Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: DE's I need two things from you please
Give Master Droid Engineers the ability to call 1 Droideka, they deserve that.
Droideka running around all over the game, yet DE's can't make/use one......explain that logic?
/former Master Droid Engineer
Treguard wrote:
Speaking as a Musician...
I wanta Droid that will join in my music. Provide some Techno, as it were.
That reminds me of an Entertainer module idea I had a while back. It could be made pretty useful subject to the following guidelines:
1) A droid can't perform on its own. It can only perform in a group with a PC musician.
2) A music module can simulate one instrument type, and the instrument type is permanently specified when the module is created.
3) Music modules will stack, so an advanced R3 could play up to six parts, but that's ALL it would be able to do in that case.
4) Droid-provided music provides no additional benefit to mind wounds or battle fatigue.
5) Droid-provided music provides neither a benefit nor a penalty to the XP gained by PC performers grouped with it.
The sole function of these modules would be to round out performance groups in Cantinas. It would make the musical experience more satisfying in general because you could hear a whole piece rather than just the one or two parts of whichever musicians decided to group up. Musicians would have incentive to do this because people would rather hear a more complete rendition of a performance. It's total fluff, doesn't step on anybody's toes, and makes DEs useful to a whole new profession.
OMG, this is really, really getting out of hand.
To outside observers, this may seem like complaining when it's not warranted, but have you read a single thing our corrispondent has said, TH?
Asking us, "What kind of droids we'd like for other professions"? Come on! How many times can we say, a droid to help smugglers slice, a droid that let's performers perform anywhere, etc?
We aren't asking a whole lot of you - yet you keep asking us the same questions which our corrispondent has spent countless hours assembling for you. Just read what we've already written. And the same questions that Q asked a few months ago.
Just read the stickied threads and that's all you need to know - as Sintrosi pointed out earlier in this thread, we already replied with "concerns" to the supposed "DE Plan".
Go read the stickies, dude. Stop asking us to repeat ourselves over and over.
Audio
Thunderheart wrote:
Hey there night owls
Ill be the first one to tell you that I am not a crafter. I'm sitting here reading your pains, your desires and your angst, but the commentary for what you want seems very individualized andvery limited in what you want. You'vedone a fantastic job of telling me what you dont want, but only a few put effort inwhat they DO want and it left me withoutthe impression of a central direction that will suit most of your purposes.
Im stilltrying to understand what makes you tick and I had some questions, so here goes...
All of our specific concerns and wishes are addressed on Goratoth's Centralized Issues thread. I would recommend that you go there and ask specific questions about each of those points. Take them one at a time until we are in agreement about how they are to be dealth with. I also responded earlier about breaking up this response thread into catagories. You are asking a lot of questions all at once and there is so much out there to talk about that I believe each catagory deserves it's own discussion.
TH,
Because DE is a class with a great deal of potential, you're doubtless going to see a lot of people with a lot of ideas here; consensus is difficult given the possibilities. To know what we want and what sounds good to us, you'd really have to read all 27000+ posts down here, and you don't have time for that! Let me take a stab at dividing the views of the DE community into three "camps" so you understand what's driving different sections of the community better:
One Camp - Expanding Functionality
Generally when people talk about droids having more functions, they're speaking to expanding the utillity functions of droids. The power and surgical droid proposals in the plan are good examples of this, and in fact are good ideas. We have wanted surgical droids to have an actual healing capability (counter-balancing this by requiring Medic/Doctor consumables). Other functionality expansions have been floated around as well, for instance: a module that could be loaded in a droid at build time that would allow Entertainers to heal battle fatigue wherever they have the droid out, much like medical modules work now. Giving a droid (perhaps the binary load lifter) the ability to collect resources from your harvesters and power them for you. Giving the Probot the ability to conduct resource surveys on a player's behalf. A lot of this camp's ideas stem from the fact that while we can construct a large number of droid types, they all can do the same (outmoded) things, so it'd be nice if some droids had unique inherit functions to provide benefit for building/purchasing, say, a surgical droid over an MSE. There are lots of creative people in DE and so more ideas than can possibly be implemented over the life of the game already. In the process of choosing which, some players will inevitably be made unhappy.
