Droid Engineer Archive

feral droids

feral

droids

HUH?

You know how you tame a feral droid? with a blaster and some replacement parts.

First of all, I'll say I definately like the idea. As long as it is created so that neither CH nor DH have an advantage over the other, players will choose whichever they would rather have. Also, if you keep the pre-requisites you've got now it would take more skillpoints than CH, meaning that if the droids are a little more powerful it would come at a cost.

One thing I think would be an interesting addition (as well as a reason for using the ability to capture droids) would be to add a "scavenge" ability. This would allow the DH to sift through the droid for any spare parts. Most of the time you'd find junk, maybe a battery if your lucky, but there's a small chance (a larger chance with more difficult droids) of finding a rare/usefull part, which can be used by a DE to create a new droid.

I would ask that people don't dismiss this out of hand. Yes, it is very similar to CH, yes, it is essentially the clone of a profession, but does that really pose a problem. It is different enough though that you will see some of both. Another idea to limit it so both are not possible at the same time you could have the CL rating you had limit the total CL you could control at any given time. It would be a bit tricky, you'd have to implement it so the droid level restricted droids, the creature level restricted creature, and whichever was higher restricted your total. Anyway, thats jsut a side idea.

For those of you that don't like it, come up with something better (aside from the vague ideas that have been posted so far).

One side ALWAYS HAS an advantage.

I would like to see somethng along the lines of a DH profession. Mainly because I think there's too much **edit** about SWG as it is today

Uhm... Why is a word like p o k e m o nedited out?

Sox, no doubt you've put a lot of thought into this, and I'm almost convinced. However, I have a few problems.. mainly nitpicks.

I hate the Droid Handler term with a passion. No one handles droids, they command them. If there is a new profession is should be droid commander. Not that any of us has a say in the matter...

Next is why should I dedicate such an ungodly amount of skillpoints for so few droids? If I do that I want 25-50 different styles of droids to choose from. I like variety.

I would much rather have droid certs tied into master-elite professions, both crafting and combat, however no matter the number of elite professions mastered you'd be capped at having 1-2 droids out at once, no dabbling involved there.

I think this proposal is great.

Frankly, I think the idea of taming droids in the wild is brilliant. Imagine how cool it would be to have random droids just roaming the planets.

I do have one suggestion for taming (capturing)droids- Give DE-built droids some sort of advantage over droids tamed in the wild. The most immediate advantage I can think of would be the inclusion of armor. In other words, DH's would mostly tame in the wild (or urban settings) for droid handling experience, or to acquire "fodder" droids, relatively speaking. To get the best droids, they will need to capture a player-built droid.

And yes, I do mean capture a player-built droid. I'm not sure of the exact form the capturing should take, but I think it would best be modeled after slicing instead of item repair. In other words, you'll always capture the droid successfully, but certain bonuses could be added to the droid depending on how well you capture it.

And using a looted Jawa rifle will give you a droid capturing bonus, hehe.

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Eutock wrote:

Imagine how cool it would be to have random droids just roaming the planets.

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Just to clarify, yes I realize that NPC droids roam urban areas. I was referring specifically to "in the wild" droids.

So where is the actual diversity in the game? Honestly , you said it, MDE/MDH should equal MBE/MCH.

Where the hell is the fun in that?Its just adding the same profession with a metallic skin. Its a horrible idea cause i seriously think the Devs are lazy! I say if you make a STAR WARS game base it off of STAR WARS! not P o k e m o n. gimme a break.

How many DE's out there thought when they had the chance at making droids that they would get to build these great machines and use them with their full knowledge of actually building them? I went DE because i thought that i would get to build and play with these machines. Now it sounds like all my hard work went into just building them. Screw that.

I said this on another post........ The way they are handling the Droid issues directly reflects how this game is actually ran and built. The Devs are the DE's. They built it, know every aspect of the game. They know what went into it and how it works. But they cant use it cause they dont know how to.

We are the Droid Handlers. We have no i dea how SWG was constructed. We just know it is a powerful tool. But we know how to use it better than the Devs. We see the flaws, the bugs, the lag. Now wouldn't it be great if we could fix those problems?

Its just my opinion on the whole SWG. And to answer any comments about how i should go play another game. SWG has all the potential in the world to be a great game. I stick around to see if that is gonna happen.

Flamers...................................flame away

Precursor to a collection of replies coming. Been thinking a lot more about possible ways of expanding the proposal.

Starting professions. I do agree that scout may not be the best option. An alternative that I was thinking off would be Brawler/Unarmed instead of the two scout trees. The skillpoint cost is a fraction less, but for someone that is a CH trying to master both, they would have to now take 4 starting professions, so the initial skillpoint cost is approximately the same. A reason for justifying unarmed is that these droids are foistly little buggers and sometimes you just have to get in there and restle with them to get that restraining bolt attached if they are being "uncooperative".

On - "Why capture a droid rather than destroy it?" and the sibling "What properties would a captured droid have?". Most droids have storage compartments either for item storage or data. Any wild droid would have one of these two. Destroying a droid would result in the destruction of any contained items. Thus, it may be in the interest of a party to have a DH along for the ride to disable a droid and loot it for interesting information. For example, a monthly story arc would have to get the plans of the Deathstar from a wandering R2 unit's data storage compartment. Thus, it is in your interest to not destroy the droid as you have also destroyed information vital to the rebellion. Compartments may contain other loot items too (hopefully not CDEFs and 1 unit of crappy polymer!). Potentially we could have a very rare droid that is far better in one stat than anything else - for example a 120 med rating.

