Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: UPDATE: The new Correspondent forum and Test Center changes
It would also be nice if some missions required a personal droid to interact with central computer systems in order to complete certain missions. This would basically be similar to slicing, but a bit more in line with the movies (i.e. - R2 locating Leia's prison cell and tractor beam controls on the Death Star, R2 shutting down the trash compactors, R2 conversing with the Cloud City central computer, etc.)
Similarly, it would be nice if some missions were offered where a protocol droid was required in order to converse with alien NPCs in different dialects. C3PO came in handy a few times in Star Wars due to his ability to converse in over 6 million forms of communication.
Another suggestion: surveyor probe droids. Create a survey module for probe droids that would allow a surveyor to dispatch a probe droid to travel around a large radius of land (based on its power supply level) to survey for a given resource. The droid could then store waypoints for the highest concentrations of the resource found and return the results to the user.
Holograph modifier. DE's could build droids with holograph modules, allowing players to record a holographic image of their character (including any character animations the player makes during recording) and deliver the message to whomever they want as a projected holograph. I admit, I can't think of any practical use for this other than the huge novelty factor (which I believe would be enough to sell many units).
Finally, repair/pit droids. If vehicles are to be added to our universe soon, give people the option to buy repair/pit droids to service their vehicles.
I have faith in the developers, as they have done a fantastic job on the game overall. I trust we will see some great improvements to the DE profession in the future.
Lexx Muskoka
Novice Droid Engineer
Quellix Mar (soon-to-be city), Corellia
Sunrunner
When are we going to get feedback from the devs?
Great post, Sinostri! Well spoken.
May I suggest requesting that specific droid modules have specific functionality:
-BLL Droid: Carry Up to 50 Items
-Power Droid: Generates energy to power harvesters
-Surgical Droid: Auto heals at very slow rate
-Protocol Droid: Lowers costs to Train by 5% or reduces apprentice points needed
-Repair Droid: Auto healsdroids around it and/or can fix harvesters/buildings who have maintenance damage
Good job. I disagree that there is no market as I make quite a good living making seekers and arakyds but I do see Bounty Hunters as our onlyviable market as of today. All other markets are basically non-existant. I wanted to give the devs props for putting the bountyhunter droids into our hands
Bona Joros, Scylla, Naboo, Keren
This is what you posted
This is what I posted, in the format they wished:
Profession: Droid Engineer
Top Issue: (use 1 sentence)There really is not that big of a market for Droids at this time.
Additional Detail: Granted .. we can sell Medical droids and crafting droids but to be honest it is not enough to stay afloat for many DEs. What this equates to I suppose is that Droids really do not do much. Instead of buying a Combat Droid most people will buy a CL15 Pet instead.
Proposed Solution:
Long term: Add more droids and modules. Especially modules that ENHANCE other professions such as Entertainers, Smugglers, Squad Leaders, Rangers ..etc. Make models of droids that only certain modules can go into as well.
Shortterm:Make probots slightly more desirable than CL15 pets. Give us a market back. To be honest we do not understand why the Probot was nerfed when CL15 pets are as strong if not stronger in some instances than the pre-nerf probot.
I am a Master DE on sunrunner and as most de's learn early on ,there are alot of short comings in the trade but I made due with what I had and am actualy making money.That being said,I starved for the first month and a half getting to where I am. I aggree with your post. I think it hits the problem on the head in a general way. I just hope they ask for detailed ideas from the community (through you of course)
As far as feed back to you, I have a few ideas on getting our market back, first though, i aggree with your short term solution on reinstating probots toasomewhat potant class of droid,that will go along way to increasing the market demand for the droid.
My ideas
1.Make the modules that already exist, functional in any droid a customer wants. This is a unessasary limitation.The devs are overworking the plumbing in this area.
2.Make the modules that already exist function.Why would an R3 droid that has 2 sockets for module clusters(6 options)exist unless there wassix optionsI could build into that droid.Reinstate Data module functionality,just slighty modify the number of data that it holds(think of it as a palm pilot),make it equal to storage modules.Also allowing more than one crafting station per droid.
3. Allow anybody to have more than one droid out at any time, the reasoning behind this is simple if i want to repair my probot i can call my droid with the repair option out to fix my probot or i can call my power droid to recharge or repair mind wounds on the probotif i like.If i want to pull 2 or 3 probots out to help with a tough target,i can.All of those will increase sales of droids in and of themselves and are simple to implement.