Another Camp - the CH Envy Camp (aka the Combat Camp)
Another cross-section of DEs would like to see us as a perfect parity class to the CHs. This, in that view, would be accomplished by giving DEs powerful combat droids that would be built by us and sold to anyone (not just DEs). However, at their existing HAM strengths, our current droids would be slaughtered very quickly. The best appeasement for this camp is, yes, a new combat droid like Droideka. The next best appeasement would be to increase the HAM and damage output of the Probot and make it usable by all. If certification is necessary here, so be it (grudgingly in this view). But it cannot be DE only (because then you are not expanding the DE's market in any way), and it cannot be a new profession (too much resistance here too).
As an aside, a large part of the CH Envy Camp's feelings are not without merit. While the CH marketshare has been gradually increased since launch (first with non-CH pets, and soon with mounts), the DE marketshare was substantially reduced by the Probot Nerf (this camp has tasted what life COULD be like and wants it to be that way) and nothing has come in to give even a fraction of that back. Appeasing these first two camps would dramatically improve DE marketshare and bring it back to being a more economically viable (playable) class.
The Fix the Bugs (aka"Can-o'-Raid") Camp
The Can-o'-Raiders strongly believe that before any new content is added (appeasement of the camps above), the existing DE systems should be fixed first. I'm sure you've had a chance to look at Gorantoth's list; it's a very comprehensive DE bug list. This camp believes that existing bugs represent an insurmountable hurdle to droid sales and DE playability, and again not without some merit. From the DE's perspective, it's difficult and cumbersome to explain to a prospective customer what works and what doesn't. For instance: "No, you can only have one crafting station per droid. No, you cannot name a Converse (Protocol, Surgical, LE Repair) droid. No, ironically the Droid Repair module will not work in the LE Repair droid. No, the *Storage modules do not work properly in the Converse type droids; if you want that ability you'll have to buy an Astromech (R series) droid. Yes, you will need to recharge the droid every 20 minutes using a droid battery." And so on. The Raiders see fixing the outstanding bugs as the "first step" toward true DE playbility. Typically they have a preference as to which of the other two camps they would sit in once their issues are addressed, too.
To truly succeed at creating a happy DE community, you must address all three camps' concerns. This is not easy, because addressing one camp first will inevitably also make members of the other two unhappy. And addressing bits and pieces of all three at once would create a perception of half-heartedness. I wish you good luck 
Thunderheart wrote:Hey there night owls
Ill be the first one to tell you that I am not a crafter. I'm sitting here reading your pains, your desires and your angst, but the commentary for what you want seems very individualized and very limited in what you want. You've done a fantastic job of telling me what you dont want, but only a few put effort in what they DO want and it left me without the impression of a central direction that will suit most of your purposes.Im still trying to understand what makes you tick and I had some questions, so here goes...
There needs to be more usefull things for droids to do for certain professions.What things and which professions?
What items seem like the most important and which professions have interdependencies that are a lot of fun?
What entertains you folks?
Ok lets start with binary load lifters. Let them act like a resource backpack able to hold resources without it counting against your inventory or house limits. That is let them store up to 100 resources (and ONLY resources). Crafters are different from most people, if you go into a crafter's shop you'll find a spartain shell because all the slots went to storing all those resources leaving nothing for decorating. So give binary load lifters a role by letting them store those resources appart from everythign else. Let crafting kits access their storage hopper when you're crafting. Do NOT let load lifters have crafting stations. This makes sense, resources are HEAVY, you're dealing with TONS of ore. And in the end droid engineers get a great new market, artisans get some breathing from from the draconiuan item restrictions and binary load lifters get a role that actually makes sense.
Wouldn't it just be cool if you could give your power droids some power and some cash and set them off to power your harvesters? (set target maintenance and power rates when you set up the harvester) Shoot it would be even cooler if the power droid could give you a report on where all your harvesters were (with extractable waypoints) and their maintenance, hopper, and power status.
Repair droids are the only droids that can't repair anything. This needs to turned completely inside out and expanded on. Throw a gun and a weapon repair kit in their hopper and let them have as good a chance to repair the gun as a master weapon crafter (weaponcrafters don't generally welcome repair requests and players resent the heck out of having to track down a reluctant weaponsmith to repair their weapon so change the repair dynamic to the repair droid). In a camp or city a repair droid should heal the white bars with ease on other droids as well as the black. Since this is a nerf of the armorcrafters and weaponcrafters let these guys improve the overall condition of the gun (that is repair droids work like kits now within the overall condition and lowering it with each repair, let weapon and armor crafters actually improve the condition of the gun up to 3-5 times).
