Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: What would you do to improve our profession?
Jeryld
Sun Oct 24, 2004 11:16 pm
#27
rushy68 wrote:
I still feel that the most fun, useful and most widely beneficial feature for the player base would be to implement the playermacro system for droids, with a few aditional commands. The Unprogrammed Command Modules brought in with JTL would be a perfect way of loading up macros on droids - I think with very little effort on the devs part we could a system where droids could carry out a whole host of tasks, could become genuinely useful, and actually droid-ish (where as now they are just walking crafting stations to most people).
The possibilites that macros for droids would introduce to the game are, to my mind,immense - and as there is already a macro system in the game that can be used to automate players actions, this could be something that would not require extensive development time.
BEST IDEA I'VE HEARD IN A LONG LONG TIME
Lol glad you approve
babyblue_d
Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:39 am
#28
1. Decay
2. Droid Commander Profesion (Bigger Market)
3. Chassis need more abilities like MSE (Bomb) and the power droid (Power)
4. Looted/quested DE schematics
5. More modules for more profesions
6. Betterdroid personalities.
MrTrag
Mon Oct 25, 2004 8:23 pm
#29
Well, I've been master DE for about 2 months and still feel new. Heck, I've not even made all the chassis yet. But I'll just share some of the things that have popped into my head:
1. First, I agree with the majority that necessity and decay (in that order) should be made a priority only superceded by fixing the current bugs. I prefer module decay requiring replacement by a DE.
2. The interplanetary survey droid is pretty cool, but shouldn't require the expenditure of a survey tool to use. Also, returning stats (at least oq) would be a bonus. Another idea would be to have a planetary (or regional) survey droid, maybe only useable by those with surveying 4, that would at least point you in direction of good concentrations...i almost guarantee that this would sell very well. Maybe the experimentaion could determine the effective radius.
3. Sampling module. Why not make a samplingmodule that provided bonuses (both in quantity and xp) similar to the scout harvesting module. You could even use one of these to sample radioactives without the adverse health affects. Or, if you want necessity, make a droid required for sampling anything other than, say, mineral.
4. Surgical Droids...why can't these be made required to heal wounds...or at least wounds that are at some minimum severness (say 50% ham)? Judging by what was in the movies, droids had a major function in the medical profession.
5. BLL droids...what use are they? I say make them required to place a structure or harvester. At least that gives the appearence that something is actually doing the work to build the thing instead of it just materializing.
6. Smugglers should have to have a droid for slicing terminals...like in the movies. Maybe that could be the R2's specialty.
7. Combat & crafting enhancement modules...loot items. These can be loaded into a data module of a droid giving their owner enhanced combat or crafting capabilities when the droid is called (like AA's and CA's). Of course these modules or programs would have to have pretty large data sizes so things wouldn't get out of hand.
8. Repair droid should have the inate capability to maintain structures, both power and maintenance. I would prefer if the droid could be called and "attached" somehow to structures in a limited area (say withing 500m of the droids). The droid would stay there and maintain the harvesters until you stored it. If the harvester can stay put why can't the droid?
9.Combat droids...if you make them too powerful, then it will hurt the docs buffing. But I think, as they are, they are a little under powered. I would like to see the damage they inflict increased vs. the ham increased. I also like the idea of more specific combat modules (i.e. damage type, ranged vs. melee). Maybe we would have to buy some WS components to make these??? If there are uber combat droids introduced, then I think they should be rare just as the really awesome weapons are. Don't get me wrong, I would love to make droidekas!
10. I saw someone else mention this and thought it was a great idea...protocol droids that actullay translate. Why make it so darn easy to teach languages...why bother having languages at all? Usually a noob learns all the languages just after a couple hours of play. To me, the way it is now, it is silly having languages at all. I think languages should be learned based on how long you are in the game. Eventually you'll know them, but until then you'll need a protocol droid to help you out. I know that noobs can't afford to be buying protocol droids, but the idea is cool.
Trag
grifta
Tue Oct 26, 2004 5:08 am
#30
I think the most important thing is giving us our experimentation tree's more use. All I can ever experiment on is efficiency, after that it's over I have points left over and 2 tree's usually that make no difference. You need to seperate the real droid engineers from the fake ones by implementing crafting tree's that affect the outcome. I can use low quality resources for everything except certain modules, then use 1000OQ fiberplast for the deed and bam perfect droid, this is not right nor fair. All other crafting professions have choices of tree's we do not. Durabality does squat, so does the other one.
