Droid Engineer Archive

Any droid can always be refurbished (thought it may end up costing the customer more than the original price of the droid if its a cheap droid). A non-combat droid is considered "dead" when it has 0 integrity and is therefore "disabled" (but can be brought back by the DE).

I agree that the side effects may be tricky to implement... but I think it would be a very cool way of doing things and it can't hurt to ask.

There is a market for actual crated combat droids (probots, R3's, LE's). Its not a huge market, and not a whole lot of DE's tap in to it, but its definately there.

As far as the 1 month thing goes... you have to keep in mind, thats for someone who hasn't paid the slightest bit of attention to their droid's condition. Thats like saying you could ride a speaker bike around regularly for a month before you needed to repair it.

From what I have read on these boards I have come up with 2 things that players want to see.
1. Decaying droids for the reasons stated above.
2. To have droids a playable character with upgradable options from a DE.
If you look at these two things, you cannot have both for they contradict each other. If players were able to be droids then decay would be out of the question because they wouldnt be balanced with everyone else. So first things first I think we should decide which you want more. Then go from there. If you push for 1 thing your more likely to get it than pushing for everything.

Further more after reading more on this topic of droid decay it seems to me that you are all losing sight of game continuity with the star wars universe. Yes droids sometimes need repairs, we have reconstruction and repair kits not to mention batteries, but what you are suggesting is nothing more than your own greed. You want customers to come back to you so you can stay in the money. Players change professions as often as they change udnerwear and there are always new players coming and going, droids are currently a factor for everyone, hell even my creature handler/ranger uses a tank to help out with his pets. The point is you are trying to come up with ways to line your own pockets not help the universe.
Another note on Upgradeable Player Droid toons, is that hello there is your business right there. being able to take a player and upgrade them with ever one of their new skills and levels would make you far more money than decaying droids ever could. There thats my two credits.

Message Edited by Eceen on 02-18-2005 09:14 AM

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Eceen wrote:
From what I have read on these boards I have come up with 2 things that players want to see.
1. Decaying droids for the reasons stated above.
2. To have droids a playable character with upgradable options from a DE.
If you look at these two things, you cannot have both for they contradict each other. If players were able to be droids then decay would be out of the question because they wouldnt be balanced with everyone else. So first things first I think we should decide which you want more. Then go from there. If you push for 1 thing your more likely to get it than pushing for everything.

Further more after reading more on this topic of droid decay it seems to me that you are all losing sight of game continuity with the star wars universe. Yes droids sometimes need repairs, we have reconstruction and repair kits not to mention batteries, but what you are suggesting is nothing more than your own greed. You want customers to come back to you so you can stay in the money. Players change professions as often as they change udnerwear and there are always new players coming and going, droids are currently a factor for everyone, hell even my creature handler/ranger uses a tank to help out with his pets. The point is you are trying to come up with ways to line your own pockets not help the universe.
Another note on Upgradeable Player Droid toons, is that hello there is your business right there. being able to take a player and upgrade them with ever one of their new skills and levels would make you far more money than decaying droids ever could. There thats my two credits.

Message Edited by Eceen on 02-18-2005 09:14 AM

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I would love to see playable droids... but I think that thats enough work that it would pretty much be its own expansion. That being said, even if it does come to be, the droid players will already be significantly different enough from regular droids that any decay rules that applied to NPC droids wouldn't apply to player droids. Either way though, thats so far off in the distant future (and possibly never even going to happen) that it doesn't solve any current issues.

As far as lining our own pockets... this is a crafting profession. The goal of the profession and everyone in it is to craft droids, whether that be because they like crafting droids, they want to make credits at it, or some other reason. At the end of the day, the best way to increase the number of droids you make/sell is to add some kind of decay into the system. I could personally care less about making credits, already have more than I need and have enoug stuff I could sell off that I'd probably never need to sell another droid again if I wanted. However, I still enjoy building droids, and (due to the lack of droid turnover) the order's just aren't there. I've had customers ask me if there's anything new with droids because they want to get a new droid, but don't have any reason to since their old droid is working just fine. We can only help the universe when it needs help, and since people are still using my droids from august of '03, its not needing much help in the realm of droids.

Added a thread for non-DE's to comment on this proposal and droid decay in general so we can get their take on it. Please point your respective communities this way so they can share their comments. I think a key part of a decay proposal is developing something that both DE's and customers find acceptable.

I think the proposal is very good Jenden with one exception so far for me at least: I think a mouse droid should be the one most likely to fail (shorter decay time) because if they are made to decay longer then everyone will want the MSE's and we wont be making that much of a profit. I understand what you say that protocol droids should break down more often, but then people will see that and not buy them because of it. I think it should be price = longer duration.

As for refurbishing, I think it should be just like weapons and armor. Each refurbish should take off a bit out of its total condition. After a while people would want to buy a new droid but only after a pretty long time (maybe 6 months for a casual player?)