Shouldn't rangers need a droid to help with area tracks and tracking the same way bounty hunters need seeker droids to hunt their target?
R2, r3, r4 units should be the crafter special. These are the droids that need crafting stations and ya know, making them into little factories as well (with a hopper size of 1 or 2) wouldn't be a bad idea. If you need some identical bio effect controllers out in the field call your r2, give him a little wheat and fibreplaste and in a few minutes you have a small crate you can use to make a kit or two. A limited hopper size means these things won't be replacing archetect factories and it also means there's actually a use for this stuff.
You want to make melee more tank like. Give them a new droid and cert that they can call and activate which will give them that shield (kinda nice for pvp since other players would have to take out the shield droid before being able to work on the tank it's protecting).
That little droid with all the arms sticking straight up looks near perfect for refuling and repairing vehicles.
Surgical droids shouldn't heal in combat but they should be the only droid that can have a medchip letting you heal away from a structure or camp. Let them have storage slots to store some medicine in. Let them reduce mind costs of stuff a little and definately change their interface so it's not conversation.
So you've gone into a hospital and as usual there's no docs healing wounds, if your surgical droid has woundkit As (Hey! A reason to make and buy A kits!) you can direct him to fix your wounds even if you don't have novice medic. This takes a while of course you won't get healed as fast as if there was a medic in the hospital but you will get healed. This should work in camps as well and if the droid has stim As it can heal you if you're in the sitting position (heals in combat are the perogative of the medical profession -- sorry). Do it right tho let the surgical droid's hopper have crates of a kits.
If languages worked then protocol droids would actually have a use but since they don't let them record a message and play it back like a merchan't ad barking skill. So when a player enters a house let them give the recorded greeting. Also let them act like merchant vendors in that they will accept items from users (like a person offering an item to a regular vendor). The owner can then buy the item but unlike a vendor c3p0 can't sell stuff. He's just a useful house servent greeting people and accepting deliveries for the owner. (Be careful tho, unlike merchants droids can be stored and moved very easy so any rejected items or items on the vendor when it's moved or stored needs to be immediately returned to the seller even if it means overstuffing his inventory). One of the greatest things about merchants is the ability to tell people "drop it off at my vendor", this use for c3p0 gives everyone access to that great ability without reducing the usefulness of the merchant class in the slightest.
How about a droid that you can set to patrol a city shouting out ads (that appear as overall bubbles but not in the text chat box and with a user command to turn off those ads if they become annoying). Shoot you could even have an ad droid that you could talk to and get the waypoint of the shop. If shouting ad droids are too much just let them be named and if you talk to the droid you can browse that merchant's vendor inventory and get a waypoint from the droid (of course you still have to go to the shop to buy the item.) Maybe keep this a master merchant cert so every novice merchant can't clog city streets.
Man this game gets hugely dark, I'd love a droid with a flashlight that would light up a relatively large area.
How about a droid that lets you access the mission terminals even in the middle of nowhere (doesn't r2 have a little satalite dish in his head he pops out now and again?), or a droid that lets you interface with the bazzar (tho you still have to travel to the bazar station to pick stuff up). Maybe after reach a certain rank you can get a faction droid to access faction missions out in the middle of nowhere -- eliminating the loong commutes back to town.
Suicide mouse droids? Wouldn't a more star-warsy purpose be to simply store data? But give it a GOOD interface that lets you store and manage shop locations and point of interest locations and sort and store schematics. Let it be the "good" datapad
You know when there's a resource shift the game is kinda buggy in that you can see new resources but can't sample them until the server resets or you use a harvester to extract the materials. How cool would it be to have a droid which you can set to do a full geological sweep and see the stats of all the resources -- if you want to be REALLY cool have the droid keep track of the length of time the resource has been in on that planet.
And speaking of resource droids, the #1 concern of the medical profession time and time and time again is that they are unable to sample and find waypoints without having to take artisan skills. Well why can't they get a resource droid that will survey for them, let them check the quality of the material (as above) and then let the droid find them a waypoint? Sure, playing follow the droid may not be as efficient as a level 4 survey sweep but as the droid leads you through that pack of rancors it might certainly be more interesting!
