Droid Engineer Archive

Came to this forum as an ex-MDE with an idea that has probably surfaced countless times and this seemed as good a post to plant my ideas.

Delivery droid

Apologies if this idea has been asked for numerous times...I didnt see it in this post though and hope it belongs here...I could really have used some of these recently though, sooo many deliveries!

Well, to my mind one of the main Droid features is "Repair" !!

I would like to see the following features:

a) Vehicle Repair Droids (at least as an alternative to repair disabled Vehicles)

b) Starship repair option (as an alternative to ship repair kits)

c) Power option for structures that need power (like credit mainatnace, just for power)

d) Medical Droids that support Image designer (maybe allow different options to change)

Well, probably also some changes to combat droids, but really this is mostly a CL issue, as the actual system works fine. Comparing Droids in movie to to the game I mostly notice the lag of repair features.

Just a few ideas off hand:

• Planetary Surveying Droid -- take one of these droids to a planet and survey a quadrant of the the planet, mapping out concentrations at every point on a 500-1000m grid.


• Surveying Droid -- a droid that augments an artisan's ability to survey (i.e, the presense of the droid acts as a modifier to player's surveying ability).


• Resource Refinement Droid -- give a droid a chunk of some resource and it will modify one or more stat according to some template (the player has a limited number of points that it can spread across the refinement proces, like experimentation points during crafting).

More to come later.

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Catman-Does wrote:

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Sodan-droiddreamer wrote:

Some ideas:

De-Created cyberarms and legs. Why make these loot drops only? Comination of bonuses, plus penalties will ensure that these are not "must-have" items but rather items that some players choose to take. I can just hear it now: "Nice legs! Who makes them?"

[...]

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I like this idea, would be cool if DE's could make the Cyber attachments and stuff. Maybe with BE tissues too as well as additional bonuses, they should be able to take AA attachments also.

I don't think the language thing is likely to happen as you can /tell people in plain English anyway and as Jenden says that would be a "nerf".


Anyway we digress

I really like that scan-for-player ability mentioned earlier by Atan. Been thinking about how this might possibly work and came up with this variation:

Alert Mode

There should be an option off the droid (astromech) where the owner can ask the droid to "Passive Scan for Intelligence Lifeforms". First the player sets the range of the scan, going from 32m (1x battery drain), 64m (2x battery drain), 128m (4x battery drain), 256m (6x battery drain).

The droid will scan for lifeforms - it will pick up any NPCs and players in the area (cloaked or under cover). When it detects a new lifeform in its set range it will say on spatial "Lifeform detected to the [direction ie North]" plus some funky R2 style noises. The droid will ignore any group members moving in range.

I think this would be ideal for everyone out there; GCW goers, BH's and even Jedi. The idea is that you set the droid down next to your base/lair/house/whatever, activate it's scan and should someone enter the scan circle the droid gives you a warning. And yes I know the radar does most of this functionailty but that thing isn't always reliable (update can be slow on it) and it can't warn you of invisible players. I do think this would be hard to program, especially as the droid would have to remember who's who so it didn't go alerting on every scan check it did.

Detection Mode

The owner instructs the droid to "Scan Area for hidden lifeforms", this would have a 64m range and have a 3x battery drain. When the droid detects a hidden player it would bark out on spatial "Lifeform detected to the [direction ie North West]" prehaps; if it's able; it should go and attack the target: this in itself wouldn't break the cloak/cover of the target unless that player started atatcking the droid - although this would cause more trouble for riflemen than it would for cloaked Jedi.

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Zilane wrote:

I like my droids a lot, so I check out the DE forum every now and then. I think you guys have a nice community.

I don't mean to sound petty, but these proposed abilities might be stepping on the ranger's toes a bit too much. Rangers get this tracking skill as our only unique ability (we used to have camouflage, too...). Rangers can track cloaked/covered people just fine and they might be a bit angry about losing the last of their unique skills.

I certainly don't want to start a flame war or pour water on your discussion. There are cool ideas in here. Keep 'em up.

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Good point. Constructive criticism is always good. Area track is one of the few bonuses that rangers do get and it wouldn't be good to take it away and give it to everybody. How about if these mods were only usable by ranger? Only benefiting once you have the area track skill, making their area track that much more effective. These are the things we need. The +110 med mod is a great example of helping other professions 'with' ours. I bet any ranger wouldn't mind extra help to their own features.