Its hard to think of actual numbers to the decay system but that can always be tweaked in testing to suit both DE's and the customer satisfaction.

1. Droids should never auto-store. Nothing should. Too easy to mistake for a bug, and is way too annoying


2. You should never completely lose an ability, but having the rating fall once the droid reaches 50% for any module ratings does sound fair (ex. A 110 rated medical module would begin to lose its rating at a rate equal to 1% for every percentage decay below 50% integrity).


3. A hard limit of one month of lifeshould not be the goal. The goal should be usage. Someone who rarely uses a droid should see that droid last a lot longer than someone who pulls a medical droid out every day for hours at a time.

There should be reasons for people to get new droids, such as new modules, give them more uses add more module slots, as well as moer datapad spaces for droids. Also in response to your next post which I do believe is aimed towards me, Nimog Dax one of my alts has been a master DE for over a year so I have every right to be here and post here.

Good first pass. Here's my feedback:

1) I don't think batteries should be in the decay equation. It seems a bit excessive.

2) The random power-down (auto-storing) of a decaying droid might also be a bit excessive. Also, lowering its performance as it gets bad decay is excellent...not so much with a random module not working.

3) I really, really, really like the idea of a disabled droid showing cool sparks and in a powered down state, like a disabled bike.

4) Excellent idea on the vitality/refurbishment kits. Users should have the ability to repair their own droids, but at a penality if a DE doesn't do it.

5) I can see a long-disabled droid being pulled out, have items stored and retrieved, and stored. We should make sure that items can be retrieved, but not stored in a disabled droid. Not sure if that's what you were alluding to, so I wanted to point that out.

Some general comments:
Ok, decay on battery recharge is comming out. I had just thrown it in there to add a little extra push but numbers can always be tweaked.

The auto-storing... this one seems to be a bit up in the air. I think a good compromise there would be for the droid to just stop responding (and maybe have a little indicator over it to represent that its having problems)

Modules stopping working... The idea with this was that you could get the module working again if you stored and called the droid back out. My goal is that the droid should still be useable as it starts to break down, but gets to be a bit inconvenient to deal with all its little glitches.

now some specific replies:

neinnunb:
I definately see your point about cheap droids decaying faster. I think the best way to look at it is to have 2 factors that determine its base (not actual calculated values, just things to keep in mind). The price of the droid (higher quality droids last longer) as well as the complexity of the droid (droids with more small delicate parts break easier). I'll see if I can come up with a heirarchy with these things in mind.

As for the refurbishment thing, droids aren't quite like weapons/armor. People get attached to them, people like having them around. The refurbishment kit provides a guaranteed (yet pricey) method of restoring your droid.

Grayseven:
A one month hard limit here is not the goal, thats just an approximation for an average droid thats used an average amount of time. Since decay is based directly off of how much the droid is used, that plays a big role in how fast it decays.

Eceen:
Adding more abilities doesn't solve the problem this is aiming for. Its not so much a lack of sales (though that is one of the symptoms), its the fact that its completely possible for a server market to be permanently saturated with droids. Its like taking pain killers for an infected wound instead of going to the hospital. Sure, things get better for a while, but after they wear off you're right back to where you started.

Straker:
You're comments on the refurbishment are good, and here's something along those lines (something that may be easier to implement and also solves another issue that people have had). Allowing a droid that is disabled (and only a disabled droid) to be "deconstructed" into just the advanced chassis of the droid (all modules in the droid would be destroyed). This would allow a DE to "rebuild" an old droid, and at the same time give the user the opportunity to change around the configuration a bit. The main downside I can see to this is that it only works for droids that have advanced chassis.

RasalTheWise:
When a droid is disabled items/data cannot be added to storage, only removed.

I will refer to my post in YodaMac's thread entitled " Repeat Droid Sales Without Mandatory Droid Decay." http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=106012 posted here. There are alternatives, this should be a discusion on the best course of action not a settlement on what you have already decided for us, and the ways to implement it.

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Eceen wrote:
I will refer to my post in YodaMac's thread entitled " Repeat Droid Sales Without Mandatory Droid Decay." http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=106012 posted here. There are alternatives, this should be a discusion on the best course of action not a settlement on what you have already decided for us, and the ways to implement it.

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There are a couple big problems with a modularity system. First and foremost, it would require an immense amount of time. First, you're talking about a complete revamp of how droids are stored in the database, a complete revamp of how droid abilities are treated by the system, and a new UI system.

Secondly, This would increase the database storage required for each and every droid by as much as 6 times the current amount. Thats a big increase.

Finally, the majority of the profession does not want modularity. It has been discussed (and I'm sure it will continue to be discussed), but until there's even a large minority that wants a modular system a decay system is a better use of my time.

That doesn't stop you from trying to develop a modularity proposal, and if it gets enough community support maybe it will replace this one, but until that happens I will continue working on what the community has requested.