Ya know smugglers might slice a little better with a good droid and if an ingredient in spice causes authority npcs to immediately agro those who carry them but a droid can carry it without problems then we have a smuggler droid don't we?
Combat droids are a great idea as are the certs that keep every newb from using one. For the marksman professions you're looking at droids that can tank a little while the player shoots from a distance. For melee you're looking at a droid that stands off and shoots from a distance. Yes, this reduces the difficulty of the game, so its time to up the difficulty of the monsters which is a nerf but it's one which means the combat guys need either a droid or a pet and the difference being droids being easy to replace and cheap and a pet being more permanent but increases downtime and expense for the cost of healing.
Droidekas are a great idea but to implement something like this you probably need to add an entierly new class -- a sort of mechanical creature handler making the DE class the Bio Engineers of the realm. This is a lot of work but it's certainly an interesting idea to have a parallel of the creature handler in a more starwarsy droid handler class.
So how's that? I'm not a droid engineer in the game but it seems to me there's lots of really obvious improvements available that really expands on the usefulness of the class, of course there's a lot of work there but then there's a lot of things you can implement right away with very little effort (like binary load lifters being resource backpacks)
Thunderheart et al,
I'm a Master DE from Beta and all through live. I've made thousands of droids (while griniding) and a thousand more (to sell to customers).
I whole-heartedly agree with Sinostri's plan. She has an excellent pulse on what we need to reinvigorate this community.
To sum up:
Problem 1: Desire for our droids is very low. Droids do not provide much functionality to advance within the game. They do not provide companionship, or act amusing. They do not assist in Role Playing or to socializers.
Current positives to having a droid:
++ Advanced Probots can do 60 damage/second and take a pretty good beating before being incapped
++ Healing modules allow stimpacks to heal at 110%
++ Crafting modules allow crafters to craft from anywhere
+ Item storage modules allow people to store 10 extra items
+ Data storage modules allow people to store extra schematics
Current negatives to having a droid:
--- There is no functional difference between all 12 non-probot droids. Due to a bug with Cluster modules, you can add10+ submodules into a mouse droid.
- They are expensive to make (there is heavy reliance on Master Artisans, though I like that aspect)
- Batteries in probots only provide about 20 minutes of useful power... it becomes very annoying to constantly recharge them
- Colorization of chasis wear off after 1 use, change randomly everytime you pull droids out, or just never work
- Personality modules add no real personality, just random quotes at very infrequent intervals
- Droids stop at server boundaries. Seem to be even worse then pets
Suggestions: We need to add a desire for players to want droids. Most DE's will be happy with crafting droids, rather than acting as a Droid Handler and using them. We want to make things that players desire and will for.
Possible quick-fix methods:
++ Add weapons/shield to all droid chasis to make them tougher in combat
++ Add some form of certification system to allow multiple pets/droids to be used, but innefective at the lower levels.
++ Increase storage space in larger droids. BLLs should be max, maybe at 60 items
++ Remove the ability for a cluster module to fit in any module slot. Only allow it to fit in a cluster-module slot
+ Increase medical rating in surgical droids, maybe max them at 125% and the ability to accept a command to use a Stimpack-A or Stimpack-B
+ Add power capability to power droids, let them power factories/harvesters or to increase the power pull ratio from fusion reactors by 1 unit
++ Add grenates to MSE droids. Great idea
+ Make a protocol droid a required component to a guild hall
+ Make a BLL droid a required component to a Shuttleport
+ Allow protocol droids to increase the XP a polotician gets when he receives votes
+ Fix conversation droids to let them be named. Allow numbers in names
+ Allow a barking command to Protocol Droids for advertising
+ Add an entertainer module to allow droids to play music in a band, or to dance for an entertainer
+ 100 other ideas by the other smart people here
+ Add a BLL to a factory to increase it's production speed by 20%
+++ Have experimentation do something rather than only affect crafting module rates!!
+++ Give us 10 Experimentation points!!!
Problem 2: Still a lot of bugs!!! Please fix them, there are many lists already
Problem 3: Poor to no communication. Looks like you are fixing this now.
Basically, add RP content/powergamer content so people will want to buy from us!
