Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: What would you do to improve our profession?
Iggep
Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:31 am
#14
This topic has been beat to death several times over. Revisit all the comments and plan that were discussed last January, prior to the droid invasion publishes. Tons and tons and tons of great ideas were thrown out then.
rushy68
Sun Oct 24, 2004 2:09 pm
#15
The droid commander idea is horrible.. how does this sound....
Why should WE be able to hold mreo then 1 droid? i don't really want specials for the droids or anything.. but i think DE's should be able to call many many many droids at once.. i love the idea of my character running around with a crowd of MSE droids following him eh?
LonelyGhost
Sun Oct 24, 2004 2:11 pm
#16
1. Bugs
1a. Chassis Balance
2. Decay
3. More Chassis
4. Better AI
5. More *useful* functionality
6. Factory nerf
Fix the dang bugs! Surgical storage, naming humanoid droids...all the crap thats been busted since Launch!
Give chassis inherent functions, and LIMIT the kind of modules that can go in chassis. Its absurd to have an MSE with 110% medical rating! BLL should carry more than 10 items! Protocol's should translate! etc...
We gotta have decay. I dont see too many people complaining because they have to replace their armor or guns. THey just do it. Its just the way it is. Droids could be the same way. I too would LOVE to be able to treat droids like we do Ships. Let us swap out parts! Each time you unload a component, it decays a little. Each time the droid gets damaged or destroyed, it decays a lot.
We just need more dang chassis!
AI needs to be more interactive, more immersive. This one could be tough, but would be very cool.
They should be able to do stuff for us that we dont want to do, like deliver stuff to other people, deposit creds or power in harvs, empty the hoppers for us. Reduce maint on structues they are assigned to.
Factories producing cookie-cutter droids in massive quantities hurts those who can not keep up with that playstyle. Actually, DE probably has it the best since we are the hands-down winner in component complexity. But I would still like to see factories schematics put back to 100 items, as they were meant to be in the beginning.
ChaadLosan
Sun Oct 24, 2004 2:13 pm
#17
Components. Just like starships selling upgraded or different components that can be installed by the user like you can with a ship.
Gorantoth
Sun Oct 24, 2004 2:52 pm
#18
I would like to have the chassis types compressed... no more basic and advanced models.At the same time,I'd like to see a "chassis" type object for every droid (except maybe the MSE). This way, we can factory produce the chassis for each model and then the final build would use that chassis, some resources, andall the optional modules.
Another thing I'd do is remove the level modules and turn them into a single module (Data module perhaps being an exception). Nobody I know builds the lower level modules unless they're stacking them to equate a higher level module.
Statho
Sun Oct 24, 2004 4:11 pm
#19
I'm just throwing out some ideas. I want some of these implemented right away (#1, #2) but I think the top 5 should have precedence over others.
1. Use the ship chassis/component system for droids.
2. Droid components decay, chassis don't. We get the best of both worlds.
3. Droid commands for the ground game. "Don't run when attacked", "harvest current focus from any creature I kill", etc. Then data modules will be useful everywhere.
4. No experimentation for unprogrammed command modules - give the new DEs something they can sell.
5. Droid or FC for hyperspace. The basic ones could be cheap - the high level programs are worth having, so people will upgrade. New product for starting DEs. I recall only Jedi being able to nav hyperspace without assistance (using the force), but that may have just been WEG's game.
6. I would love to see combat droids, personally. I don't think that's where our strength lies, however. BEs make the real combat tanks and CHs use them; our domain is the utilitarian pet. But what about Combat droid chassis/statues?
7. Crafting should cause you to accrue Fatigue. I don't know how much, but it should. There are a couple reasons I want this: first isn't not fair that combatants have to deal with it while crafters don't, second it'd slow down FS crafter grinders a little.
It seems like I can't cross town without tripping over DEs nowadays, because advanced droid frames are the most efficient way to get FS crafting xp. This has me worried. Already I see people advertising MDE products for less than 20k. I don't think our profession can handle the price depression that hit the architects, but I see it coming. Without some sort of repeat business, we're hosed.
1. Use the ship chassis/component system for droids.
2. Droid components decay, chassis don't. We get the best of both worlds.
3. Droid commands for the ground game. "Don't run when attacked", "harvest current focus from any creature I kill", etc. Then data modules will be useful everywhere.
4. No experimentation for unprogrammed command modules - give the new DEs something they can sell.
5. Droid or FC for hyperspace. The basic ones could be cheap - the high level programs are worth having, so people will upgrade. New product for starting DEs. I recall only Jedi being able to nav hyperspace without assistance (using the force), but that may have just been WEG's game.
6. I would love to see combat droids, personally. I don't think that's where our strength lies, however. BEs make the real combat tanks and CHs use them; our domain is the utilitarian pet. But what about Combat droid chassis/statues?
7. Crafting should cause you to accrue Fatigue. I don't know how much, but it should. There are a couple reasons I want this: first isn't not fair that combatants have to deal with it while crafters don't, second it'd slow down FS crafter grinders a little.
