Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Lets hear your responses to the devs post.
Garamond wrote: How is this not a new idea? I would be intrested in seeing the dicussion that came of it.
"Remove combat droids and put them all in a elite elite profession that is combat orienteated. everything but the low power droids require that profession (similar to the CH proffesion. Give droids CL's and only let non Elite elite DE's us CL 10 or below ones)"
The issueof an Elite-Elite Droid Engineering professionwas discussed in detail in the following thread
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=11432&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
And specifically from that thread...
"Presumably, the "elite-elite" DE profession will be combat droid craft."
Understand... I'm not trying to be 'ugly' here... just constructive. If I come across otherwise it is entirely unintended.
I think one use for a protocol droid would to be use it for decyphering... with this new higher-end content coming out, it would be very interesting if much of it was of an "unknown" nature and could only be translated by the protocol droid. The protocol droid also has a significant chance of failure and losing the item.
I think there should be 6 levels of "logic" modules that can be installed into a new type of slot into a protocol droid. Each level of "logic" module increases the to-save roll on a decypher by 10%, with the advanced protocol getting a 50% bonus. This means that to get the best chances of finding the best rare items, you would want an advanced protocol droid with a level 6 logic module to give you a 90% chance at succeeding the decypher. I think that level 5 modules should be difficult to make, on the order of todays level 6 modules. A level 6 module should be a semi-rare item, making an advanced droid with level 6 logic a very valuable item.
The same decyphering logic could be used as "programming" logic. That factory schematics can be improved by passing the schematic to the protocl droid to optimize the schematic.
A third use would be having the protocol droid decypher items as part of a quest.
These ideas give the protocol droid a real, unique use, and also opens up several new avenues for crafting and other content.
I like this thread, and people's thoughts on new droid types.
However, to me it seems a little premature to invest a lot in these ideas - because I would hate to see the devs put a lot of effort into it before fixing the myriad bugs we already have. What types of new droids would I like to see? How about these:
- a surgical droid that heals people
- a repair droid that repairs things
- a binary load lifter droid that lifts/carries/hauls things
- droids that can store useful amounts of items and/or data
- droids that can survive a few battles
- droids that can translate for people
... unfortunately these are all things we're already SUPPOSED to have but don't (or they aren't useful due to existing game mechanisms). So while hearing all these ideas is neat, I would settle for first getting the above.
the professional droids, le repair, andsurgical droids have specif built in funtions, they just don't work.
the common droids are way wacked i can stack everything into a mse droid useing the general cluster exploit.
and the combat droids do not really exist yet. there is a multipurpose droid "probot" that currently serves dule roles, normal everyday stuff such as helping healing when away from the hospital, allowing for portable crafting stations for those overnight joints, and at least some small combat ability, at least that was untill they got nerfed to death!! oh and speaking of DEATH, i watched the empire stickes back again today just to check my facts, C3P0 got blasted into bits, arm here leg there, and yet with a littel effort and no spare parts and no tools chewie puts him back together!!!
The changes are simple,
1) un-nerf the probot, and put in a cert system for the combat droids
2) fix the professional droids and let them do what they are meant to do
3) fix the general cluster exploite where they can be placed into normal harness slots.
4) put in some real combat droids so that we can compete with the rest of the classes on missions, and allow Master Droid Engineers to have three droids out at a time, limit them like you have with pets but allow us to have multipul droids out.
5) do not ever force us to spend what few remaining skill points we have on a new Elite-Elite profession just so we can do what we should already be able to do!! We have paid our dues! now give us our rewards!!
Metal is stronger than Meat, Meat Dies, Metal gets recycled.
Igiveu Elko
Master Artisan, Master Droid Engineer, Novice Pistoleer, Novice Medic, and Novice Creature Handler
Rori, Radiant
Another Good Friend Cancled his account today as a result of the recent nerfs and lack of respons to our request for explanations
Here's a thought, we already have droids capable of storage. Finally! How about a separate module, or a specific droid, capable of Delivering that/those items to individuals?
Say you have a friend or customer in another town, or on another planet. You have something he needs but you don't want to or don't have the time to travel. You use your Messenger Droid!
You could do this by placing the Item in the droids storage, select "messager task" from the radial menu. The destination query pops up. Enter the planet name and coords and the persons name. Depending on the location they could charge for shuttle/transport costs at half price (sence droids could ride as cargo).
Once the droid arrives. He could spout off a delivery request message with the persons name in it. That person would then need to select droid, and select "accept Delivery" (giving him time to assure he has room in inventory) at wich time the item would dump into his inventory.
I beleave this is totally do-able code wise. And would save allot of people allot of time. Time is money and that money could be the DE's. 
If this idea has already come up then...... "never mind"..... 
Gerenth wrote:
Protocol droid -- how about making them into programmable conversational furniture? Persistent in the world when you're away and follows you around or stays where commanded (but still takes up one droid control slot, so you don't get flooded with them). Sort of a programmable signpost and FAQ machine, they could stand outside shop/cantina houses or answer questions about droids or structure deeds near a vendor. Merchants could get the advanced model to bark (but the rest of use could program converse trees). This one is harder, but maybe if you pull some code from vendors and the ballot boxes it's doable. If we don't come up with an inherent function for these, how about give them general module slots and make them another visual variant on R5.