DE is the most complex crafting profession until shipwright goes live, yet we have only 1 working tree.
wornol
Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:54 am
#31
Fix the bugs first!
When your pet dies, its gone. This should apply to all pets (BE's have the same prob as DE for "decay" issues)
When your ship takes damage the droid should take damage, if your ship blowsup so does the droid.
A droid with no power should decay faster, and not function at all
Skill mods for droids for the elite master profession, like tailors can make for clothes. So like if I am a master tailor I get a +10 to customization and get more color choices, or mabe for a armorsmith I get a mod so I crit fail less...
more later....
Message Edited by wornol on 10-26-2004 08:01 AM
zazo
Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:31 am
#32
This is a good discussion some great ideas. I especially like the macro one I would never have thought of that very clever...very cool.
Here's my take on the whole issue and there seems to be some gap between my thoughts on decay and some of the more prominant DEs. Again mind you I am in favor of decay but how its implimented and what is done to off set it is very crucial as it could make or break the profession.
Disposable products: As it is right now we have 9? disposable products
batteries: droids go through batteries too often in my opinion but at the same time batteries are too cheap a commodity as in we dont really make any money off of them. Thus becoming a constant sale for little profit.
Customization: now that the call time is boosted up people will purchase them more often. However, they need more colors and their usefulness will be effected by any decay implimented.
Droid repair units: currently this droid stim is only sold to those that use the droids in combat and their ability is very limited so is the usefullness of the product
Droid Reconstructiion: same as the repair no need to reconstruct an entertainment droid
Arakyds: usefull by only one profession not a high profit margin item
Seekers:again usefull by only one profession
Detonator droids: The power of this product does not entirely offset the cost of the product. They are sold in limited numbers and are useful by only 2 professions
Survey droids: Currently cost prohibative it costs less credits and less time to fly to each planet to get the same info given by these droids. If they were to provide the stats of the resources these would be far more effective! for one simple change
Unprogrammed chips: a good disposable item that can be sold for a profit and has a clear need for replacement by the consumber
I hope I'm not missing anything. Over all I think we have more disposable end user products than weaponsmith, armorsmith and arch put together. So whats the issue? Well with the exception of the space stuff there is no real need for anything that these products are for.
How do we create that need and how do we impliment an effective decay system?
Space: astromechs used in ships and flight computers should decay just as other ship components do simple and very universal maybe you give astromechs a slight edge in the decay to make them more desirable over flight computers for the ships that can have them.
combat: combat decay should be recorded as the pets vitality and the decay should be based on use and not incap or death as it is with a pet. The overall vitality (decay) does not effect the ham or performance of the droid until it is say 25% then in reduces slowly over time. It should in effect decay like a weapon decays as any battle field droid would be a weapon. What this would do is bring a semi disposable nature to the product just like any other weapon.
Initial reaction? with this change and this change alone people would no longer purchase droids for combat. How do we off set that? We create the need or desire for them that outweighs the cost and decay. What do I mean? well the droids combat capabilities would need to be adjusted. just little tweeks here and there to make the overall product much more desireable.
Make droids with level 6 armor ar1 instead of ar0
Make the stim pack dispenser dispense stim b's and have no requirements for the user other than they are now.
Make the harvester module usable by non scout individuals
Increase the healing ability of the auto heal module
Each of these would only have to be tweeked slightly in order to improve the overall effectiveness of the droid itself
These changes alone without decay would make the droid slightly unbalanced but adding decay to them balances the system out.
Non Combat Droids: As I said a droids vitality should be time based rather than like that of a pets. Think of it as a slower internal battery. Say if a droid has a total vitality of 100 then for every 1.5 hours the droid is out it loses 1 vitality point. this way a droid has in effect 150 hours of use time. Not alot you say? well yes and no. Lets say the average player plays 3 hours a night thats 50 days worth of time out of a droid almost 2 months for a person that plays every night and alot longer for those that dont.
