Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Publish 8 (Droids Rebuilt) Test Center Reports, comments, opinions and discussion
Pallida wrote:
Obo_alCan wrote:
Pallida wrote:
nefarious wrote:
But I can see if there is a resource shift now with out traveling to another planet, and I can tell you what the stats are on the resources, the only thing I have to do is spend a few hours running around the planet finding a WP. What would be the benifit of having the droid if it is a one shot deal.
Out of idle curiosity, how can you tell if there has been a named/rare resource shift on a planet you're not already standing on?
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www.swgcraft.com
It might have been a bit too much to ask at this point to have two survey droids similar to the BH droids. One to see what resources are on another planetand another to find waypoints on the planet you are on. Maybe in the future.
umm... aren't you presuming that thisweb site's datais up-to-date and accurate? The last time I checked, swgcraft.com was player fed... and not always accurate.
So, I ask again... how canyou tell.. from in-game... that a resource shift has occured on a remote planet?
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I can't tell from In-game, to be honest it doesn't bother me, and as far as SWGcraft.com goes, I have had 100% hit record with it. If I check in the morning and there hasn't been a shift I check my harv and true it is still there, and I check in 2 hours and they say it isn't there, I go and check, and it is gone.
Also, I look for rare resources, again I check thruought the day while I'm at work and make a note of what I need as to what they say is out there, and sure enough the resources they say are there, ARE there, so then my game night consists of walking thru the planet and surveying till I find a good spot to drop the harvs.
I don't feel it will take away or make surveying to easy, if they keep it at survey 4, you still need the points in survey to use it, and it is just a tool to help you. If not this goes with the harvest droid that is only used by a novice scout, I'd also say "whats the point" harvesting is easy enough as it is.
Case number 1 - Survey droid. While I wholeheartedly beleive the surveying process could benefit from some droid automation, the survey droid would seem to not be all that useful. It is my experience that most resource gatherers are using SWG.craft at this time to check resources on different planets. While this droid will be "somewhat" useful, particularly after a shift, what I think the community is really looking for is a droid that will find a high concentration of a resource on the same planet. A quick look on SWG.craft will tell me not only what is on which planet, but it will also give me stats. What we are looking for is a way to automate the process of driving 100m, dismounting, scanning for concentration, remounting, going another 100m, on and on. Popping into a starport and opening your tool will let you know what's on a planet if you don't use SWG.craft, what we really need is to know stats and location of high concentrations. If my droid tells me that Beryllius copper is on dantooine, but not what stats it has, we are still going to have to travel out to the planet to check stats. Now we have wasted money on a droid AND we still have to make a trip to the planet. Unless of course my assumtion based on the description is wrong, and they do let you know the qualities on the resources you're looking for.
Case number 2 - Maintenance droid. Most players put enough maintenence and power in harvs to more than allow for the hopper to fill. IMO, this droid won't be very useful unless it can both empty hoppers and be used to change what the harvester is mining. Shifts only last 7-10 days for the most part. Putting 20,000 creds and 20,000 power in a harvester will usually allow it maint and power for a complete shift. Having a droid which can add maint and power is neat, but w/o emptying hoppers, we are still going to have to make a trip out to the harvs anyway. This would seem to be kind of silly, to spend money to buy a maintenence droid that won't actually save you any trips out to the harvesters.
Like I said, overall I am very pleased with the new modules, however it would seem that these 2 would kind of be a waste of money and won't really make our lives any easier or less mundane. With the survey droid I suppose for those who don't use SWG.craft it could be useful to some extent, but as I stated previously, I don't know any resource gatherers who don't use SWG.craft to a great extent.
nefarious wrote:
I don't feel it will take away or make surveying to easy, if they keep it at survey 4, you still need the points in survey to use it, and it is just a tool to help you. If not this goes with the harvest droid that is only used by a novice scout, I'd also say "whats the point" harvesting is easy enough as it is.
ColForbin13thIr wrote:
Case number 2 - Maintenance droid. Most players put enough maintenence and power in harvs to more than allow for the hopper to fill. IMO, this droid won't be very useful unless it can both empty hoppers and be used to change what the harvester is mining. Shifts only last 7-10 days for the most part. Putting 20,000 creds and 20,000 power in a harvester will usually allow it maint and power for a complete shift. Having a droid which can add maint and power is neat, but w/o emptying hoppers, we are still going to have to make a trip out to the harvs anyway. This would seem to be kind of silly, to spend money to buy a maintenence droid that won't actually save you any trips out to the harvesters.
ColForbin13thIr wrote:
While overall I am very happy with the expanded functions of droids that will come in this patch, a few of the modules that are being proposed/tested make me wonder about how useful they will actually be.
Case number 1 - Survey droid. While I wholeheartedly beleive the surveying process could benefit from some droid automation, the survey droid would seem to not be all that useful. It is my experience that most resource gatherers are using SWG.craft at this time to check resources on different planets. While this droid will be "somewhat" useful, particularly after a shift, what I think the community is really looking for is a droid that will find a high concentration of a resource on the same planet. A quick look on SWG.craft will tell me not only what is on which planet, but it will also give me stats. What we are looking for is a way to automate the process of driving 100m, dismounting, scanning for concentration, remounting, going another 100m, on and on. Popping into a starport and opening your tool will let you know what's on a planet if you don't use SWG.craft, what we really need is to know stats and location of high concentrations. If my droid tells me that Beryllius copper is on dantooine, but not what stats it has, we are still going to have to travel out to the planet to check stats. Now we have wasted money on a droid AND we still have to make a trip to the planet. Unless of course my assumtion based on the description is wrong, and they do let you know the qualities on the resources you're looking for.
