Droid Engineer Archive

Alot of good points here. I feel the same way.

Where's the future buisness? Sure, every once in a great while a newbie will join the server, and I'll get to sell a droid. In the mean time, everyone has all the droids they need.

The only buisness left is Bounty Hunter droids. But.. Guess what? What bounty hunter will need them or want to use them once they are a Master BH? Since, after all, all the droids are good for is doing BH missions.

I forsee myself makeing Droid Batteries, Weapon Powerups,Weapon/Armor repair kits and electronic components. But Wait! Can't a standard artisian do all those things??

I get closer and closer each day to dropping the profession. I'm not sure how things are on other servers. But, on Flurry I see new DE's every day it seems. Where dothey think they are going to get thier sales? Do they think the rumor's of Droidecas are true? They may be, who knows? But if the standard is followed, each DE will get to sell about 100 to 200 Droidecas and it will be over.

Maybe I should go be a Weaponsmith, or a Armorsmith? At least thier items decay. And they can have repeat buisness.

Any further thoughts?

Amok

Droid Engineer

Flurry

I have a number of suggestions to improve the situation:

• Define exactly what modules can fit in each type of droid, giving each droid some limitations (ie MSE can contain only a Data module 1 - 4 say).


• Get rid of the module clusters and add more slots to the droids that could use them, so that any droid that could use a GMC gets 2 more module slots and thats it. Its stupid that you can put every single module into an MSE droid for example.


• Let droid components decay over time, based on the quality of the materials used to create the module.


• Let droid modules take damage when the droid is in combat and takes damage.


• Let DE's repair and replace the modules in a droid - if it breaks, you can go get it fixed. If it takes enough damage over time, you can get a new frame and reuse the old modules - kinda like upgrading a PC.


• Give the various occupation specific droids a defined and exclusive function. ie a Surgery droid comes with a built-in module that is rated 120 in Medical Capability Rating - making it better than any other droid at helping a medical professional. Give BLLs the ability to accept only Storage Modules, but let them have an item limit of say 200 - making them worth having for the extra storage capacity alone. Let MSEs be able to carry and transfer an item from one person to another - you just name the person and the MSE goes and finds them then opens a window for them to remove the item in question. Let Probots, well, "probe" - give them the ability to have a Survey module installed and let them go and survey for the best spot for a given resource - or let them be sent to find enemy faction members or bases (with the probot AND the owner getting a TEF of course). Each droid should have a defined purpose or range of purposes with the R series being the general purpose ones that can accept the largest variety of modules. A probot should not accept a crafting station for instance (even though this is a popular combo).


• Let owners have up to 3 droids out at once - but only one that has a combat capability at a time. So I can deploy my Probot to guard me, my repair droid to heal the probot, and my power droid to keep the other two powered up if needs be. Or have a probot and a crafting droid deployed at the same time.


• Let us program our droids to automatically do harvester maintenance for us, loading them up with X credits, X power etc beforehand. Perhaps this would require a team of R-series, BLL (to carry the resources needed), and Power droid to work effectively.


• Add a slicing module to help out Smugglers with their skills. Add other modules to help other professions with their skills and actions (Image Design software etc).


• Give the basic Protocol droid the ability to do *something* whatever it might be

1). There's always player turnover.

2) Each player will go through several droids IF the droids have purpose. If an astromech droid is needed to improve speeder performance, or flight performance, and a harvester droid can be used to harvest resources, and a surveying droid can be used to survey, and a surgical droid is the ONLY droid allowed to be made with a surgical module, then people will buy several. Also, note that the customization, and the color are scheduled to fade over time. So when they get this fixed, DEs should be able to re-customize a droid as necessary. Combat droids should wear out too.

There's plenty of work for DEs if the developers would start to work on the droids!

People will buy droids for these reasons:

1)New player turnover.

2) Players will go through several droids IF droids have a purpose. If an astromech droid is required to improve speeder performance, or flight performance, or if a harvester droid can be used to harvest resources, or if a surveyor droid can be used to survey, or if a surgical droid is the ONLY droid allowed to have a surgical module, or if a power droid can be used to power harvesters without using other forms of energy, or if combat droids are developed -- then people will buy several droids through their SWG career.

3) Customization on droids is already scheduled to fade over time, allowed DEs to re-customize the droid.

4) If the black line on droids is non-repairable, so that droids will wear out over time, this would also help. (I don't want permadeath. People should not lose their droids permanently just walking them through the frontier.)

Excellent essay JaatoWaals.

What burns me is that it's really not that complicated to get this profession into a state of semi-respectibility.