4.Under the catagory of long term,add more combat class droids,or allow me to put canons on my bionary loadlifters : ) haha,,i'm not to paticular just want a few more models of fighting droids to sell and to use.
Those are some of my ideas for increasing the market demand for the humble profession we all love and enjoy,,,,
Keep up the good work, I am happy we have a voice in you,,thankyou for your time and effort.
Vaulnuu/sunrunner
There are myriad other issues facing our profession right now that are much easier to address from a development standpoint, don't upset balance in any exponential way and yet still add value for us. Multiple crafting stations not working, un-nameable Converse droids,. repair and storage not working in Converse droids, that kind of thing. We should, IMO, focus on what we CAN change instead of persistently beating them over the head with a flaw they're already well aware of, have acknowledged work is underway on and have told us it's going to take some time to get pinned down.
Well said.
Asmall list of fixable things:
+ Droid experimentation not adding variety to droids through quality of materials and experimenting.
+ Converse droids not having certain module specific use commands
+ Converse droids not taking names
+ Power droids not having repair module commands
+ Repair modules not allowing self repair
+ Level caps on armor modules create 'less useful' higher modules
+ DZ droids HAM to low
+ Module restrictions for lower chassis droids
+ General socket module abuse
+ Data modules that can store waypoints
+ Droid vitality repair
+ Droid heath repair
+ Droid woulds repair
These items are all in game and cause obvious problems. It would be better for all of us these were fixed before they went ahead and added now items.
marsx wrote:
There are myriad other issues facing our profession right now that are much easier to address from a development standpoint, don't upset balance in any exponential way and yet still add value for us. Multiple crafting stations not working, un-nameable Converse droids,. repair and storage not working in Converse droids, that kind of thing. We should, IMO, focus on what we CAN change instead of persistently beating them over the head with a flaw they're already well aware of, have acknowledged work is underway on and have told us it's going to take some time to get pinned down.
Well said.
Asmall list of fixable things:
+ Droid experimentation not adding variety to droids through quality of materials and experimenting.
+ Converse droids not having certain module specific use commands
+ Converse droids not taking names
+ Power droids not having repair module commands
+ Repair modules not allowing self repair
+ Level caps on armor modules create 'less useful' higher modules
+ DZ droids HAM to low
+ Module restrictions for lower chassis droids
+ General socket module abuse
+ Data modules that can store waypoints
+ Droid vitality repair
+ Droid heath repair
+ Droid woulds repair
These items are all in game and cause obvious problems. It would be better for all of us these were fixed before they went ahead and added now items.
Well said, Well said - /agree
while i too want to craft a roger,roger droid and droidekas ... i also want the simple stuff repaired first...
In regards to the original post...
The short term solution is very reasonable. Allowing probots to at least have a fighting chance (no pun intended) in the market for combat 'pets' would be a good faith token from SOE that they are trying/willing to fix the sorry state this profession is in.
I would also recommend immediately pushing the DZ70's HAM up to the current probot's level, so that this 'combat' droid will no longer be a joke.
I fully agree with everything you have in your suggestions, Sintrosi. However, I would like to add that what we already have should be 'fixed' before adding new modules and droids that might also be buggy or not work at all. One further thing, it is vitally important for us to know what works and doesn't work BY DESIGN so we do not have to make and destroy droids just to check out every component in each droid type (upping the 5 droid in datapad limit would help with this also).
Thank you, Sintrosi for your hard work.
Panatlee Thillik'arzk
Master Droid Engineer/Sniper/Master Artisan
Lowca, Naboo -- South of Theed at -4283, 3379
I suggest that damage and death for droids be handled entirely differently than it is for pets, as is appropriate when you are considering mechanical vs. biological systems.
When a droid gets damaged, anyone should be able to use a repair kit to "heal" it. Wound type damage would have to be repaired by a DE or by a repair bot. Droids that have been "deathblowed" have one or more critical components destroyed. A DE or repair bot can diagnose the droid and discover what replacement components are needed and, if the components are available, make the needed repairs. This would also provide a reason to have a repair droid with inventory capacity so that it could carry crates of spare parts.
The advantage of the above proposal is that it is logical and it's easier to understand for someone not already up-to-speed in the game. The disadvantage is that it means a lot of work for an already hard-pressed programming staff, since quite a lot of new code would be required for such a change. Still, I think a system like this should be the goal. It would "feel" more like star wars if I had to go out and get a new Memory Module for my droid after it got busted up in combat...