<<<The feedback in this thread is getting really really great folks!>>>
Yeah, and most of it is just copy and paste from the other half dozen stickied threads. Will be nice to have it all together in one thread like this, so next month when another rep asks what we would most like to see, we can just copy and paste from this thread. (Because as we all know, the DE is a dynamic and ever-changing profession, with every day new issues being added and old bugs rectified, so needs to be updated often).
SOE rocks!
Im not a droid engineer but what i thought would be cool are protocol droids that translate creatures in the gamethat you cant normally speak to. Like Ewoks, Dantari, etc...
The point of that would to make Ewok or Dantari theme parks but to be able to speak to them you would need this droid to translate em.
It'd be cool to be able to be able to help out the ewoks or maybe even help the evil deformed ewoks ( I forgot their names). But to be able to help the "Bad guys" you'd need to make it so taht at 5k faction they wont attack you or maybe you could help the "lower bad guys" that wont attack you at 5000 faction points(like tusken commeners) with certain missions that increase your maximum faction(like faction ranks) so that you could talk to the "stronger bad guys".
But of course you'd need a protocol droid to do all this so this theme parks could be for more advanced players. If you'd do this i'd also implore you not to make it the same old boring deliver / destroy mission which gives you 5 credits
Ah well i hope this idea is read
Kitsunetsuki wrote:
That reminds me of an Entertainer module idea I had a while back. It could be made pretty useful subject to the following guidelines:
1) A droid can't perform on its own. It can only perform in a group with a PC musician.
2) A music module can simulate one instrument type, and the instrument type is permanently specified when the module is created.
3) Music modules will stack, so an advanced R3 could play up to six parts, but that's ALL it would be able to do in that case.
4) Droid-provided music provides no additional benefit to mind wounds or battle fatigue.
5) Droid-provided music provides neither a benefit nor a penalty to the XP gained by PC performers grouped with it.
The sole function of these modules would be to round out performance groups in Cantinas. It would make the musical experience more satisfying in general because you could hear a whole piece rather than just the one or two parts of whichever musicians decided to group up. Musicians would have incentive to do this because people would rather hear a more complete rendition of a performance. It's total fluff, doesn't step on anybody's toes, and makes DEs useful to a whole new profession.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to have as a musician! I personally care less about where I can play or what I can heal than I care about the quality of my performance. Most of the time, I play with other musicians, but a droid that plays the other instrument parts, or one that can do lighting effects would be nice. Think of it as a walking drum-machine. And just like Kitsuneki said, it shouldn't be anything that modifies XP gain or character abilities - it's a prop for those of us who like to improve the quality of our performance. Dancers could buy them for use when there are no musicians around.
Now, not knowing much about module limits or anything like that, my dream droid would include:
1. A storage module large enough to hold all of my performance and travelling clothes, plus my full set of musical instruments.
2. One (or more) backup-track music modules and lighting effect modules to be used as described above.
3. A medical droid module to allow me to perform minor health and action wound healing in the cantinas and in the field. (Besides a novice musician, I'm also a novice medic).
I'm not a DE, but here are my suggestions and thoughts:
1) Make all droids usable by everyone, I think that this is in keeping with the starwars cannon.
2) Medical droids, crafting droids, music droids, etc. Should not do things on their own they should augment the player that is doing the task. So a med droid would allow a doctor to heal more wounds faster. A crafting droid could reduce the risk of failure, music droids would provide more options for musicians. This is instead of the droid doing it itself. Med droids should NOT heal people independently.
3) Be careful with combat droids. Everyone should be able to use them, but they shouldn't take the place of combat oriented PC's. A droid may be useful as a shield, in otherwords create a droid with a shield generator module and it can reduce the damage the player takes and instead put it on the droid. Or a tank, or doing crowd control.
4) Some droids should have some slicing ability. Slicing terminals for example, or for taking over factional bases.
5) Some droids should function as skill enhancers see 2.