Merchants actually get a protocol droid as a vendor at master merchant. What I think would be a good idea is to have it that we have to get these droid from a DE, at the moment they just magically appear.
Thought of another comment while reading NoDroidForYou's post.
On the Binary Load Lifter, whay if it could move a harvester with out redeeding it?
Anything that saves people credits will sell and be used.
My response to the devs post is that it is underwhelming to hear the calls for suggestions when I thought the first two issue emails you sent in were filled with them.
However, after the response it is nice to hear that the devs realize that big things need to be done with droids. We just need to figure out how to get them to see some of the great suggestions that have been posted here. We now know that the designers do not read this board (or probably any of the profession boards) on a regular basis. How can we get any of these suggestions to them?
Delivery droids would be cool.
Seeker type droids for surveyors that would follow a vein of resources to its max and report. One use type things would be fun as long as they only cost around 100 resources to make. If it could be made with many charges through experimentation like stimpacks it could take up to 1000 resources I would think. Much more convenient this way anyway.
I like the many varied different modules of different level that have been posted previously in the first couple of "feedback" threads:
Modules that increase Smugglers slicing skills.
Modules that give the droid some entertainment skill so that dancers and musicians can group with them and perform.
Modules that increase survey range.
Modules that lower critical failures or grant a fewextra experimentation points to a specific profession or raise base combine value a bit.
Armor that stacks to add up to better protection
Powerups that you can apply to your droid given to us in the DE branch. This seems like an easy way to implement combat certs for droids actually. Since current droid schematics are already in the code and may be hard to change, just change it a bit to allow buffs and add the certs to the types of buffs when you add the buff code.
Powerful combat droid that only droid engineers can use. Creature Handlers have em, why not us?
Stimpack type object for repairing droid damage (not wounds) while in combat. Creature handlers have two types, regular stims and creature stims. Why not us?
Tricks for droids to do. Creature handlers have em. Why not us?
Droids which lose quality persistantly when deathblowed (instead of dying and being unlootable)until brought to a droid engineer to fix. Creature handlers have that. Why not us?
After skimming this thread I noticed something that I have seen in quite a few posts, not word for word but the general idea of
[quote]Powerful combat droid that only droid engineers can use. Creature Handlers have em, why not us?[/quote]
In my opinion, and it is an opinion, I would have no real use for a droid that only a DE could use. Oh I know people say they need them for protection when tending harvesters, on the way out, etc. I can understand that. But the reason behind me not wanting to see anything that is DE only (aside from MAYBE a repair-type droid that repairs "dead" droids) is that we are essentially a "crafting" class. CH were supposed to be a "combat" class. Two completely different things, can't compare them properly.
Battle droids should be able to be sold to anyone with enough credits. The trick is to make them so expensive to be cost prohibitive to the average Joe so that we don't end up with "any rank newb can have a probot" type issues.
Permadeath is a bad thing the way it is implemented today. A single incap kills your droid. Repairs should be necessary and should be done by a DE. It should cost some resources. It should have a limited amount of times a droid can be repaired.
Isoha Sosei
Droid Engineer/CH/Pistoleer/MA
Asiago wrote:
After skimming this thread I noticed something that I have seen in quite a few posts, not word for word but the general idea of
[quote]Powerful combat droid that only droid engineers can use. Creature Handlers have em, why not us?[/quote]
In my opinion, and it is an opinion, I would have no real use for a droid that only a DE could use. Oh I know people say they need them for protection when tending harvesters, on the way out, etc. I can understand that. But the reason behind me not wanting to see anything that is DE only (aside from MAYBE a repair-type droid that repairs "dead" droids) is that we are essentially a "crafting" class. CH were supposed to be a "combat" class. Two completely different things, can't compare them properly.
Battle droids should be able to be sold to anyone with enough credits. The trick is to make them so expensive to be cost prohibitive to the average Joe so that we don't end up with "any rank newb can have a probot" type issues.
Permadeath is a bad thing the way it is implemented today. A single incap kills your droid. Repairs should be necessary and should be done by a DE. It should cost some resources. It should have a limited amount of times a droid can be repaired.
Isoha Sosei
Droid Engineer/CH/Pistoleer/MA
The reason I said that we need powerful combat droids that only DE can use is that they are hesitant to put in powerful combat droids that anyone can use because they are a huge advantage to the low level player. They will not let creature handlers transfer their highest pets to non-CH because then everyone would have this uber-creature. Similar reasoning for droid combat butt-kickers.
I like your idea about making very powerful combat droids made with very large numbers of resources. If a probot v.2cost quadruple the resources of a current probot that would do the trick and a probot v.3 cost double that again... I think the new way that creatures are being handled with vitality and such would be fine for droids. With death on incap we will never be able to sell any of these combat droids for what they would cost to make.
I think some kind of a combat cert for droids is a good idea. Tie it to the fourth branch in the ranged and melee professions or something. However I also think that having the ability to field a droid that only droid engineers could use would be nice. If it was something that would allow me to give up all of my weapon skills and still go out on the occasional hunt with my guildmates, even better.