Droid Engineer Archive

Oh and certification for droids

Fearghal the B.F.W

The Fattest WOokiee in all of Bria

When it says only DE will be able to use these combat modules do you mean that only DE will be able to assemble these modules or that only DE will be able to use combat droids of any form?

Now i am not currently in this profession however the proposed changes, Or discussion of proposed changes has intrigued me. I Now think i have decided this will be the other profession i will Take up. As to the above quote I feel that DE should only be able to assemble these modules. I think other professions other than DE should be able to use them. But to a limited degree. Sort of like the way you are handling CH. Whereas Only the Master CH can train a mount, but anyone can ride a mount, And BE can make creature mounts. This Dynamic seems cool. Just give non-DE's low level Battle droids.

Droid functionality or Droid Engineer Functionality? Which is more entertaining? How do you see each side?

One has to be Tied to another. I (when i get more xp in this) Would like to see the droids Be able to do more things. However make more of the abilitiesTie into being a DE. Or make the DE a crucial step in granting abilities. etc.

This may not help anything but i think this discussion will get very interesting.

I agree about the majority but I would have to say add the skill to pull a droid out and heal or craft in the IV'th slot of medic not at master medic. Thats a little too limited.. possibly for crafting droid to be called out anwhere in crafting IV. But hey doesnt really bother me one way or the other..

Thunderheart,

I am not a droid engineer, I'm a chef. That being said, I'd like to reply to your comment:

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What items seem like the most important and which professions have interdependencies that are a lot of fun?

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What I would truly wish from an engineer are the following TYPES of droids:

A harvesting droid: can be programmed to maintain and empty harvesters (I know - it's a pipe dream)

A wait-droid: when tending in the cantina, I have an issue with serving imperials, oftentimes it is difficult for me to find a human player that would want to spend the time waiting tables. Add to that the fact that the trade window is a very bulky way to transfer goods in such a setting, a droid would make a good waiter/waitress. The chef can place foods/drinks in the droid, set a price (or none if working for tips, as I do), and let the droid deliver them directly to the client, avoiding the trade window.

Thank you

Misterie

1. Agree.

2. Conditionally Agree as per 1 above.

TH, please don't become discouraged and stick with us, we are a disgruntled lot sometimes.

DE's I think should have an advanced ability that once they hit so many points they have the ability to clone rebel or emperial basic trooper types with a slightly higher than normal failure rate so we dont see armies of them all over or perhaps the ability to make several different combat droid like in the movies -THAT would make the profession very cool !!!

I'll give you my take TH. I'm not currently a DE, the bugs kept me from picking it up.I love to use droids, and think they should be way more useful.

1) Address Gorantoth's list in it's entirety. Fixing these bugs would be a major boon to the profession.

2)Until you fix droids (pets) getting stuck on server boundaries, allow calling themanywhere. Also having to run outside the med center to pull my medical droid is really annoying. Once it is fixed, consider leaving them call anywhere.

3) DE-only droids is heavily debated, but this would lead to wants for WS only weapons, AS only armor, Arch only bldgs, Tailor only clothes, etc. Crafters craft for their target audience. They aren't a combat profession. I am in favor of a smith (of any type) being certified to use anything he or she can make though. "Sure I can make one, but darned if I know how it works!". They wouldn't get practical use benefits of the intended audience though (damage, speed, etc), as those are related to the profession, and not the tool.

4) Allow >1 droid to be called at a time. I keep a repairand power droid, but cannot perform either function on my own droids. Having out any number of non-combat droids is not a power balance issue

5) A droid is a tool. It should allow anyone with a skill touse that skill better, given the right tool. Add Slicing modules, and other modules that would facilitate other advanced professions. Do droid weapons have to be ranged weapons? I'm not saying I want my R2 to look like a spinning steel cactus, but there should be options. As far as medical droids, the droid should only supplement your existing skills, not surpass them. I guess that is either a cert system on droid frames, or better yet, it should be like CH in that you get only certain commands at certain levels. The droid should require meds, and use them from it's storage compartment. The med droid should also have pre-programmed behavior. "I'm a master doctor, take this res pack. If I die, revive me. Take these stims. If I take more than 50% damage, use it on me."

6) Add droid frames. There are spider droids in the warren, there are droidekas around, and an odd protocol droid in the Naboo pirate bunker. There are a bunch of "new" droids at starwars.com.

7) Droids are consuming way too much power. I go through a battery every timeI try to use my droid. On top of that, there is no power meter that shows how much power a droid has.

Thunderheart, the best place to look for information like this is the stickies in our forum. Read Goranths list of curent DE issues, it has EVERYTHING EVERYONE feels about the profession neatly laid out and organized.

I agree with Sintrosi's plan (which btw echos chef, which continues to be unaddressed ).