It seems like I can't cross town without tripping over DEs nowadays, because advanced droid frames are the most efficient way to get FS crafting xp. This has me worried. Already I see people advertising MDE products for less than 20k. I don't think our profession can handle the price depression that hit the architects, but I see it coming. Without some sort of repeat business, we're hosed.
TIFON
Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:05 pm
#20
What about having special quest, just like the RIS armor for Armorsmiths, maybe we could handle a Droideka after doing that, that will keep the Droideka rare and powerful. Or maybe something like the AV-21 Schematic, after doing a real hard Combat quest you receive a SuperBattleDroid Schematic.
Well just some ideas.
Jeryld
Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:23 pm
#21
Well, here are my thoughts for what they are worth...
1. The best chance we have of getting any change implemented is to come up with an idea that will have a positive benefit to as many players as possible.
2. Personally, I don't think bigger combat droids are the right way to go. For one thing, it just raises a whole lot of other issues,and would only benefit (directly) the proposed Droid Commander / Commando or whatever profession...apart from anything else, I think if this class were ever implemented, we would lose whatever proportion of dev's attention we have - things like protocol droids not working with storage modules etc etc would never get fixed - the dev's main focus for droid related would switch to DC's - DE's would be lucky to get any fixes, let alone new things to play with.
3. Personally, I feel we should focus on droid utility rather than combat ability. There are already plenty of ways to stab / burn / freeze / pummel etc your foes into submission...do we really need more? The novelty would wear off pretty quickly.
4. Before any droid decay system is implemented, droids need to become more useful / desirable - else there's a good chance people will not bother with them, and we'll end up losing business we can't afford to lose rather than gaining custom through repairs / new droid orders etc.
I still feel that the most fun, useful and most widely beneficial feature for the player base would be to implement the playermacro system for droids, with a few aditional commands. The Unprogrammed Command Modules brought in with JTL would be a perfect way of loading up macros on droids - I think with very little effort on the devs part we could a system where droids could carry out a whole host of tasks, could become genuinely useful, and actually droid-ish (where as now they are just walking crafting stations to most people).
The possibilites that macros for droids would introduce to the game are, to my mind,immense - and as there is already a macro system in the game that can be used to automate players actions, this could be something that would not require extensive development time.
Cheers
rushy68
Sun Oct 24, 2004 7:58 pm
#22
I still feel that the most fun, useful and most widely beneficial feature for the player base would be to implement the playermacro system for droids, with a few aditional commands. The Unprogrammed Command Modules brought in with JTL would be a perfect way of loading up macros on droids - I think with very little effort on the devs part we could a system where droids could carry out a whole host of tasks, could become genuinely useful, and actually droid-ish (where as now they are just walking crafting stations to most people).
The possibilites that macros for droids would introduce to the game are, to my mind,immense - and as there is already a macro system in the game that can be used to automate players actions, this could be something that would not require extensive development time.
BEST IDEA I'VE HEARD IN A LONG LONG TIME
rushy68
Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:01 pm
#23
sry bout double post 
not my fault
not my fault i double-clicked tab... i had no idea tab was enter.. i was trying to margin
Drashk
Sun Oct 24, 2004 8:11 pm
#24
rushy68 wrote:
I still feel that the most fun, useful and most widely beneficial feature for the player base would be to implement the playermacro system for droids, with a few aditional commands. The Unprogrammed Command Modules brought in with JTL would be a perfect way of loading up macros on droids - I think with very little effort on the devs part we could a system where droids could carry out a whole host of tasks, could become genuinely useful, and actually droid-ish (where as now they are just walking crafting stations to most people).
The possibilites that macros for droids would introduce to the game are, to my mind,immense - and as there is already a macro system in the game that can be used to automate players actions, this could be something that would not require extensive development time.
BEST IDEA I'VE HEARD IN A LONG LONG TIME
Wow....you really like that idae. 
I'm glad that someone brought it up, since it is part of the thread that I am putting together.
JaxStarblaze
Sun Oct 24, 2004 9:42 pm
#25
rushy68's idea on droid macros is very sound and should be implemented. Sadly, its so logical it will never be done
Gron_DM
Sun Oct 24, 2004 10:37 pm
#26
I hate sounding like a fanboy but same items that almost everyone lists overall:
1: Make droids decay at some reasonable rate
2: Make some modules decay, specifically there are potential for all modules to decay
3: Make Droids as close as possible to being required by elite professions or so excellent at adding to tasks that they are indispensible. This is a hard suggestion to back up the dynnamics of each profession would be involved in making droids have agreater level of integration in elite profs then they do now....
4: Combat droid variety, and DHsome announcement about a timeline on these would be great
5: DE in JTL so far is stronger for us then other normal craft profs but the F/C requires no skills or good resources and the atromechs arent used in enough crafts...Worse is that the perks at times are neglible....
6: No education on how droids help pilots that is automatically provided to them(unless they get a good saleperson DE..) that last issue has been around since game launched....