maybe you don't know, but experimenting on the droid decay of the final deed has an influence on the regeneration rate of the droid. But no body do it for one simple reason : HAM is displayed on the deed, regeneration rate isn't.
Hmmm, its the first I've heard of it, I'll have to check it out. Last I knew the Devs took it out but forgot to take out the graphics for it, forgot they meant to take it out and re-enabled it...
All I can say is, test with your droids. I use my droids quite alot, for crafting, advertising and fighting. A battery crate = 100 hours, In the last month I maybe took 3 or 4 batteries from my crate.
I think a lot of this depends on your profession and also the fact that drashk is talking about storage, movement, and crafting with a droid requiring batteries. I'm not sure how the newrecharge rate would figure in there (lots of people haven't charged their storage/crafting droid in months). I knowDocs on the other hand that go through 2-3 batteries a day (8-12 charges).
On the real life computer, I sadly use windows, so it mean that I have a computer that become slower and slower everyday, and can have some boots every month, but the boost never bring it back to what was a clean system.
...if only galaxies were on linux...
That's why I need to format and reinstall everything about every 6 months.
That's pretty much how this vitality system would work.
Thats pretty much what we're shooting for, though at a bit more accelerated rate than 6 months.
I think you're missing the point too. Even if a droid can do both, he'll loose integrity when recharged, but will loose vitality only during combat.
I'm kind of up in the air with this one.... I think vitality for combat droids as it is now is fine, but I wouldn't have a problem if it was switched over to integrety either. I do lean more towards just switching it over to integrety for 2 reasons. First off, its generally better when you use one system for all droids. When you start mixing and matching you start confusing people. Secondly, if you stick with vitality you have to use integrety on the droid at the same time (for those probots with utility modules in them). This means the owner has to deal with vitality packs and integrety packs, as well as a loss in HAM and battery life. Thats a bit harsh I think (something like double decay).
The typical shoot & kill PC don't care about droids or pet unless they are uber, and it's not going to happen unless you pick CH or the infamous DH profession.
You also have to remember none of this will even start happening till after JTLS, by which time we'll have had the infamous combat balance. Hopefully all the combat professions will be nerfed down to a reasonable level, at which point even the most uber of combatants will be able to make good use of a combat droid. Even now with a probot dealing a nice steady 200dps from the background its like having an additional bleed on the target.
That's the point of a decay based on battery use. There is a cost now, so the increase in battery time is justified. And the fact that you'll have to go to a station is also an extra cost that should be reduced by a lower decay.
That's why the battery are still there. If you forgot to recharge your droid to a station when you went to get your buffs before moving to the adventure planet, well, you can still use the battery at a higher decay rate, or come back for a charge.
Fighter currently almost always have to come back every 3 hours at max for buff, recharge the droid would only be an additional step. And Doctor would probably love power droid with a medical module in it.
This decay system is based around battery use. Trying to replace batteries while working on a decay system that is based on battery use is counter productive.
This decay system is based on power use. If you wanna limit to batteries, drop the power droid for good.
The important thing here is the power use, not the fact that you use battery. Battery is just an item, it's not a system.
I don't see how wanting other source of power would be counter productive on a decay system based on power supply. It's in fact for me the complete oposite.
I'm still pretty much up in the air about alternate charging methods... not much to comment on there now.
Gavvot wrote:
Hum, I think that we are going too fast. Before trying to find a way to decay, we should discuss about what life time is ok for a droid. I think that a droid should last about 100 to 300 hours.
This is why there are a number of varitables included in this suggestion. Experimentation would play into the entire equation along with the play style of the person using the droid. If the droid owner keeps the droid repaired, it will last a lot longer than a droid owned by someone who doesn't repair their droid. Any system that is designed must be flexible so that it can apply to all of the droids that we build, since our droids aren't as black and white as pets are.
100 to 300 hours is an extremely long time for some droids. For someone that only uses their droid for an hour a day, this time frame would be 4 to 10 months. For someone that uses that uses their droid 3 hours a day, this time frame would be about 1 to2 months. (Based on 100 Intergrity, loss through recharging, and 0 repairing). Through repairing, Integrity experimentation, and play style, this time can be increased. The suggested system lets each Droid Engineer decide approximately how long they want each of their creations to last, by allowing them to control how much they experiment on the droids Integrity.
That's why I'm not fond of the idea to decrease the power effectiveness with the integrity. With an integrity of 100 that drop from 100 to 0 it's easy to manage.
You're still not thinking about how the general public will look at a direct Intergrity to Charge max, as you suggest. If weapons or armor were to lose 1% of effectiveness for each 1% of decay, the forums would become a haven for petitions againist the system. What you suggest with a 1% loss of charge per 1% loss of Integrity would be viewed the same way. An X% drop after X% of Integrity is lost would be much more acceptable to the player base, since a number are already used to the HAM drop in pets. There has to be some type of visable decay linked to Integrity and HAM loss will just not cover it, since it would only effect Combat droids. I know that you will comment that this is why Vitality should stay, however having to deal with two different systems only will lead to problems with not only possible bugs popping up, but the system would become twice as complex.