As has been stated before, I guess this just depends on what you prefer. I would much rather not have to alt-tab out, load up the web site, and search for whatever resources I'm looking for. It would be much easier for me to just log on, launch a droid, and know that the rare resource I'm looking for is on planet X. If I need to know the stats, I'll swing over to the planet and do a quick sample myself (or see if I know somone on planet that can do it for me).
Case number 2 - Maintenance droid. Most players put enough maintenence and power in harvs to more than allow for the hopper to fill. IMO, this droid won't be very useful unless it can both empty hoppers and be used to change what the harvester is mining. Shifts only last 7-10 days for the most part. Putting 20,000 creds and 20,000 power in a harvester will usually allow it maint and power for a complete shift. Having a droid which can add maint and power is neat, but w/o emptying hoppers, we are still going to have to make a trip out to the harvs anyway. This would seem to be kind of silly, to spend money to buy a maintenence droid that won't actually save you any trips out to the harvesters.
I think its much more useful for houses and shops. I don't know about some of you other crafters but I've got about 9 or 10 houses (couple of them owned by my friends) I use for storage on a few planets. I've actually lost a factory before because I tend to get out of the habbit of checking them when I'm not using them. It will be a lot easier for me to have the droid do a daily/weekly run to add in maintenance.
Like I said, overall I am very pleased with the new modules, however it would seem that these 2 would kind of be a waste of money and won't really make our lives any easier or less mundane. With the survey droid I suppose for those who don't use SWG.craft it could be useful to some extent, but as I stated previously, I don't know any resource gatherers who don't use SWG.craft to a great extent.
- Will the droid report creature harvest resources? (unlikely, and rightly so)
- Will the droid report consentrations or stats? (unlikely, and rightly so)
- How many charges does it have, and how is it effected by resources/experimentation.
- Report times?
- Can you send out more than one? (like, ummm... 9?)
Thanks for the intell, folks.
AudioOrgana wrote:
I agree in theory - but they are not going to give away skill points as droids. I wish they would - trust me - but they just aren't gonna do it.
I don't understand what you are trying to say, however I was saying that in order to use the droid you would still need survey 4.
And as it is now it IS a race to see who can get to the highest spot first, and to be honest I"m not always looking for the highest as the resource guilds seem to get there first. I'm always looking for any spot over 70% to drop at. I have spent 3 hours one day surveying, it is difficult to survey for more than one thing at a time.
Even if you sent out the droid and it took 24 hours to return results, everyone like me(not too much time to play)would use this, while the resource guilds would still go out the "old fashioned" way. and would still get the prime locations, and I get a good spot.
I don't think there should be a droid that simply tells you where the highest concentration is on a planet with no effort.
What I would prefer is say a five charge droid that you could sent off in one direction to go out until it finds a peak concentration, be it 20% or 98%, and then report back. Finding a peak concentration would use up one charge. At first it would only tell you the percentage and at that point you'd have the option to tell it to continue surveying or report the waypoint. If you opt to continue surveying you again select a direction and it goes off on it's merry way again until it finds another hotspot, but if you ask for the waypoint it transmits it's location to your datapad and uses up another charge at which point you'd have to go out and pick it up.
It's pretty much the same as you'd do it yourself but you don't have the tedium of having to drive around the countryside at every shift and you would probably have to burn through a fair amount of droids to find the best spot on the planet.
AudioOrgana wrote:
Naufragus wrote:
it wouldnt be so bad if they let use survey from a vehicle...then it wouldnt be stop scan stop scan stop scan
Lol it's almost that easy. And what does being an architect have to do with spawning? In any case -
Make the following macro :
/dismount;
/survey;
/pause 1;
/mount
Use your survey tool to select the resource. Close it. Target your vehicle. You are good to go.
You don't have to stop every 150m, just get the general direction.
I mean, it's so fast at this point it's already too easy. Yes, occasionally one will be tough, but if you aren't finding anything, jump a shuttle and try someplace else. You yourself said you aren't always looking for the "best" spot, just a good enough one.
Seriously - think about this. You are just about asking the game to play itself for you, as somone pointed out above.
Again, it's like asking for a droid that goes into the Genosian caves to get the loot for you while you sit in your house on Naboo. It's just silly.
AO
Theoretically -- Yes. Actually No. Unfortunately -- the script only works 1/2 of the time, since I always get teleported 50-100 meters away (so I can't get back on). It would be great if we could survey off vehicle
gametruth wrote:
Hey man, Grim seemed honestly sorry for an honest mistake - no need to get agro on him. Besides i'm sure all of us with more than a handful of posts has misposted acidentaly at least once. Besides as he said - tonite is our party - no need to bring the vibe down.
Message Edited by Virrago on 04-13-2004 08:06 AM
I 5 stared his apolaogy, seemed very sincere to me.