In the GCW, the thought of having a droid have duties to take down a base is great. Some see it as nerfing, so how about have a droid be able to step in for another profession that has to be accounted for to do the job. Only one droid in one duty would work. You don't have to have a droid to do the job, but if you can't find the right person one would help out. Or make a droid speed up some of the process, or make ita little easier to get the job done.

Our profession has been nerfed enough for others gain, no reason to do the same. No flames here for anybody. I like the mods and helping out other professions. I see it as all good!

Message Edited by Zenoee on 09-14-2005 12:34 AM

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Zilane wrote:

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Catman-Does wrote:
[lots of text ]

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I like my droids a lot, so I check out the DE forum every now and then. I think you guys have a nice community.

I don't mean to sound petty, but these proposed abilities might be stepping on the ranger's toes a bit too much. Rangers get this tracking skill as our only unique ability (we used to have camoflauge, too...). Rangers can track cloaked/covered people just fine and they might be a bit angry about losing the last of their unique skills.

I certainly don't want to start a flame war or pour water on your discussion. There are cool ideas in here. Keep 'em up.

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Yoda-5499 wrote:
[...]
Shipwrights

Buzz droids - These droids would not be made a Droid Engineer, but by a Shipwright. Use these droids as both a countermeasure and an ordinance for ships would prove very effective. As an ordinance, pilots would first a missile containing the buzz droids out in front of their target, where the missile would explode letting free the droids to attack the ship. Pilots would have to use a droid command that would allow the ship's shield to send a surge of power to the droids rendering them useless. The countermeasure would work in the same fashion except the missile would fire backwards from the ship to the enemy and explode in front of them. Master Pilot would be able to use these droids but Novice Pilot would have the ability to surge the shields to ward them off. Master Shipwrights would be able to craft them both versions.

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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>     <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
         Catman Does                      Catius           
 Dark Jedi Imperial Colonel     Droid Engineer & Shipwright
>>>Leader of STEALTH, an Imperial/Neutral Guild on Naboo<<<
>>Shopping Centre -7345 1060 --- Offers Vendor -7349 1054<<
"So instead of sticking to the thing that our players really love,
 we start changing it. And now we?re alienating the players
playing our game, losing our subscribers."- Jeff Hickman

Hmmm

Droids are there basically to do the crap jobs that people don't really want to do as far as I can see in the Star Wars films and to augment the abilities of their owners...

With this in mind...

Delivery Droid - would love to be able to pile in some items and send them off to make a delivery to either a player or their house. How fun would it be to have a droid come up to you and tell you that you have a gift inside it!

Repair droid - sorta like a portable garage - prob not able to repair from disabled but could fix a smoking swoop! Maybe different modules would allow them to repair different things...weapons..armour...

Power Droids - that could actually power things up - this would help the crafters no end as they could trot off and power up as well as pay maint to harvesters etc

Survey Droids - Used by surveyors with Survey IV to allow a wider range scan. Interplanetary survey droids should return highest conc coordinates.

Storage Droids that can hold more than 10 items - annoys me when I experiment upto 12...nuff said. Maybe give Binary Load lifters a use...

Medical droids should be able to heal better.

Grass cutter droids....mayors would love these to keep their cities nice and tidy looking!

If I think of more, I'll be back.

1. Droids need to either be fast enough to keep up with speeders, or automatically get in a speeder when it's owner does. This would allow a Droid to always be with its master without repeatedly storing and pulling.


2. Droids shuttle and travel when their owner does.


3. When droids get low on power, they recharge automatically from batteries in their owners inventory, or batteries in their droids storage compartments.


4. Make "follow owner" be the default command when a droid is pulled.


5. The Droid combat system simply must revert back to a system where the more combat modules a droid has, the better it is in combat. No one droid should be able to do everything. We need to go back to a system where pluses and minuses balance each other again.

Each of those changes would move towards more droids being used, yet at the same time, making them less "trouble." People who don't like droids could pull them when they first log on, then they are simply always there using their "passive" abilities.

Now I am going to get more into active and passive abilities. As you may notice, many passive abilities are in the game already, yet they are features everybody uses as part of the User Interface and such.

Active: These are functions you actually tell the droid to do. Current ones exist already like "attack" or "harvest." We already have a decent amount of active commands in the game. Some people already gave great examples, here may be a few more.