Also,on the power station vs battery decay use, I think that might work like that : A power station recharge would last for exemple 3 hours, and drop 1 integrity, charging the droid at 100%. Meaning 100% = 3 hours. A battery charge would charge the droid for 1 hour, so 33%. And drop the integrity by 1 too.
But, to avoid that people charge for 100% with 3 batteries at once, to be able to charge your droid, his power must be at 0%, and there would be an option on the droid to, at the user request, drop the power to 0%.
Again, I removed the DPG since this would change the length of time that a droid could remain charged. I'm not even sure that the Auto-Recharge module would make it if parts of this proposal were looked at. Increasing the amount of time that a droid lasts may be something that the player base wants to see, however it leads to longer lasting buff-bots and more afk fighting, just to name a few.
Still not sure for the power droid, maybe he should charge for 2 hours, or 3. More than a battery, for sure, but maybe less than a station. And also remove 1 intergity on the droid per charge, the power droid itself would loose one integrity every x charges. x behing for me between 1 and 5.
If the Power Droid needs to be recharged, then the Power Core should be removed from its schematic. Giving the Power Droid an endless supply of power would allow for someone to buy a droid that can have 1 module that always works. This is another of the suggestions that may not be considered by the DEVs, but the entire point of this proposal is not to be an all or nothing suggestion. It is designed to give the DEVs a plan of action that they can think about, when designing a Decay system.
100 to 300 hour : yes,it is slow, however, for someone using his droid 10 hours a day, it's between a week and a half and a month.
Droid shouldn't fall appart like armor, they are supposed to last 100 years at least.
I took as a base the decay of a VK. That is how long a VK last. And it can be repaired...
You say that your system allow the DE to determine the lifetime of the droid.
I'm a DE, I'm not a math engineer. Your formula is nice and complex, but I, and certainly most of our customers don't have a clue on how long a droid will last.
Even with the numbers.
If there is something I don't want it's to have yet another exell sheet formula to put accurate and usefull information on my droids.
If you wanna make a decay system, at least give the following info : min lifetime, max lifetime, average lifetime.
When I say I'm not fond of the idea to drop the power use, I mean : integrity drop from 100 to 0, and it doesn't affect anything except integrity. At least I know how long will my droid last.
But if something has to drop with integrity, the way I suggested it had the big advantage to be clear and simple. Not people won't be happy about it. People won't be happy about a droid decay system anyway, unless it give them something they want. And a longer power duration is one of those.
Having 2 simple separate working system that are not related at all and that deal with totaly different issues will be less complex and less bug-friendly.
The more complex it is, the more bug you'll have. Splitting integrity and vitality avoid complexity, don't add complexity. Using integrity to deal with everything make it a maintenance nightmare.
Changing the length of battery use effect = More AFK : No. Doc can be afk buffing all day in an hospital if they want to.
Spammers won't use a barker droid and afk-spam because the lifetime of the power charge is too low.
Dancer will afk longer? Hum, droids don't give them anything but cool look. If they want to afk, they will, whatever the duration of the battery is.
AFK-fighting? I maybe wrong but if people AFK-fight it's to gain xp. A fighting droid won't help them for that, the only thing they can possibly gain is xp bonus from grouping. Wich they can have with a pet, or even an MSE with a visual effect in it.
Lifetime of power use discution is pretty pointless, unless the dev tell us why they do it. Because I honestly don't see any reason for it. Other than decay, and bring a use to droid battery.
Power Droid : yeah, the module is indeed a problem. I personaly think that the adv version with 1 module socket should go and the power droid being a power droid and nothing else. IT's not like the BLL, the power droid has an inate ability.
I think that the dev don't need a plan of action. They will do it themselves.
What they need are ideas and that's what we should provide to them.
If we could at least raise all the possible issues of a decay system based on the power use, it'll save them quite some time. Even if they don't pick the solution we proposed. Having a list of the possible problems is usually the hardest thing to do.
That's also why the stuff I propose are smaller than yours. Making the droid stop moving when they're out of poser : interesting? yes, doable? probably, hard to do? probably, mandatory to have a decay system that work? no.
See, all your ideas are good, but I think it's a good way of working to pick the most important one and keep them and look at the others and try to limit them at what require the lowest workload possible. Or at least evaluate the ROI.
All I need is a medical droid and storage.
The purpose is to bring more repeat business.
Yeah, all you need is medical and storage, but it would be nice if you had to buy a new medical and storage droid every now and then.
Keep in mind our customer base is not only limited by the usefullness of the droids, but also by the skill requirement and the 5 droid per user limitation.
That is alot of limitations.