I am currently a non-grinding, non-casual Novice DE. I have been playing since the first week of launch. Currently the only completely sellable module is Medical. Data can only store schematics at this point, it Should be able to store normal waypoints as well, this would be very useful to people that like to shop, use tons of lots for harvestors or waypoint every landmark they find in the game. Being able to store 1 extra mission would be nice also. Also the storage module needs reworking. Storage 1 = store 1 item. Also useless. Which currently leaves a starting DE the current items to sell - MSE Droid (empty shell-I personally do not sell these-my mice always have a module ), MSE Medical 1 Droid, MSE Data 1 Droid (small crafter market will use these, usually just weaponsmiths), and droid storage compartments (small arch market). I don't know what the market for droid customization kits is yet. With no UXP, I don't expect to reach my first box of 48000xp for another month (currently at 35+xp). Needless to say, a casual non-grinding player does not have a fair shot at this profession.

The propose DE plan:

I am fine with the new combat ideas as long as they are droid appropriate. Like modules currently fitting in most droids, whether it makes sense or not, I do not want to see laser beams coming out of an MSE or Protocal Droid......

Most of the rest sounds fine - except the medical droid will definitely need certification with those abilities. The power droid will be wonderful . I know many people would like an expendable survey droid, a little guy you can send out to chase down the best percent on a resource, of course he may not make it though.....

The Protocal Droid - the reason I bought this game. With the current language system, Protocal droids and Underworld 1 in Smuggler are not doing What they should. Limiting players to two free langs past their native langs and the rest bought with skill points will make both of these useful transalation capabilities. My expectation walking into this game was that I would need to work to learn languages, and expend skill points to do so, so eventually I could build and program my protocals with a library of languages. Learning all player languages within the first 10 minutes of the game was Incredibly disappointing . And finding out protocals can't even translate period right now, was even more so.

Module ideas to be matched up to genre-appropriate droids - slicing module (adds limited percent to slicing) certified for Master Smugglers, survey module (should be on an expendable droid, like seeker, only used to go to the highest percent of an already established resource percent) certified for Survey 4, entertainment module (will give an enhancement to bat fat healing - for dancer or musician) certified for Master Musician or Dancer, Binary load lifter should be allowed to have highest storage modules, and a makeup module (adds some more colours) certified for Master ID.

1. I need to know if you agree or disagree with Sintrosi's Plan

Yes, please fix the bugs.

2. I need to know if you agree or disagree with the rough DE plan in general

No, those options like putting combat modules in current droids just keeps us in our current state.
That is you sell MSE Combat droids, just like most of my droids are MSE or R5 Adv Med droids.
To fix this make higher level Modules work in adv. chasis, it makes sense. That is NO lvl 6 Med Module in a MSE!

Also, please post the changes you would make to the DE plan.

Thunderheart,

Please read Sodan-droiddreamer's post on page seven.
It is in nice big text, you can not miss it.
These are fantastic ideas that should not hurt the balance of the game. But take care on the combat model, yes we need one, no we do not need to sell the best version of it. DO NOT make us on par with CH's, infact lower the CH profession if you feel it is too powerful. SOE needs to learn from EverQuest. If you make DE a combat class the game balance is shot out the door.

Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this.

As the subject says, I'm not a Droid Engineer, but a master doctor. I would like to add my input to the medical droid issue only. First of all, making a droid that can replace a medic completely is a very very bad idea. I.e a droid in which you put medical supplies (heals, cures, enhancements etc) that then gives the owner to perform medic or doctor duties (or even automatically does so). This would severely devalue the medic/doctor professions since any elite characters would just have their own portable doctor with them. As it is today, a doctor is highly valuable in a group.

Instead, here are some suggestions:

• Allow for more than 110 med rating. I.e. stacked level 6 => 150% if not more.
  
• The Auto-stim group members on incap is an excellent idea. Perhaps limited to low levels of healing for non-medics (Stim A, Stim B for novice medic and progressing from there on). It would help the doctor himself.
  
• Manual remote application of cures and heals, limited to the skill of the owner (i.e a novice medic can't cure poison).
  
• Add the ability for a droid drag an incapped player or db'd player to the doctor at a greater range, say 100m. This should still need the "/drag" skill - it would just make the range longer. This would be immensly useful in certain situation where the group was completely destroyed by an enemy and the doctor don't want to risk db as well.
  
• Automatic revive of the owner, if the owner knows the skill and the droid has the supplies. This might be too powerful - fix by making the revive cause massive wounds (similar to cloning without insurance perhaps) or giving it a chance to fail, making further revive attempts not work. If this is added to work on all group members, make sure you still need the revive skill (or it's all too powerful). Again, have to be able to toggle this on or off.
  
• Allow a medic to sell "heals" using a droid. I.e medic / doctor puts medicine (could be anything) in the droid, sets up pricing per heal (i.e enhance health 800 credits). Then allow a PC to converse with the droid and select "enhance my health" option (or cure my poison" etc). This would be a nice addition to the business side of the medical profession.
  

Overall, make something that helps and complements the medical profession, not something that replaces it. If you do allow a droid to heal, at least make the level of healing depend on the skill of the owner. I.e a novice medic could use stim B while a non-medic could use only stim A. On that note, make Stim B have higher med use level requirements than 5 (like 10-15 perhaps). :-)


I'm excited about new cool medic droids, as long as they don't replace PC professions. Don't see any entertainer droids dancing in the cantina, do you?