Dox will still need droids
Storage will still sell droids
Dancers and entertainers on the other hand have nothing really to gain from them at the moment though I think increasing the stim pack dispenser to use stim bs would greatly increase their need amoung the entertainment population I also think a slight increase in either experience gain or healing ability with the use of a droid would increase their need 10 fold. In this sense a droid would be treated more like a skill mod say +5 to healing mind or whatever, or maybe a +2 to entertainment xp gain. Coupled with the same decay as the other droids these things would be selling in droves.
Just a couple of other ideas to toss around:
Astromech droids should be able to open doors. Like slicing if you will but an astromech should have the ability to unlock doors for the owner in dungeons.
Humanoid droids with personality chips should converse and interact as their personality dictates. Yes, it is no big deal really but it would add a whole new dimention of fun for the droid owner.
Droids with storage modules should be able to dispense their own batteries. it sounds silly but If i put a crate of batteries in a droid why not have him use them as they are needed?
I love the macro idea brought up before
Power droidsshould not need batteries at all
Certain droids should get bonuses for certain modules. I know they do now but some of these things need to be adjusted.
leeds
Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:37 pm
#33
#1 fix the module bugs, modules don't work right in some chasiese and the maint module.... I got burend bad on this one.
#2 Allow eliets to pull more than one droid. Luke had mutiple droids out so... Squadleader should be able to pull 3 combat droids out at the same time. DEs shold be able to have one combat and 2 others out at the same time. We do not need a droid commander profession at all (see squadleader).
#3 We need a dedicated battle droid type chasis. Make it so you need an eliet profession (novice) to use it. Something above a probot but not as bad as a full out batledroid. Mabye double the ham, add in an additional armor slot (or a personal force field generator slot), allow it to have 3 combat only related culsters (combat, trap modules.........) and one unrestircted slot(perhaps). Make such a droid counterband, like sliced weapons.... Allow a smuggler to slice combat modules on this droid.....
#4 have some modules not go into chasies or work better in certain ones. I.E. med droid should have better stats with stimpack despencers, mabye allow it to hold b types. structure maint modules only work in floaters, espically if it's an interplantary one.
#5 fc should be required for any ship. In the movies and books there are all sort of things that require a fc to quickly do or do at all (hyperspace for instance).
#6 decay, I'm not as worried about this as we have the repair kits to sell. Still eventually a droid should simply wear out and require replacement. This could be as simple as making a new droid and transfering the old one into it. Also i like the module wearing out and needing replacement thing. combat modules could ,and perhaps should, decay just like every other weapon perhaps even requiring a droid weapon repair kit until it finally breaks, just like weapons.....
#7 Add more modules. Allow a heigher level survey module/droid to find the maxium % of an element. Allow a sample return, we can do this now in real life. Have the bbls able to go out and retrieve materials. Make it so they can do it cautiously and posibably take hours and hours to retirve the stuff or super fast and risk loosing the material it's transporting... give the bbl a limited use combat module, i.e. only usable to defend it's self during a run. Add in a module for a slicer to use.
#8 allow us to swap modules in and out as needed within reason. Combat modules maght be hard to install in a bot that was built without combat for instance...
Himmm, i need to think about this some more but this is alot for now....
#2 Allow eliets to pull more than one droid. Luke had mutiple droids out so... Squadleader should be able to pull 3 combat droids out at the same time. DEs shold be able to have one combat and 2 others out at the same time. We do not need a droid commander profession at all (see squadleader).
#3 We need a dedicated battle droid type chasis. Make it so you need an eliet profession (novice) to use it. Something above a probot but not as bad as a full out batledroid. Mabye double the ham, add in an additional armor slot (or a personal force field generator slot), allow it to have 3 combat only related culsters (combat, trap modules.........) and one unrestircted slot(perhaps). Make such a droid counterband, like sliced weapons.... Allow a smuggler to slice combat modules on this droid.....
#4 have some modules not go into chasies or work better in certain ones. I.E. med droid should have better stats with stimpack despencers, mabye allow it to hold b types. structure maint modules only work in floaters, espically if it's an interplantary one.
#5 fc should be required for any ship. In the movies and books there are all sort of things that require a fc to quickly do or do at all (hyperspace for instance).
#6 decay, I'm not as worried about this as we have the repair kits to sell. Still eventually a droid should simply wear out and require replacement. This could be as simple as making a new droid and transfering the old one into it. Also i like the module wearing out and needing replacement thing. combat modules could ,and perhaps should, decay just like every other weapon perhaps even requiring a droid weapon repair kit until it finally breaks, just like weapons.....
