Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droids Rebuilt and why we won't carry them
AudioOrgana wrote:
All I know is my business is 90% combat droids, and I get almost universal thumbs up on those - and because of huge demand I've been forced to carry certain utility modules and as soon as I put up five harvest droids for sale they are sold and at least one of those person is in a guild/city, and as soon as they try it out (and see the tangible benefit before their eyes) they want more of them.
My sales have been like this. "Dyna can I get XXX droid" usually a combat harvester type droid. Nine times out of ten I get an email the next day saying something to the effect "I LOVE my droid! I want 10-15 more just like it for my whole PA!"
You don't even understand them. You say, that all the Harvest droid can do for you is replace a macro - newsflash - it gives a bonus to the harvest of like 20-40%. As someone said above, for a serious organic harvester they can pay for that droid in hours just in increased volume. Even at just 20%, that's an extra harvest for every five. That adds up when you are doing large animals and harvesting meat that sells for 10-20cpu to doctors.
Scouts and Rangers love the harvesting modules. I've had a Doc buy a bunch of my Combat Harvesters (3 harvesting modules 3 combat modules) for some of their best suppliers
As a ranger and creature handler, I think the new droids are great. I bought three new ones for this publish: a 100+ harvester, a hybrid trapper/harvester, and a max-combat R3 droid. Each one has a real value in particular combat situations, not just a pre-Pub8 token droid role. And speaking of needed sustainable DE sales, those droid repair kits are mighty handy.
droids.
Ninja007 wrote:
Once more for the slow ones...it's just the novelty. The survey droids are WASTING YOU MONEY not saving.
I'd like to see how you figure this one.... using 1 or 2 charges off the droid is most definately cheaper than taking the shuttle both ways if your going on a one hop trip, if your looking for resources on a planet you'd have to hit up 2 or 3 starports to get to, you could send out a droid for every resource and still save money. Not only do you save money, but more importantly you save time. You don't need to wait at the shuttleport doing nothing for half hour trying to get from planet to planet, you just send the droids out and forget about them until the email comes back. You can be doing much more constructive things like working on factory runs, stocking vendors, hunting, doing missions, or just hanging around with friends while your droid is doing all the work for you.
I CANNOT imagine a mde doubting the usefullness of these modules, the higher ham rating for all droids and let's not forget, these are a19lvl pet, for newbies or 3mastered artisan chars who wish to get better missions (for faction pts perhaps). There are some modules i don't really like, but that's not the point. The point is this:
Patch 8 SAVED the Droid Engineer Proffession
It's as plain as that,if anyone can't sell these new droids than u are not a merchant, and must seriously question your reasoning behind being a de in the first place. What patch 7 didn't do for us was give us viable combat droids, 8 fixed that, with the 3k ham pbots and other droids. I don't know about the complainers, but the new modules are well balanced for the most part, and are a good effort by the devs to breath life into a long dead, broken class.
Frankly, I can't keep these droids on the vendor. People litterally line up outside the shop to buy them. And let me tell u about repeat business, these pple are not only buying more of the same droid, or a custom style, but are referring entire guilds to my vendors after seeing the usefullness of the harvest bonus, or they higher damgage/ham combat droids.
For all of the whining that goes on about patch 8, i really wonder what universe u ppl are from,I guess i like making money, and the de's in support of patch 8 do as well, leave us alone, and go find another profession....tailor perhaps, there, u can use ur crappy resources and still make wearable items. Good Luck on ur grind, thanks for thinning the waters for the rest of us.
Some of you are confused. I said these should be BETTER, not that they "all suck". Just some of them. About half. Idiots keep repeating "they SELL so they're good!" as if that means ANYTHING. You're just WRONG. CDEF pistols sold out too. For a little while. Same diff.
Do I think Publish 8 "sucked"? Heck no. It was great & a big, well-deserved boost to the DE profession. Unfortunately it's not nearly enough & is mostly a fad. Oh and...every one starring jerkoff gets this AGAIN:
Are the new droids a huge improvement? DUH. ANYthing would be. Your profession sucked so hard for so long, that now that there is even a shred of use for you, you think it's FANTASTIC. Honeymoon ends in about a week. At this point, a "kicks player in crotch" droid would be greeted by the DE community with open arms. And players buy ANY new crap, no matter how much garbage it is, say how it's the BEST THING EVER & they LOVE it. EVERY TIME. Temporarily. Sell 'em while dummies are still suckers. Me, I've already done it by hand, faster, for free.