I imagine a billion people have written in about this already, but I'm throwing in some responses to a couple good questionsfrom TH.. I'm only on page 6 here.. so ifitlooks goofy when this post is slapped onto page 1543, you'll just have to forgive me.

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There needs to be more usefull things for droids to do for certain professions.

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What things and which professions?

Chef - bartender droids, cooler droids,waitress droids. Entertainer - holographic projector droids, amplifier droids, entertainment center droids. Merchant - barker droids, personal delivery droids, translation droids. Architect - Binary Load Lifter moves buildings, repair droids lower maintenance costs on structures, power droids power installations. Combat - combat droids with more HAM, armor, and interchangable weapons & combat AIs, sheild droids that generate energy shields around the player(s), assassin droids will be cool once the politician skill goes live. I could go ON and ON.. get in touch with me if you want more on this one..

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When it says only DE will be able to use these combat modules do you mean that only DE will be able to asemble these modules or that only DE will be able to use combat droids of any form?

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Which would you prefer and why?

I would LOVE a DE-only uber-droid that is prohibitively expensive to build (or just make it a Master DE item) that I could drag with me on missions. Not all DEs want to be combat, so they won't build one.. no big whup. The real issue here is that there are plenty of combat droid models that everyone can use. Giving us a DE-only droid is one thing, making all combat droids DE-only is another. I think everyone agrees that we need a boatload of combat droid types to sell to everyone under the sun(s).. it would just be nice to have a nice uber DE-only droid as a sort of reward. I guess we want to have our cake and eat it too!

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Only a DE will be able to craft them and insert them in droids is my guess.

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Is that the way you want it?

You got it. Combat droids will be built by DEs-only, to the specifications of our customers. I believe there should be a number of options available for the customer to choose from, but a DE would build it and the droid would be stuck that way for all time. Module choices like: rifle, carbine, pistol, melee, grenadier.. available in a number of combat chassis of various shapes, sizes, and costs. You guys could make a slot in the schematic that holds a weapon crafted by a weaponsmith, or sheild generators made by armorsmiths, but that's really up tothe designers.. Don't want to go TOO dependency-crazy here.

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Will droid power rates be looked at?

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I dont know, how does it work and what's the problem?

Until the last big patch, droids were charged in the datapad. When this changed, droids also became a lot more power hungry. It was a 1-2 punch.. they eat batteries like it's going out of style. I must admit, I like the boost it's created in my battery sales, but it's really not fair to everyone. Keeping a droid powered has become so prohibitively expensive, most of my die-hard customers don't even use their droids anymore. Not good.

Cheers,

So, the question is 'what do we want?' That's tough, we all want something a little different. Leave it to Sintrosi? Some of us would be happy, some not. There are too many possibilities for one person to hit it on the nose for everyone. It just isn't going to happen. This blank check we are given to influence our profession is a curse.

What is the framework? What was in the mind of the designer when this game was dreamt of? All the indicators point to a crafting class. No special abilities in combat anywhere. Hints that the master should also master Artisan. Why are all the combat types here? Why are they interested in the Droid Engineer profession? There are so many combat classes. In this game where you can master DE, make your droids, and then master commando and fight with them, what is the fuss.

There should be combat droids. They should be able to be as good as the average player in a fight, perhaps at the level of a master of a novice profession, and they should taketheir share ofthe experience in that fight. Balance the players, fix the CL calculation issues, tweak the droids to fit in.

Add chassis, add damage types, add resist influencers. Make it complicated. It doesn't matter if we get a droidika that can't kill a jedi. It's a different model or something. There is creative license here. It just looks like a droidika...

Add a command to the surgical droid to stim the target. If it has a stim, it does, at the level of a novice Medic. Add another to heal wounds, target only, maybe twice as fast as sitting in a hospital and only if you are camped.

Automated functions aren't good. Using droids effectivly needs to be the role of the owner. Power droids power other bots on command. Powering harvestors, whatever, that doesn't balance well with the need for power to take money out of the game. It seems to bea conflict of interest. I don't see any special immersion from powering harvestors.

Repair droids repair, on command.

Furniture droids, talking droids...it just seems like that stuff can wait. Give them more things to say. Let theowner see and speak, perhaps interactively tradethrough them or something. Advanced vendors.

A DE in a group should increase the effectiveness of the droids in use. Partly just by being there, partly through his own effectiveness and that ofthe droids he employs. An effectiveness bonus, or vitality boost.

I don't believe in certifications for this profession. It really should be another profession, if it is to be at all.

Droids need to be worth having in a fight. When they become so then make them wear out faster. Armor like the players have- it only absorbs so much. Weapons wear out. Make it one stat to cover it all if it needs to be easy. Vitality is the right idea, just make it go away faster. One long intense day of fighting could wear out a droid. But it was really worth having there... The market will adjust to this nicely.

How can we be specific and cohesive with no framework to guide us? What are the limits? What is the list of 100 things we could have, but must only pick 10 of? Regardless of what any of us want balance must be maintained.