Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Creature Handlers What about Droid Handlers?
Just a thought concerning the argument that droids do what you tell them. There are a few other arguments that your missing.
One is that droids only do what you tell them, they don't react, they don't care. If you send them in a building to kill whoever is inside, they will. Including hostages, children, non-combatants of all shapes and sizes. If someone shoots at one, and it's not in its programming to turn and shoot back, it won't. And just because this is a combat droid doesn't mean it's the wisest thing for it to do, perhaps as opposed to continuing to hunt down what you sent it after? Droids typically don't organize themselves into effective combat units. They typically don't heal damage just by sitting around, they need to be repaired, and field repair is not the job of an engineer, but a technician.
The other main argument is responsibility. Sure, anyone can tell a droid to do something, does this mean you let every man, woman, and child have access to probots and droidekas? Particularly when it wasn't all that long ago that there was a series of battles / small wars involving droid armies? I can readily see both Imperial and Non-Imperial regulation going into place limiting access to heavy combat droids to those who have the correct certifications. I mean lets face it, on the off chance that droidekas become available for DE's to make, the things are tanks. Mobile, well armed, and essentially immune to small arms, including lightsabers, if the examples from the movies are to be believed. If they weren't Obi would have just cut in half the ones bothering him and Qui-Gon in the beginning of the movie. Not something you let just anyone have.
So are certifications viable, yes. A whole other profession, not neccessarily, but when you throw in the ability to have a couple of combat droids out at once, some repair utility, basic tactics, and perhaps a couple of specials involving setting up some crossfire, you do have a good basis.
One other thought, only somewhat related. How about purging everyone's ability with languages, making protocol droids easier to make and available to novice, and give them the ability to translate. Would probably be best to let people have a second droid out for that purpose, but then hey, everyone is a customer...
"The most successful Advanced Artisan class is the Weapons smith - that can use close to none of his weapons due to certifications UNLESS he has a skill in a weapon class."
The weapons that a weaponsmith creates do not have brains. They do not think for themselves. They require a PC to pull the trigger. Droids have brains. They think for themselves. They are separate entities. It makes 0 sense to tie the use of a droid to a PC. The only skill involved in 'using' a droid is being able to communicate with it, keep it powered, and keep it in good repair. This is a totally different scenario than that of the weapon smith. Guns don't come with brains. Droids do. Anyone who can program that brain (Droid Engineers in particular) should be quite effective in getting the droid to perform his bidding.
-Raystonn
Thank you for making my point for me. Hence a gun is easier to use and should never have certifications.However, they do because of class balance. I say it once and I'll say it again- most of this game is not based on REALITY. One person can't build a 3-story guild house. One person can't build a complex gun. One person can't build a high tech piece of armor. One person can't heal with a stimpack - it doesn't exist in our society today.
"Anyone can program a brain" Actually no one can program a brain. However in this non-realityof agame, as game function for make believe class, one person can.
Throw reality out the window- this gamehas TOO MANY NON reality items in it.
Guys, quit the name calling already.
-JediAvenger-
I see the DH profession comming or some variation of if we like it our not. Heres the problem
#1 We want to sell kick but droids; however the devs do not want noobs getting these kickbut droids equal to or better than the old probot. for obvious resons. Holo even stated (im parphrasing here) that he does not like novice brawlers and marksmen obtaining these CL15 creatures.
# 2 The easiest way around this is to have a droid certification system. You can't put the certs into the Droid Engineering tree beacuse who on earth are you going to sell them to? Also we are a crafting class, we sit around and build things and then sell them at a profit.
#3 So now were putting the droid certs into the other professions. How on earth would you do this and not have every other profession arguing. Why do pistileers get CombatDroidA and Creature Handelers only get CombatDroidB. Why on earth do Bounty Hunters get CombatDroidB AND CombatDroidC they are over powered engough. I am a Ranger who ventures out to Yavin IV a lot why can't have CombatDroidA. Lord I would hate to hear class that gets no combat dorid certification.
So if your a Dev what do you want to hear 1) The DE's complain that they have lame combat dorids. 2)The DE's complain that they have noone to sell thier products toor listen to the combat classes complain that an artisan class solo red mobs or 3) Listen to all the other classes complain on what dorid certifications they get or don't get and complain about how other classes have better ones.
