Droid Engineer Archive

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Thunderheart wrote:

Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

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JTGAlpha wrote:

"Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids"."

Ah. But allowing people to circumvent the need for a smuggler by buying droids with non-scannable compartments or by buying Imperial Faction is an ok "free skill"?

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I think you can come up with practically everthing on my list if you try hard enough. For instance, a lot of people are clamoring for bonuses to abilities such as a wound treatment bonuses. We already have a hard cap on the maximum value you can have here, right? So the droids can be an alternate source of bonus in addition to the other places you can gain abilities such as clothes and skill tapes.

What you gain by this are multiple ways to get to the same end -- and that gives us variety in the game, which is what everyone wants, right?

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Thunderheart wrote:

Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen.

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Thunderheart wrote:

Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

Sowhat you saying is that someone in the medical profession is actually capped at 90% effectiveness.Only by havinga droid are they reaching 100%. And in order to provide a droid that increases an innate ability 10%, all professions who get this bonus must be nerfed 10%?

If this is the case, then there are some rules that I don't understand. For instance, are food, spices, SEA's, Bio-Engineered clothing, and buffs all considered to bring a player up to full potential only when used in concert? So that a player at his normal, unbuffed state is not at 100%, but actually at 30% or 40%? So all of us have a certain illusion of having these augments to our innate abilities as an option, but in fact without them we are less than half our potential.

Please indulge my slow thinking here, but with that as a basis for everything that is added to the game, eventually everyone will have to be nerfed with each new addition. The chef revamp has several items that actually augment innate abilities, and I find it hard to believe that everyone was nerfed with these changes, or even that these changes were planned for in pre-beta and finally implemented in order to bring up the players potential to 100%. Maybe I am wrong.

I think it more likely that there is a determining factor that allows certain augmentations, and so far that factor seems to be profession interdependence coupled with consumables. If this is the case, then droids could provide augments by following the same basic limitations. So they require consumable items loaded into the droid that last for set amounts of time, consumables provided by one or more specific professions. I don't feel very satisfied with an answer of "it isn't going to happen" when it already has happened, just not with droids.

The other thing is that harvest maintenance, surveyingand another class of abilities isn't a viable alternative because of the technological limitation. However this DE effort has let the devs lay the groundwork to add more modules in the future.

We have no real way of knowing what a viable alternative is. There are some really amazing things in the game already, so I know thatin my mind, a lot more can be done than cannot be done. The future is a good thing, and I don't care if a really good idea takes a long time to get into the game, as long as it gets in the game. Go ahead and invent new things for droids to do, even. But it isn't very motivational or constructive to tell us that droids will never do anything useful without a brand new profession created from scratch just to use those droids.

This was a strong start and like everything else, it will continue to develop.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Kilarny wrote:

Can a Doctor reach the full potential of his class without the extra 10% bonus a high-quality medical droid provides?

Better remove that ability, and those mobile crafting stations that make travelling crafters possible are also a bad idea. Droids already exist to enhance the existing abilities and classes...I think, OrionsByte, that you should not advocate the "no checkers" concept. Are you sure you play a Droid Engineer?

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Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

The other thing is that harvest maintenance, surveyingand another class of abilities isn't a viable alternative because of the technological limitation. However this DE effort has let the devs lay the groundwork to add more modules in the future.

This was a strong start and like everything else, it will continue to develop.

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So Thunderheart

Basically you are saying that any useful utility in a droid is 'not going to happen' ?

Right..or Wrong ???....and if Wrong please define why in more than a single sentence.

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neinnunb wrote:

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Thunderheart wrote:

Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen.

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I really hope the devs sit back and rethink that. Take out your SW vhs and dvd's and look carefully. R2-D2 was the one and only one who could slice into the death star terminal and stop the trash compactor. R2D2 was the only one who was able to unlock the door for Lando and everyone else to get to their shuttle. The examples go on.

In SW, People dont slice, Droids slice. A person is just there to tell the droid: "slice this". Tie the person's skill level into the droid.

