Droid Engineer Archive

Thank the Force for the frogs!
I had started the grind, but didn't get very far before I started shaking. Bad flashbacks....

---

Rogue1970 wrote:

---

Reaperss wrote:

---

Drashk wrote:

Just found a new Issue with the CU and Droid crafting...

Level 5 and 6 Droid Armor modules will be unbuildable post CU, since Composite Armor Segments have been removed from the game. Both Level 5 and 6 Droid Armor Modules require 1 Composite Armor Segment, as part of their schematics.

I updated both this thread, and the one on the CU forums, to highlight this issue.

---

Holy mother of Christ. I Helios the guy who could help us with this?

---

Level 5 and 6 armor has not been needed since publish 8 though. So why worry?

Using levels 4s gives you the mas 40% resists.

---

Some droids such as the LE (which is a combat droid) only have one armor slot, so you need a levle 6 to be sure of maxing it out. It looks like they totally took armor off of droids anyway.

---

Straker_Atrella wrote:

It looks like they totally took armor off of droids anyway.

---

I just want to point something out before we start playing the 'jump to conclusions' game......

Droid and Pet balances have always been considered 'outside of the scope of the Combat Upgrade'. This means that the initial goal of the CU is to balance out the professions with one another and with the environment that they are supposed to fight against. NatrualCreature Pets should be balanced with the new system. Droids and BE crafted pets are more then likely not balanced in yet, and may not be fully balanced until after the CU goes Live.

I know that this idea may be discouraging tomany people, but this has always been the plan. Armorsmith, Weaponsmiths, and Chefs have always had the most directcombat support role in the game,which is the only reason that they are recieving some attention to their craftable goods. Droids and Bio-Engineered petsmay have to wait until either a later stage in the Combat Upgrade Beta process, or may not be touched upon until after the CU goes Live.

I know that our current list of modules has now shrunk, in the current incarnation of the Combat Upgrade; however if you have had any dealings with the currently semi-balanced droids, you will see how much of a difference they will make in to the non-combat types and those with minimal combat levels. Due to the current regeration rates of a droid, the CL 18 rating, and the decent damage output, Droids should be used quite regularly for combat.

Maybe I am one of the few to be so optimistic / foolish, but I still have faith that the issues that the Combat Upgrade have created for such modules as Armor, Stimpack Dispensor, Medical, Auto-Repair, and any others that I have missed.

Combat, in its 'purist' form is the subject of the Combat Upgrade. Droid use, though iconic and Star Warsy, is still not mainstream. Yes, part of this is due to the condition of our profession. Theactual programmersthat I have had a chance to speak with, along with the members of QA, over the coruse of my game time have always expressed to me that they want to see Droids as part of the mainstream view of SWGs. The probelm is that time is not on their side, to actually work on some of the projects that we would all love to see done.

Now that the Development team has been expanded, and the work focus of the last 6+ months will be coming to its zenith in the next few weeks, we should see Droids and the Droid Engineer profession addressed like it should have been so many months ago.

Not the most encouraging words for everyone, but they are the ones that I have to offer.

Message Edited by Drashk on 04-16-2005 02:03 PM

---

Drashk wrote:

Well, I do blame some of the coders on this, especially the original DE coders. In a perfect world, every single line of code would be followed by some form of tag, allowing the next coder to see what the line of code is linked to etc...

When it comes to MMORPGs, where there are thousands, maybe millions, of lines of code that get changed periodically by different programming teams, lines of code will be crossed or out right broken due to someone not labeling what the previous code did. This is what I have a feeling happened to Droid Engineer, in the original programming. The code was written, but the tag lines were not included, as they should have been.

What needs to happen to our profession, and the minions that we create, is a complete revamp of our system, so that droids are no longer tied to creature code and so that much of the coding is reworked so that things do not break each and everytime something in the game changes.

Of course thats going to take quite some time in and of itself.

Might I suggest that we take this discussion somewhere else, if you want to continue it? Just trying to make sure that this thread stays mostly on topic, which is the actual game issue that Droid Engineer is experience with the Combat Upgrade.

---

<off-topic & pedantic rant>

While I suspect the gist of what you say here is true, commenting (tag lines) should most definitely not be per line. I'm hoping this is not something you've surmised from conversations with SWG developers. Per-line commenting wastes time and results in comments quickly becoming out-of-sync with the actual code, a worse state of affairs that if they had not been written in the first place. Code written in higher level languages (i.e. anything above machine code) should be self documenting on the lowest and highest levels through use of appropriate function and variable names, with comments included only to outline algorithms or to draw attention to code subtleties or explain coding decisions or issues.

</off-topic & pedantic rant>

We now return you to your regularly scheduled CU Droid Testing Information thread...

EnigmaBSc

---

EnigmaBSc wrote:

---

Drashk wrote:

Well, I do blame some of the coders on this, especially the original DE coders. In a perfect world, every single line of code would be followed by some form of tag, allowing the next coder to see what the line of code is linked to etc...

---

While I suspect the gist of what you say here is true, commenting (tag lines) should most definitely not be per line.

---

Sorry forgot one word in that sentence....pertinent. I fixed it above.

---

Straker_Atrella wrote:

Drashk I jsut saw your post on Jendens list, wanted to talk abotu the combat rating issue here. I guess I didn't fully comprehend what you were saying before and the post on Jendens list freaked me out.

So a Probot with 548 Combat rating will do exactly as much damage as a Probot with 100 Combat rating?

---

This is already on Live and has been there since CH pets lost their sounds, its just not as often seen as it is now on TC.

Once a Probot starts 'spitting' the damage listed in the Datapad is thrown out the window. The droid begins hitting for the 550 Combat Rating max damage.

On TC3-EP3, Probots are more prone to start 'spitting'. It would appear that once they are approached by the MOB, to melee range, the droid starts 'spitting'. As I stated earlier, this is 4 out of 5 times that I have tested this behaviour out now. This is an obvious bug, since not only is the actual listed damage being thrown out the window, but it also is linked to the droid making the default spitting sounds.