#7 Add more modules. Allow a heigher level survey module/droid to find the maxium % of an element. Allow a sample return, we can do this now in real life. Have the bbls able to go out and retrieve materials. Make it so they can do it cautiously and posibably take hours and hours to retirve the stuff or super fast and risk loosing the material it's transporting... give the bbl a limited use combat module, i.e. only usable to defend it's self during a run. Add in a module for a slicer to use.
#8 allow us to swap modules in and out as needed within reason. Combat modules maght be hard to install in a bot that was built without combat for instance...
Himmm, i need to think about this some more but this is alot for now....
BillyBobthe50th
Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:14 pm
#34
This is pretty long, but it wont be anywhere out of the DEVS ability.
I like how ship customization works with parts and stuff, along with colours, well, heres my suggestion.....
Heres an example of a non-de's day of getting a medical droid under my system, assuming all bugs are fixed..
UOOBERD00D LOGS ON...
He says "I want a med droid, since im a doc and I want to heal out of a med center"
So, he goes to a DE that he knows.
UOOBERD00D: hey tytack, think you could make me a med droid?
Tytack Secac: sure, what chassis do you want?
UOOBERD00D: How about a Surgical Droid?
Tytack Secac: okay.. hold on for a second
Tytack Secac builds a Surgical Droid ADV chassis.
UOOBERD00D: Thnx
Tytack Secac: what do you want it to do?
UOOBERD00D: I want it to have med abilites, hold items,and have a food crafter.
Tytack Secac builds a level 6 medical module, a level6 item storage module, and a food crafting module
UOOBERD00D: Thnx.
UOOBERD00D deeds his Surgical Droid ADV Chassis. Then goes to his data and chooses "customize droid"
A menu comes up similar to the ship customization one, with the following options...
MOTOR
SENSOR
BRAIN
ARMOUR1
ARMOUR2
MODULE1
MODULE2
MODULE3
He puts the modules Tytack made for him the module options, and putslevel 6 droid armourin armour 1 and shield gen in armour 2, he also puts an advanced motive system in MOTOR and advanced sensor package in SENSOR, along with an advanced droid brain in..
BRAIN, all of these parts affects how the droid works,
MOTOR: more advanced the motor, the faster it goes
SENSOR: the farter distance a combat droid can shoot/larger area of affect for modules such as the med module and crafting modules.
BRAIN: The faster the droid can do things such as speeding up buffing by afew seconds, attack faster, calculate hyperspacing faster, etc.
ARMOUR1
can put any droid armour module level 1-6 here, armour mods can now be customized similar to armoursmith armour now.
ARMOUR2
can put a shield generator or droid armour mod lvl 1-3 here.
MODULE#
put any module here, except for combat on some droids.
put any module here, except for combat on some droids.
one day UOOBERD00D drops doctor and medic, and takes up say, armoursmith..
Tytack Secac: hey UBERD
UBERD00D: hey, Im not a medic anymore, I need a armour crafting module and an armour repair module (repairs selected piece of armour at the expense ofcharges, number determined by expeimentation.)
Tytack Secac build an armour crafting module and armour repair module
UBERD00D: thnx
UBERD00D takes out the med module and food crafting module and replaces them with the armour crafter and armour repair ones.
UBERD00D LOGS OFF
Well, thats a day of a normal non-DE (considering he knows a little about DE parts) when he plays SWG with TYACKS DE SYSTEM
NEW MODULE IDEAS MENTIONED:
Armour repair module: repairs armour with limited number of charges
Armour repair module: repairs armour with limited number of charges
Weapon repair module: same as armour one but fixes weapons
Ship repair module: repairs ship parts and chassis
Vehicle repair module: repairs vehicles
Substandard droid brain/sensor/motor: lowest level non module droid part
Normal droid brain/sensor/motor: above lowest non module droid part
Above normal droid brain/sensor/motor: etc.
Advanced droid brain/sensor/motor: etc
High tech droid brain/sensor/motor: etc
TYTACKS DROID DECAY:
All modules, like weapons, when used start to degrade, when at a certain point, they start to be less effective unlike weapons, you cant repair the modules. since you can replace modules without buying a new droid with my system, you can easily ask a DE for another one. Droid chassis dont decay since I dont think its necessary.