Nostradamus Smyth
NOT a DE here, heh, wanted to get that out there
What about a "Droid use" modifier? Say, for example, someone was on the path to pistoleer. They receive +5 Droid Use at master pistol, another +5 sprinkled through the pistoleer tree. Lock it at Advanced Probots, one out only, for non DE classes. So an MSE may cost 0 Droid Use, a Probot 5, and Advanced 10, etc. That should allieviate the problem posted about with classes arguing over droid envy 
Now, as to DE's, give them the ability to have 2 or 3 droids out, give them more "Droid Use" mods than anyone else with no cap, and give them some better droid options (each droid costing a certain amount of "Droid Use" points to be able to call/use effectively). Care would have to be taken that you would never surpass the CH with their Level 60 critter cap, but this is rough, and it's late, and I'm tired 
Either way, good luck to you all
Oaker that is SO wrong its not even funny. Droids are not some simple tool you just use. that is like saying you can pick up a full auto M-16A1 and just go kill ppl in combat. Ooops safetys on wiat your already dead. that is why weapons have certs and why its not unresonable to have certs for HIGHER lvl droids. Its just like a CDEF. Everyone can use the standard civilian droids. Not many ppl know how to operate a combat droid properly.
so here is what I say. Make some sortof simple cert system for simi decent combat droids. Then use the ability to use those droids to enhance certian "useless" combat classes. for example Squad Leader. Give him +1 droid a a mid lvl area and another +1 droid at master. Thus just like a CH at master he can have 3 droids. However Limit it in some way so that all 3 droids can't be Droidikars with shields etc etc.
Say you had3differnt basic types of droids. Those soldier guys that are thin. The big guys with the guns in there arms and then the full on droidikars with shields and big honkin guns. Give other classes at master the cert to use the little guys. Like master marksman. Maybe Novice BH? Novice Comando? they can still only use 1 droid and store 5 but there allowed to use the combat ones. then give a class like squad leader the edge by allow him to use the better ones at higher lvl.
Why? this gives them a tool to improve not only DE but also some other combat classes that are slightly lacking. As long as they don't make the droids TO POWERFUL like AT-ST's it won't be out of balance and the ppl using them will get them blown up need repaired power replacements etc. If the DE's price them low enough ppl will use them as replaceable connon foder. I know I would. Which keeps your ecomony going cause in a sense they become a consumeable.
I'd also like to see crafters inter mingleing... Like to akea droidikar a DE needs to buy ether power handers + barrels from a weapon smith or maybe a complete weapon? Armor panels from a Armor smith? Maybe even make it were the basic comps a DE can make but the advanced parts the others make? You know what I mean sounds lame but the role can be reversed on other things. Ship biulders might need droid brians? Sensors? Etc etc........
even better do it like the NPC vendors. You un deed a soldier droid guy and he has no gun. You hand him a carbine you got from a weapon smith and that is the gun he uses. so its not realy the DE's problem. Its the droid owners problem. Now based on which brian you use the droid will only have certs for certian weapons etc etc....
Seems to me if there not much more powerfull than Probots those simply little soldier droids should be useable by everyone. Droidikars etc should be restricted to some class some way.
"Roger Roger" heh boy those guys re cute. In a die far to fast sortof way.
Plzurpilot wrote:#3 So now were putting the droid certs into the other professions. How on earth would you do this and not have every other profession arguing. Why do pistileers get CombatDroidA and Creature Handelers only get CombatDroidB. Why on earth do Bounty Hunters get CombatDroidB AND CombatDroidC they are over powered engough. I am a Ranger who ventures out to Yavin IV a lot why can't have CombatDroidA. Lord I would hate to hear class that gets no combat dorid certification.
I made a suggestion a couple answers back that you can read again here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=21307
I believe the trick to solve this problem is not to base the certifications on where a player is in a particular class, but where a player is in his skill progression. This way an artisan-based or multiclassed player still has the same chance of getting the higher level droids as a pure combat oriented player.
Speaking as someone who has a BE as my main character I have to say that you do NOT want a single profession to be only one capable of using your products. You will be horribly limited in the amount of money you can make if there is only one profession that can use your special droids (whatever new ones they give DEs).
A previous poster compared droid usage to weapon usage, but the point where that breaks down is that droids are designed to be semi-autonomous. The whole point is that they'll be able to do what they were designed to do with a minimum of sentient direction.
In the Star Wars universe, droids can do just about anything sentients can do except think creatively, and if you don't wipe their memory regularly, even that line starts to get a little blurry.
Of course, we can't have droids in a game totally replacing the role of players, so there have to be limitations on both capabilities and usage of droids.
Those of you who oppose certification need to realize that we already have restrictions on the ability to use the droids we make. A droid with a medical module is pretty useless to me. I can tame and call it, for all the good it does me. Likewise I need to have appropriate crafting skills to use a droid with a crafting station.
The thing about certifications is that even with a skilled sentient worker you need to know something about what the worker does and how his job works in order to manage him effectively. You have to know what you want, and in order to know what you want, you have to know enough to know what's possible. Then you have to know how to ask for it. Droids, of course, would naturally be a little less adept than sentients at inferring what you meant as opposed to what you said.
Owen Lars didn't know how to speak the language of moisture vaporators, but he knew how the vaporators themselves worked, that they spoke a certain language, and that he had to have a droid that could communicate in that language in order to make the most effective use of the vaporators. Someone who was not a moisture farmer would be able to use a droid, but would not have known how to use a droid effectively in a moisture farming environment.
