Droid Engineer Archive

Any MTBF values should be fairly high as a base, and only increase with the quality of the materials used to make a component and the level of the component. In order for droids to still be useful to a player they need to have a reasonable lifespan before an MTBF event occurs. This of course would vary depending on how badly you treat your droid.

So something like an MSE with Medical Module I made of cheap materials and used fairly regularly to send items between point A and B (if they did that correctly) would last for say 20 hours of gameplay without needing a repair. The same simple droid made with top quality materials would have an MTBF of 40 hours on a typical part.

The MTBF dmg system suggested above would work just fine, although as noted the percentage should probably be much lower. A simpler method would be to assign each component a large number based on its quality, level etc (say 10,000 for a typical low level component) and then apply a specific amount of dmg to that number every time an action takes place, and as aresult of combat damage (applied randomly when the droid is hit).

So my Probot goes into combat and takes a hit, and a random roll determines that its Droid Motivator is damaged, X amount (based on the dmg dealt) is removed from the Motivator's total because it just took some shock dmg or whatever. When the Motivators "hit points" get low enough it may start to smoke a bit, or produce a noise as warning that it is going to need repairs. If the Motivators entire pool of points is destroyed, it does the classic "brewup" and something goes flying with appropriate visuals and sound.

As well, a droid should take some MTBF dmg just for being deployed. A small number mind you, but something nonetheless.

The time it takes for something to fail has to be high enough that the droids are still perceived as having a value though, or folks will avoid them completely due to the hassle.

Ok I guess either I didn't phrase my question properly or you didn't understand it. I think this model works great for things like probots, but what about things like R* units and surgical droids? Based upon what you're saying it sounds like the worst that happens is that the droid becomes non-functional due to a part failure but can never completely die, because it doesn't have the ability to perform more functions to cause more damage to other parts once one has failed. Is that your intent, or did you overlook this or am I still not getting part of it?

Not to criticize, because I think you're way on top of this, but those numbers you're throwing out are way high. The percentages I mean, but I understand what you're getting at. I think #3 is the best way to deal with the issue though. #1 isn't really fair to folks who take good care of their droids, and #2 isn't really fair either because it gives the chance of them losing their droid even when they are taking care of it. This makes more sense to me anyways. This would probably apply more to cars, but I don't really know jack about cars. I build robots in real life too. You get a wheel stuck due to a gear locking or something and your current draw from the power source spikes and all of a sudden your whole power supply and/or your entire control circuit explodes in a puff of smoke.

No probs Chubbs, yah I realize the numbers need a lot of massaging - the mechanism though I think is sound. And ya I like number three the best myself.

(Anyone) feel free to offer in better percentages/numbers there if you want.

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Wouldn't mind some thoughts on the secondary parts market idea - being able to scavenge damaged sub-components from a destroyed or abandoned (and non-functioning) droid. DEs being able to repair them and then put them back into circulation again.

I accidently said earlier that all BH skills require BH xp... I meant that the invesitigation skill tree requires BH xp...and this skill trees determines our mission difficulty and consequently what droids we need....sorry for the misinformation.

This is interesting. I definitely agree with a lot of what you people are saying. DE's should get their own personal droid module type, just to be fair, and they also should be allowed to make improved versions of droids. However, there are a few problems with your ideas to stimulate more business...

Droid decay rate- this will hurt your industry a LOT more than helping it. Someone else made this comment as well, that most people if not all of them buy droids only because they want to and not because they need to. It was bad enough when the Probots were nerfed, and permedeath didn't help much either. I can see where the permedeath helps your business, but if you have a decay rate stacked onto that, the droids (especially combat oriented ones) will become next to worthless.

Also, the idea was posted that droids should lose random amounts of calculated "hit points" after giving them commands.... This is taking it way too far... People's droids are going to be blowing up left and right, therefore making them worthless to own. I think permedeath is enough, and that the droids shouldn't ahve to suck any more than they already do. Most people who were droid buyers bought them because they were either cool, or could attack. When probots were nerfed, buyers were infuriated so now probot sales are down. Nerfing droids even further so that they decay, have permedeath, and lose health when given orders....that's like owning a leg-less ATST...

Finally, if the game really wants to be realistic with the movie, droids should be able to be repaired for a fee after they are incapped rather than dying. In the movie, R2d2 gets blasted to bits, eaten by a water creature on Dagobah, and electrocuted by Jawas. C3P0 gets shot in cloud city and dismanteled, almost blown apart by Tuskens, and yet both of them are quite alive and kicking by the end of the movie. I believe that droids should be able to be repaired after they die. You could pick up the corpse, and have a DE repair it for a fee. That would stimulate business as well as regenerate droid popularity.

In closing though, I do agree with all of your other points, just so noone thinks I am some **edit** trying to shoot down all of your ideas. Good luck