The Short answers:
1. I need to know if you agree or disagree with Sintrosi's Plan -- I Agree
2. I need to know if you agree or disagree with the rough DE plan in general -- I Agree
The Longer answers:
1. I need to know if you agree or disagree with Sintrosi's Plan -- Overall Droids are Fubar. Our expermintation points do not have a noticable affect on the outcomes or performance of our wares. This is a real hinderance for a M. DE like myself. I should be able to market myself as the guy that makes the last droid a person needs but, I can't. A Master Smuggler who wants a Droid with a Food and Chem Crafting Station module gets the same quality droid and module from me as he/she would from a DE who got the skill box to make one 5 mins ago using the same ingredients. For the most part, Droids are a One-Time-Purchase Item except for the BH droids which now have charges. Without a doubt, the DE Profession needs alot of attention (listening to posts about buggs and tweeks--more posted responses from Red-Lettered DEVs). One of the best additions for DE's would be more One-Time-Use droids.
The first One-Time-Use droid I would suggest would be the Survey Droid. The Concept: a droid is built with a scanning device; this allows the droidabilityto auto-search for one resource at a time while sending back 3-5 waypoints for highest vein %'s. Either scan an entire planet, or 3k-4k radius around a person. Maybe give it 5 charges MAX. Estimated use: Characters no longer have to waste 15 skill points for Novice Artisian for survey skill. Instead, they use this droid for the survey work and then place their Harvs near the waypoints received from the droid. Expanded Idea: There have been other suggestions along this idea. Some have called for a droid to travel to another planet to get the survey waypoints. Another suggestion was to have a harvester droid that would go to another planet to mine.
The second One-Time-Use droid I would suggest would be a Delivery Droid. The Concept: Have a droid able to hold 4-7 items and 1 waypoint; able to travel to any planet. Estimated Use: Character on Lok running missions needs another Armored Helmet due to current one disintergrating. He/She /tells their favorite and trusted Armorsmith and does a bank transfer of funds. The Armorsmith receives the funds and is sent a waypoint to customers Lok location. The Armorsmith loads the item and waypoint into the Delivery Droid and sends the goods to the Customer.
The last One-Time-Use droid I would suggest would be a DNA Sampler Droid. The Concept: Have a droid able to perform the DNA Sample command and would be able to gather 10-15 samples. Estimated Use:(I am a fish-out-of-water when it comes to BE, please understand)an adventurer is out on a wild planet and comes upon a lair of XYZ-creature. The droid is used to take a sample for later re-sale to a BE. Expanded Idea: Quality of sample dependant on Quality of Droid. Also, give the Droid the ability to not argo the creature depending on quality of droid.
2. I need to know if you agree or disagree with the rough DE plan in general -- I like the idea of Combat Droid pets. If you continue with this idea, I would like to see a few restrictions placed on them like the CH's have. I also feel that Surgical Droids should have some Iniate ability to heal WOUNDS and be given Stim's and Wound pak's to further their Healing Abilities. If their Med Skill Use is set at 40, then they would be like a 0-0-4-0 medic.
As for restrictions on the Combat Droids; I would suggest a tiered means of droid certs. One more everybody-use combat droid would be nice. Most everyone wants a Droidika, so please make this a Virtue Reality . Next should be a Novice DE Skill Box cert droid; this would be a nice protector droid for WS, AS, DE, Architects, and others with Eng 4 willing to spend 6 more Skill Points for the Cert. For the next tier droid cert, require at least 36 Skill points in the DE Profession. This would deter most Chars from over spending Skill Points in this Profession and would be a perk for those really wanting to be a M.DE. Lastly, the final tier would be a droid cert at the M. DE level. These droids could also give the owners a Camoflauge abilityunder the disguise of a hologram so as tolessen the chance toargo a creature.
And if Droid Certs are used, then it would be desirable for DE's to be able to call out a non-combat droid along with a combat droid mostly for repair purposes. Master CH's are allowed up to 3 pets out for fighting. It is neat to watch 3 rancors (with 11k-12k-ish HAMs, and +800 dmg) going to work on other creatures BTW.
In an effort to make Droids more useful to a CH/BE, could you add a CryoGenic Module like the DATA modules. The DNA Samples could be treated as Manufacturing Schematics for storage purposes and the Creature Level would determine how much "space" a creature would take up inside the storage module. 10 CL 15 creatures would be stored in a single droid.You may need to tweek the total Number of Droidssome Professions get to use by adding a SkillMod Reducer if a person chooses certainprofessions. Just for fun, this module could only be used in a BLL after the BLL schematic is given a slot for a module.
My time has run out and past that. I would like to say more but can't at the moment. RL activities need to be done now. Later guys.