• Smokescreen - thins quickly, but can prevent enemy targetting, you get the you can't see target message. These modules stack, the more modules, the longer the smokescreen lasts. The downside is the droid putting the smokescreen out can still be seen.


• Jam Radar - Will block enemy radar that is close to it, this can be countered by the later descrbed passive droid radar ability. These modules would stack, a droid with 8 Jamming modules would Jam as good as 8 droids with one module.


• Distress call - Basically a Radar communication module. Could allow access to Imperial or Rebel chat channels, or another option is to be able to supply it with a long list of names, then with a command send a tell to that entire list of names at once. Would be great for times when a base is under attack and such.


• Turret Repair - Will repair a Turret as it is being attacked, unfortunately, it can be killed as well. These Modules would stack as well, the more modules, the faster a Turret would be repaired. It should be very hard to repair a Turret with droids fixing it, you should need to kill the Droids first.


• Electronic Assasination Module - First this module will put on your radar screen the location of all enemy droids. This is more of a passive feature. However, when the assasinate mode is turned on, it will seek out the closest enemy Droid and attempt to kill it. It will find the droid, attack it and if it wins, move on to the next enemy droid. A probot could get a bonus for this ability.


• Cloaking Module - This one is very debateable. It would be short term, (the more cloaking modules, the longer it could cloak.) It would primarily be a tool for getting an Electronic Assasination droid or Detonation droid close to their targets. The downside is that the Cloaking modules would take up detonation or combat slots, making it weaker in that area. So it would be a trade-off.

I'll add more as I think of them, you guys already said many good ones.

Passive: These functions are ones that are always on, you don't need to tell the droid anything to turn them on. Current examples are Medical and Crafting modules. Just by having the droid there, these items work. These should be the bread and butter of droids. That way, people who don't want to control pets can just have their droids tag along.

• Languages - change it to where knowing an extra language costs 1 skill point. If you don't spend that point, you can't learn that language. However, as a passive function, a Protocol droid will let you understand them. No work required, simply have the droid follow you around.


• Radar - Right now everybody gets Radar for free, this should be taken away. However, simply having a droid equipped with a Radar Module follow you around provides a Radar to you. This droid can be countered by the Jam fucntion in PVP, but Jam is much shorter ranged. Group droids can also work together, meaning if you have 4 Radar droid owners in your group, and the enemy has 3 Jammers, you still have Radar. If they kill 2 of your Radar Droids, you lose radar, and need to kill one of theirs or get more. These modules stack as well, the more Radar modules you have, the farther out your radar will work. 1 module equals 32 meters, 2 equals 64 meters and so on. Also more modules are desired so they can counter Jamming modules.


• Targetting bonus - You get +50 to both ranged and melee attacks, due to the droid providing targetting information. These modules would stack as well, however, you would only get +5 for each extra module.


• Defensive Bonus - You get +50 melee and ranged defense dueto the droid warning you about incomming attacks. These modules would stack as well, however, you would only get +5 for each extra module.


• Medical Droids - These would stay the same, however stacking of some sort would be permitted, you wouldn't get as big of a bonus from extra modules as from the first, but there would be an advantage to stacking.

There are many more good ideas to add. The key thing about passive abilities is that you don't need to worry about them being strong. You don't need to control the droids, they are simply there following you. I have zero problem with seeing 8 droids following a group of people into the DWB, I don't have an issue with every PVPer controlling a Droid. People should be stronger with a droid, a smart person kills the droid first.

Done properly, both active and passive changes could make the game a lot more Star Warsy and fun at the same time. It would also be a lot more tactical. Currently, you need to make sure that you have Docs, CMs, Smugglers, Melee, and Ranged all along with you to be successful. With droids working right, you would also need to have the right mix of droids. With each person having 5 droid slots, this would not be that hard.

My new changes are in an effort to put more stacking back into droids. No one droid should be able to do everything, you should have to pick and choose. However, a droid that is focused on one thing such as Radar or Combat should be much better at it then a droid who just dabbles in it.

There would also probably need to be some changes to Droid calling and surviveability as well. I think you should be able to call a droid in combat, but not store one. Simply healing a droid should not put it back into the fight. If it is a tactical advantage to kill the droids first, it should be an advantage that is not countered by just bringing the droid right back. However, it this is made true, we also need to ensure that Droids are not simple kills.

Message Edited by Straker_Atrella on 09-15-2005 06:46 PM