Sincerely,
BamitJim of Kettemoor (Wookie Walkabout on swg.warcry.com)
Hi, I play unusual crafting characters usually. I am about to go to Starsider to start up a new character and i have been carefully reading the DE forums because quite frankly I do think that the Devs will be forced to address the DE engineer problems in the VERY near future. Droids are simply put to integral a part of the Star Wars Universe to allow them to be so ignored.
O'k with that said here are some of the ideas I came up with to make this profession alot more attractive:
1. Power Droid??? Why??? I really hate to say that but it looks to me like thishas no purpose. So, lets change it a bit. Here is my idea. First change the droid so that he can carry a limited amount of power. Of course advanced ones get to carry more. Make him really slow like in the movies and allow this droid some special pathing AI that allows the user to walk to each of their harvesters and place a waypoint. The last waypoint will be a special waypoint designating this is where the droid can get power. The Power droid takes the power out of the harvester for you and distributes it equally among its non power point(s). It makes one pass each day, and "sleeps" either in a special plot of land (should be small and free) or right next to the harvester. Even if the masterlogs off the Power Droid continues with his duties so long as the master doesn't recall it.
2. Binary lifter, I have heard people say it can "move houses" but I think that probably when cities come online this will be a really hard thing for the devs to code. So here is an alternate idea. Have the Lifter walk away and act like its working inside a house thereby reducing maintanence costs for the owner.
3. Restore the probot. O'k I don't mean to release levels, that I think most would agree was clearly to powerful then. Instead find that happy medium that makes the advanced version clearly STRONGER than a cowardly Gurrek and the regular version as powerful as the cowardly gurrek. I want to stress that the advanced should be more powerful, because when it dies its gone. Where as the Gurrek can come back.
4. New Droid, Vendor. Yes I know Merchants need something for them, but make this vendor only useable by Droid Engineers and in addition to money needed make it use alot of power ala a heavy harvester. When it runs out of power, it becomes an inanimate, selectable object. When its is working and has sufficient power then it needs to be fine.
Droid Vendor Chip. This should be limited to the Droid Vendor. It should include things such as a recordable greeting and maybe thank you for shopping with us etc etc..
5. How about an entertainment droid that will throw little effect on Entertainers such as a particle stream or blow their hair in more interesting ways... maybe even limited light shows...something to provide them with a reason to incorporate perhaps a droid in the act.
6. Better combat droids. Including Droideka's as well asperhaps something exoticlike a cybernetic organism described in Shadows of the Empirein the description of Guri. You could make these creatures require Image designers and bioengineers as well as assistance from medical and repair droids just to keep them running after a fight. Allow these cyborgs to have the ability to mimic novice levels of certain professions (carbineer, pistoleer, rifleman, Teras Kasi Artist) as well as have the ability to take weapons/armor/clothing you give them. Heck these could serve as "bouncers" in player built cantinas as well as cool looking guardians with quite a bit of teeth stationed in front of PA's.
7. Introduce a new droid Certification system akin to the existing one found in the Creature Handler with two important differences. In addition to a training/handling tier we need to segment how many droids a DE can have out. I am saying right now limit it to 5. Two droids maximum that are considered combat oriented (ala Droideka's andProbots), 1 Vendor, and 2Miscellaneous droids.
8. Perhaps some some more tie ins with the original SW movies. Remember Lobot, what if we allow players to add cybernetic enhancements to their characters such as the ability to gain a third mission (limit it to three though). Use this to tie the class in with Doctors so that Doctor tools for instance are needed to create this Cybernetic "droid brain."
9. New Droid: Surveying droid. It should fall in the miscellaneous class and its express purpose is to wander around and look for a certain resource when it finds the resource and the particular quantity the player wants, then it sends the waypoint to the player, adds it to the players datapad, and leaves. This should require alot of power and the droid should have a relatively rapid decay rate so that a repair droid will beneeded.
10. Expand and restrict the repair droid. O'k the idea behind this is make certain that the repair droid has the potential ability to repair anything, but the actual potential to repair only what is loaded at the time of creation. The repair droid repairs any decay at cost make it 2-10 credits per point, depending on the type of object to repair. The way this works is that schematics are loaded into it as well as credits. The droid is immobile, probably looking very much like a crafting station, only allow the player to "load" the droid with the object it is supposed to repair. The result would be a fully functional droid as long as the credits to repair it was sufficient and the repair droid has the ability to do the repair.
Those are my uninformed .02$.
O'k and finally PLEASE GET ALL THE RESOURCES ON EVERY SERVER!!!!!
Nataniel Storm