On being too much like CH. Well yes, that is the idea. TO those that have said that, you have glossed over the most important point in the first post. There is a very, very good reason for this. With cookie cutter stuff, we can get something into the game very quickly. Once oyu have something there, it is easier to tweak and modify, that it is to add a complete new system. Think of this initial proposal as a first step towards a much grander vision. Since it is somewhat of a direct clone of CH, but with metal skins, most of the systems are already in-place in the game code. We can get this in fairly soon for you, rather than a much longer wait to get something very different. And, it does add variety. Every time you add a new profession, there are more possible combinations one could have. Although it looks the same, it probably won't be played the same. For a start, a big element of this is the non-destructive side - droid capturing and reprogramming. This is the same thing as a CH taming and mounting babies for others - there is a non-destructive part to it as well if you want to go that way.

One thing I think would be an interesting addition (as well as a reason for using the ability to capture droids) would be to add a "scavenge" ability. This would allow the DH to sift through the droid for any spare parts.

I had something along these lines when I put my first version together. On reflection, I thought that it would not be the best place to put it. To me a DH is more of a combat-oriented droid person, where the engineer is the one that is likely to do the reverse-engineering of an existing droid. Examining a live, captured droid by a DE would reveal certain secret parts or something equivalent. However, I am easily swayed on this one. Reverse-engineering (or grabbing droid parts) is something that should be in-game (reverse-engineering for most artisan profesions, actually) and thus the droid area should have at least one profession capable of dealing with it.

One side ALWAYS HAS an advantage.

And, your point being? Yes, a profession has an advantage. It also has disadvantage. Have a look at dev tracker to see what the devs are doing. They're trying to make each profession distinct with both an advantage and a disadvantage. That's what I have put into the proposal from the start. You get some nice advantages, you get a couple of big disadvantages too. Each player has to way up which advantages are more to their liking and which t their disliking. If every CH was to give up today and move to DH tomorrow, would you complain about this? I guarantee you that there would be a new wave of people filling the just vacated CH shoes, simply because they like to play the "anti-profession" - the one that is not the FOTM.

I hate the Droid Handler term with a passion. No one handles droids, they command them. If there is a new profession is should be droid commander.

Me too, but I'm just going with the flow on this right now. Droid Commander sounds good, except for the capture elements of the profession. I've tossed many different names around in my head and can't come up with anything good. Droid Controller, Droid Mercenary, Droid Ringmaster etc etc. My thoughts are to use Master Droid Commander as the title that can be used for the Master skill box, and leave DH as the basic profession title.

Next is why should I dedicate such an ungodly amount of skillpoints for so few droids? If I do that I want 25-50 different styles of droids to choose from. I like variety.

I agree there. I have a listing of about 20 different combat droid types that could be aviable during this time period. Most readers would not know them if I started rattling off names. From a developer's viewpoint, don't try to ask for the world first up. By putting in just 5 to start with, that makes it appear reasonable to implement fairly quickly. Remember that for each droid there must be geoometry modelling, texture modelling, behavioural modelling as well as the various animations. That alone takes very serious amounts of manpower ie we're talking about 2-3 man-months per droid/creature alone here. So, the idea is to get the system in place and then augment it every month or two with 3-4 new droid chassis for the variety.

How many DE's out there thought when they had the chance at making droids that they would get to build these great machines and use them with their full knowledge of actually building them?

Hoist a poll and see what you get as answers. My educated guess is less than half did (I know of the 10 or so apprentices I've had in the last 5 months, none of them have stated they took up the profession for this reason). As others have already stated in other threads - if the reason you took up DE was purely this, you need to get your reading skills checked. Nowhere was this ever promised. All that is promised is the ability to build droids.

Since Drashk has come out with his ideas, just giving my own a bump for all the morning people to have a look at and comment/complain about.

With the disclaimer that DH goes against everything that is Star Wars to me...

Here are some (hopefully) constructive ideas:

1. Rename the profression to Combat DE. Rename DE to Utility DE if you like.
2. Don't having a taming branch. Jawas stole droids, they did not name 'wild' droids.
3. Allow CDEs to build combat droids. UDEs build Utility Droids.
4. Module overlap between CDEs and UDEs should be minimal if allowed at all.

The prerequsite professions differ, although both rely on Engineering 4, CDE would also required Ranged Weapon Combat Support 4.

I understand, this is a half-baked idea, but it starts to have a little more meat to it than "we're CHs only with Droids".

Mobreen.

The more I read about this the more I think squad leader should be your "droid handler". Squad leader is the fellow who is trained to direct groups in combat scenarios. I don't recall ever encountering a master squad leader in the game; so this would be a nice feature to add the these fellows and it would still fall in line with the "Star Wars" scheme. Why create a new class when we have one already just waiting for a big boost like this? I know, sounds wierd to hear someone say give a class I don't play more specialized abilities but I'm wierd that way.