In the system I envision (which may be too cumbersome to implement in-game, I grant), Owen had droid certification points for resource harvesting, and possibly even more specialized points for moisture harvesting. The important thing is that Owen's ability to use a droid effectively is tied directly to his own skills as an individual. While anybody is capable of owning and calling a droid that is capable of communicating with moisture vaporators, only a moisture farmer can actually use the droid in a moisture farming operation. That's certification.
I know some of you want DEs to just automatically be able to use droids in a combat context, but the way I see it, certification is even more important here. While I'd like to see individuals of most any stripe able to purchase a droid with fully autonomous "bodyguard" functionality (the "guard" command is available, but not the "attack" command), more advanced combat functions are going to be effective only in conjunction with the user's ability to strategize and give effective directions to the droid. Imagine yourself, with no combat skills or experience (er, if you're in the military, imagine yourself not in the military...), suddenly thrust into the position of leading an army unit. The people are well trained, they know their jobs, but what are you going to tell them? How are you going to go about deciding what to do and getting it done? And that's just human beings. How much harder would it be if you're dealing with droids who are totally reliant on your judgment and direction, unable to advise you or improvise effectively?
These are the kinds of things I think about when I think about droid certification, and why I think that, sure, anybody should be able to own a droid, but the kinds of functions that droid will be able to perform for you would be necessarily limited by your own skills as a player. Of course, some functions would be limited to certain types of droids. A marksman could never use a surgical droid for combat support no matter how skilled he was, but without medical skills of his own, he wouldn't be able to use it for medical support either. He'd own a droid, but functionally it'd be a base pet with zero available abilities.
This isn't really all that different from the way medical module droids operate now. What we need is to have more available droid functions, to logically organize them according to the profession for whom the functions would be useful, and then give specialized droid cert points in those professions that allow access to the droid functions. The result is that players find droids useful, everybody can use droids in general, everybody has some application by which droids could make their lives easier, you have progressively useful droid abilities tied to your own skill in a profession, and nobody gets their professions stepped on by droids duplicating their functionality.
If implemented well, we'd never notice the difference, just as it really doesn't hurt us that we can't use the medical modules we make now. We as DEs can use droids just like anybody else to support the things we like to do in-game. Owning a combat droid will not be a substitute for getting marksman skills, but if you want to go out shooting stuff, a droid will be a big help based on the marksman skills you do have.
Anyhow, that's my take. Congratulations if you're still reading. Support or flame as you will, but I think in the long run this is what's needed to bring the most total happiness to the most people, with the possible exception of the dev who has to implement it, but at least he's getting paid, so it all works out.
I made a suggestion a couple answers back that you can read again here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=21307
I believe the trick to solve this problem is not to base the certifications on where a player is in a particular class, but where a player is in his skill progression. This way an artisan-based or multiclassed player still has the same chance of getting the higher level droids as a pure combat oriented player.
Rol i did read your post on this thread and your idea is very good infact its one of the better alternatives to certs i have heard. However i feel that the Devs might just do the easiest thing and copy/ paste the weapon cert system and change the variables accordingly.
However i only took one year of C progamming in college so im not all that up on progamming techniques but its what i would do.
Nostradamus Smyth
sorry Raleran0i cant even spell your name corrently. I assure you i ment no disrespect.
Nostradamus Smyth
Plzurpilot wrote:sorry Raleran0 i cant even spell your name corrently. I assure you i ment no disrespect.
Nostradamus Smyth
None taken Nostradamus.
I hear what you're saying and hope the developers don't take that approach. Doing a straight up cert system based on what class you are would be the easiest but wouldn't be good because it would potentially leave the non-combat classes high and dry as well as shrinking the potential market of DEs. Basing the type of droid on the class makes sense as Kitsunetsuki spells out but I'd rather see that handled by small "use" bonuses. What I mean is if I was fighter and I had a droideka the droideka would have a .1 bonus to attack. That would simulate that I was more adept at the use of the droid than a pure crafter without leaving the crafter without that level of protection. Likewise if I was a doctor medical modules in droids I employ would get a .1 bonus to their effectiveness.
Again, I hope the devs don't take the quick and easy way to fix a problem. I don't mind the quick and dirty hot fixes to address a situation that seems out of balance today but I hope that's balanced out by a well thought out PERMANENT(or mostly so) solution later. I'm sitting here with fingers crossed hoping that the long amount of time that it's taking now for such situations to be addressed is an indication that they're doing this. Only time will tell though.
As to if it's possible to program, it is. I don't know the limitations of their engine but if we assume it's flexible there's a lot of possibilities. It really depends on how they decide to approach the problem and the amount of time they wish to dedicate to solving it.