Please, if you really want to make this game more star warsy, rethink how it can be done and dont say "isn't going to happen". and Im not just talking about slicer modules, Im talking about other proposed modules that help other professions as well.

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Kilarny wrote:

Can a Doctor reach the full potential of his class without the extra 10% bonus a high-quality medical droid provides?

Better remove that ability, and those mobile crafting stations that make travelling crafters possible are also a bad idea. Droids already exist to enhance the existing abilities and classes...I think, OrionsByte, that you should not advocate the "no checkers" concept. Are you sure you play a Droid Engineer?

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Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

The other thing is that harvest maintenance, surveyingand another class of abilities isn't a viable alternative because of the technological limitation. However this DE effort has let the devs lay the groundwork to add more modules in the future.

This was a strong start and like everything else, it will continue to develop.

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TH- You're saying DE's can't have anything the other crafting classes get. Every other crafting class in the game gives "free" skills and abilities if you think about it.

Artisan--Weapon powerups (33% extra damage, need I say more?)

Architect--Ability to harvest resources around the clock, unattended, while your character is free to do whatever

Armorsmith--Ability to reduce incoming damage by as much as 95% or more

Chef-- Everything this class makes adds abilities and/or skills

Tailor--BE enhanced clothing adds ability and skill mods

Weaponsmith--OK, maybe they don't add skills or abilities, but what self respecting fighter goes into battle without a weapon? So, in effect they do enhance a player's ability to damage their targets.

Add to these other (non-crafting) professions "free" checkers (as you like to call them):

Doctor--Ability to enhance a player's Health, Action and sub-pools by as much as 3000 points

Entertainer--Ability to enhance a player's Mind and sub-pools

And DE's get what? A CL 10 Probot, a 110% medical module, the ability to craft and not be tied to your crafting station, and 10 item storage. That's basically it. Nothing very marketable. This comes nowhere near what the other crafting classes get to supply to this game, and their fellow players. Please explain why DE is basically not a crafting class in the Dev's eyes? And if we can't be equal to other crafting classes or have slightly higher powered combat droids, where does DE fit in the grand scheme? Basically instead of telling us what we can't have, tell us roughly what we can expect to get, so we can maybe brainstorm and throw some ideas around?

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Thunderheart wrote:

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Kilarny wrote:

Can a Doctor reach the full potential of his class without the extra 10% bonus a high-quality medical droid provides?

Better remove that ability, and those mobile crafting stations that make travelling crafters possible are also a bad idea. Droids already exist to enhance the existing abilities and classes...I think, OrionsByte, that you should not advocate the "no checkers" concept. Are you sure you play a Droid Engineer?

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Ultimately, this is the problem. Slicing droids and any kind of droid module that augments a player's innate skills isn't going to happen. Its basically "free" skills and abilities and I can't sell that unless we also agree to lower everyones innate skills to balance it out...and I can't see everyone saying, "lets nerf everyone so we can have cooler droids".

The other thing is that harvest maintenance, surveyingand another class of abilities isn't a viable alternative because of the technological limitation. However this DE effort has let the devs lay the groundwork to add more modules in the future.

This was a strong start and like everything else, it will continue to develop.

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What about methods for Droids to utilise the mechanisms already in place for augmenting skills. For instance (and just off the top of my head) an "Expert systems module" that allows the droid to give a bonus from a Skill Enhancing Attatchment of some kind (Or indeed provide a slot for an attatchment to go in). I know that the attatchments are supposed to be for clothing, but it wouldn't be too hard to add Skill Enhancing Chips as loot items along with the clothing/Armour attatchments.

That way you get to haveDroids doing what makes a lot of sense to many people (Giving bonuses to skills) while you're able to control the flow of skill enhancingchips into the game, with the possibility ofadding Decay mechanisms to them (As another thought, having the chips as being removable, but with a 50%chance of destroying the chip on removal could act as a decay factor)