Again, I ask you, how is it possibly wasting you money? Its cheaper than flying to the planet, you don't have to wait around for shuttles,I'm not seeing any waste here...just added efficiency.
Ninja007 wrote:
Once more for the slow ones...it's just the novelty. The survey droids are WASTING YOU MONEY not saving.
Stop trying to explain. Some people won't get it no matter how hard you try.
/bow
Respectfully,
Jenden wrote:
Again, I ask you, how is it possibly wasting you money? Its cheaper than flying to the planet, you don't have to wait around for shuttles,I'm not seeing any waste here...just added efficiency.
Ninja007 wrote:
Once more for the slow ones...it's just the novelty. The survey droids are WASTING YOU MONEY not saving.
Jenden, some people are so stuck up and have such limited views of things they can't wrap their heads around it.
He says, "I'm a ranger, I don't need a harvest droid..." - well, that droid isn't meant for rangers. Actually, it's made for low level scouts- because it adds so many points to their creature harvest skill that it makes a big difference to those who haven't invested so fully in scout. A master scout is going to see less benefit than a lower level scout.
He doesn't like the survey droid for whatever reason - some people like it because they have the ability to plan ahead. Send out a droid, and when you are finished filling factories/doing missions/whatever you know if you have to go change your harvesters or not. If not, you just saved yourself a trip (or three) and can log out or do something else for fun.
/shrug
He has no real point - he keeps bringing up things he doesn't understand : Mounts? That was because the market was limited in DATAPAD space, not untamed pets...ch's are limited in their dataspace, and it takes days for a mount to grow so there was an inherently limited supply - that was a wholly unique situation that has no bearing on this one.
He is right that this type of new stuff is ALWAYS popular at first - but he refuses to believe that just because he doesn't see any use that no one will ever find use for it. No one is debating that it's going to die down.
About five times he's repeated himself - for the "slow ones" - what he doesn't understand is that a) so what? It may be novelty, but it's novelty that is finally making DE's some money, and b) some people are finding these useful. They WANT to use droids. Even minimal value is enough reason for them to use these droids.
I guess I'm slow because I've been going so fast the last few days - what time I get in game has been constant manufacturing and stocking, manufacturing and stocking...the future may not be rosy, but man - right now it's pretty damn good.
Most of us understand that some of these modules have dubious value, but a few of them are truly cool and useful. That's why I don't sell the stimpack or the trapping droids. The combat droids (which this guy has continued to ignore) will continue to sell for quite some time to come. I have CREATURE HANDLERS who are buying them, for crying out loud.
Novelty? Again, as I said earlier, so what...at least the getting is good now, and will keep most of our financial futures very bright. The only people losing are those who aren't trying - I guess some people can't see a good thing (even if it's temporary) and run with it and would rather sit and bash those that are actually making a go of it.
AO, who is laughing all the way to the bank and sleeps tight at night with the e-mails and /tells from happy customers
Oh I have enjoyed this thread..really I have
For some people the blinkers are genetic I think, they just cannot be removed.
There is value in all things, finding the value is the key. Exploiting the value is business, and thats not exploiting as in cheating either 
However, remember that there are still people in this world who use stone tools in the depths of far flung jungles --and are quite happy..best to leave them alone I say.
Question, how long have you been a DE? Man I'm not sure why you feel "we" should be included in your concerns cause my customers are very pleased.
So what if the Survey Droid and Structure Maintenance Droid (NOTE 2 MODULES ONLY) require vertex gemstone, which happens to be rare and hard to find. Everything in this game shouldn't be easy to acquire.
Shian_Tavkin wrote:
However, remember that there are still people in this world who use stone tools in the depths of far flung jungles --and are quite happy..best to leave them alone I say.
I prefer to educate them so they will buy new tools from me. 
Note: And most thank me for it a lot later.
Ooops..I did say I was stepping out, so out I go again. /wave
/bow
Respectfully,
Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 05-02-2004 11:39 PM