1. Implement a cerfitication system.Simply, force modules to be inserted into droids of the same skill level or higher.


2. Make droids decay over time as they are used, similar to weapons and armor.


3. Have functioning droid repair tools that can repair the decay, just like, geez, weapons and armor!

Yes, of course this would by no means be the end to all problems. But my point is that by doing these few changes the whole concept of droids in SWG would seem meaningful again, and serve as a springboard for the finer, more complicatedimprovements. Maybe the devs could take a day-long break from their golden quest to turn SWG into a cowardly gurrcatzoo and implement these droid changes.

from a non DE POV.

i am a mid level BH on the way to master. i vastly prefer using droids to pets. it can be a bit frustrating waiting for them to heal. i would suggest that droids wear out over time based on how much healing they do. i would also like to buy droid repair kits to heal them in the field. if after so many healings it would decay them and finally cant be repaired anymore that is fine time to buy a new one. my weapons do that why not my droids.

whats the point of batteries anyway?? i have yet to see one of my droids need one.

the other way to do it would be to make droids repairable for normal damage but make their wounds not repairable making them basically a decaying item. such as your using the droid it has a lifespan represented by its wounds. the more it takes the more jalopyish it gets.

another suggestions is weapon and armour kits along with decay that can be added to combat type droids kinda like weapon powerups are now. things that we can buy and drop on the droid to boost its stats.

lastly being able to bring out two droids at once for droid users like me would be **edit** useful. when i make master BH i will still be doing bounties

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Barb-Wire wrote:

from a non DE POV.

i am a mid level BH on the way to master. i vastly prefer using droids to pets. it can be a bit frustrating waiting for them to heal. i would suggest that droids wear out over time based on how much healing they do. i would also like to buy droid repair kits to heal them in the field. if after so many healings it would decay them and finally cant be repaired anymore that is fine time to buy a new one. my weapons do that why not my droids.

whats the point of batteries anyway?? i have yet to see one of my droids need one.

the other way to do it would be to make droids repairable for normal damage but make their wounds not repairable making them basically a decaying item. such as your using the droid it has a lifespan represented by its wounds. the more it takes the more jalopyish it gets.

another suggestions is weapon and armour kits along with decay that can be added to combat type droids kinda like weapon powerups are now. things that we can buy and drop on the droid to boost its stats.

lastly being able to bring out two droids at once for droid users like me would be **edit** useful. when i make master BH i will still be doing bounties

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And I thought it was because a lot of people selling droids when grinding at dirt cheap prices lol Then screwing the econemy. But ow well.

I would say if you are having problems selling on your server look to the newb that is grinding That is probalby your answer as they are probalby trying to scrap together a few extra credits instead of using practice mod or something.

I highly recommend a DEA on each server it helps. Myself I am in contact with many DE's on my server and pices and stuff are pretty even.. We even go as far as working out sales of the week. For example one week dudes probots are cheaper then mine, The next week mine will be cheaper then his while he goes up to my old prices.

I mean only takes 5 minutes to talk to another player and set up a good System

I do agree on a few things. Droids should no be perma deathed. BEcause there ham is way to low in the first place and no one will want them then. The way they have them now is good. I would say let them get down to 50% Vit and lets start seeing some internal dropings on a level 6 module from 110% make it drop to 55% I mean stuff shoul drop with the vitality including. Not the HAM but the Inner workings AKA Hardware of the droids.

Sincerely,

Yeah, someone on Flurry contacted me in that manner. I pollitely turned them down. I price things the way I feel they need to be priced. Based on the amount of time I spend and the cost of my resources.

There are a few DE's on the server that feel my prices are "Dirt Cheap" and I in turn feel they are "Rapeing the customer".

As it stands I make a healthy proffit and never want for anything. So, how could my prices be that cheap? I also get a nice ratio of return customers and refrences because of my prices.

Price fixing is bad. If you want to make hoards of money in a profession, go do pure combat. They make more money than we could ever manage.

Thanks for your time!

Another non-DE perspective:

1) There are probably a fair number of people out there who don't buy any droids because they have no idea what they are good for.
I was one of those people until just recently. There are plenty of people who don't frequent these forums. And this is the only place I've found with any information about droids. There's no in-game way to find out about droids other than asking a DE. And finding DE's ain't that easy either. Plus, if you don't know that droids are useful, you may have little incentive to seek out a DE and ask them about droids. I used to just not see many droids, assume they weren't good for much, and didn't worry about it. If there were some way to spread the word, I think more people who don't have any droids might buy some.

2) Be careful about how much decay you introduce.
People tend not to like constantly worrying about things falling apart. Alot of people would rather not have an item they have to worry about than spend time taking care of something cool. If decay is too rapid or too devastating, people will just see droids as being more trouble than they are worth.

3) A recommendation for combat droids:
If combat droids are going to require lots of repairing, they'd better be real butt-kickers. Otherwise, becoming a CH and getting a pet is much more attractive. Pets heal themselves. In order to make combat droids competitive with pets, they need to have some awesome abilities to overcome any drawbacks - like decay and repair.

4) Keep lobbying to have more than one droid out at a time.
If people can have 3 droids, they may buy more than one droid.

5) Cusomizations.
Keep pushing to get droid cusomization to work, and try to get the Devs to give you all kinds of cool-looking options. People in these games like things that look unique. If you can make their droids look cool, it's a service that will sell. If the cusomization fades (which I believe it's supposed too), then that's a great way to keep customers coming back. It doesn't bother me so much to have my cusomization fade. It doesn't prevent the droid from functioning in the field. But when I get the time and money, I'll eventually come back to make my droid look cool again. Good for you, because I come back. Good for me, because it's not nearly as annoying as having a droid become useless to me while I'm tens of kilometers away from the nearest DE.

Just some thoughts from the other side of the fence.

JB