DROID CUSTOMIZATION
when you get a droid customization kit and use it on a droid, a menu comes up with a 3d rotating image of your droid, its name, and a list.
HEAD
BODY
LEFT ARM
RIGHT ARM
LEFT LEG
RIGHT LEG
BODY
LEFT ARM
RIGHT ARM
LEFT LEG
RIGHT LEG
these options can change depending on the chassis. When you choose an option a colour picker will show up below that option, another thing is a few choices on the bottom of texture styles, so you can have an R4 with flames on it. Where the droids name is you simply can click on it, and type in a new one. NOTE: the name filter will also allow for numbers and hyphens.
COMBAT:
Under a section on the DE's crafting menu, there are several weapons
SAWBLADE
LASER
ULTRALIGHT LLC
ULTRALIGHT LLC
ROCKET LAUNCHER
along with some other ones.
along with some other ones.
when bulding a combat module, there is a box to put the weapon of your choice in, which will determine the type of damage the droid will do. And slightly affect the droids combat animation/appearence.
ASTROMECH:
uses sawblade
laser pops out and fires
laser pops out and fires LLC
door on side opens to reveal rocket launcher rack and fires a rocket
LE REPAIR
current combat animation
LE holds a laser rifle/fires it with similar animation to a player using one
Same with LLC but its an LLC
Arm replaced with rocket launcher
PROBOT
uses claws
uses laser
uses laser/fires llc bolt
Rocket launcher where laser is/fires rocket
Combat effectiveness is affected by three things
Droid chassis
Droid brain quality/level
Combat module quality
Id go on but im tired
Gorantoth
Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:25 pm
#36
BillyBobthe50th wrote:
This is pretty long, but it wont be anywhere out of the DEVS ability.
*snip*
UBERD00D takes out the med module and food crafting module and replaces them with the armour crafter and armour repair ones.
*snip*
DROID CUSTOMIZATION
when you get a droid customization kit and use it on a droid, a menu comes up with a 3d rotating image of your droid, its name, and a list.
HEAD
BODY
LEFT ARM
RIGHT ARM
LEFT LEG
RIGHT LEG
these options can change depending on the chassis. When you choose an option a colour picker will show up below that option, another thing is a few choices on the bottom of texture styles, so you can have an R4 with flames on it. Where the droids name is you simply can click on it, and type in a new one. NOTE: the name filter will also allow for numbers and hyphens.
This works for me... anything to reduce my need to guess what people want in their droids... swapable modules works great for me... single chassis for each droid works great for me. I love it.
hamhamthe3rd
Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:14 pm
#37
stock power into droids like you do with power into harvesters. adding a battery you release a message similarto, you have powered Mr. Hero for one hour, adding another battery, you have powered Mr. Hero for two hours, and so on.
Negatarth
Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:19 am
#38
Make droids like ships!!! let people pick out their own droid chasis.. and then let them mount modules in them like you can with ships!! that way we have a module/chasis market!!!
Atan
Thu Oct 28, 2004 3:05 am
#39
Well, in my opinion it was a very bad idea to use the pet system for the droids from the beginning, they should have started with the droids and added pets later, but thats history.
My Vision:
Droids should be a) intelligent b) usefull c) fully customizable d) simply an enrichment of the surrounding!
To achive this they should start with the often mentioned module exchange and chassis spezification.
More specific Ideas:
The master DE personality chip should enable it to use own text for the conversation, starting with giving him a way to address me, how he should greet me and more...
Protocol Droids should get the innate ability to do protocol stuff, means act as translator, calculater, notepad, reminder and such things.
(I know that some of these features exist, buti envision a more immersive/ingame solution)
Additional:
Contrary to many people here i dont think the decay is the most pressing issue. Especialy not the recharge based solution! I would much more like to see that the module exchange comes first and after that a invisible module decay based on the time the droid is called (increased by heavy duty as combat or long time of activity on low power). This is because in the battery proposal way, the owner that keeps his droid well and always full powered get a large minus in living time.
MfG
Atan
P.S.:
Just a tought.... when they introduce the battle droids they will have to remodel the combat modules!
I dont think they want a crafting/healing droideka or SBD.