Droid Engineer Archive

I am an Expert BH and all i gotta say it that when i bought my first Adv Probot lvl 4 armor droid I thought it was fine as is. But now with permadeath, no way is a droid worth it! No way! These are droids, not Jedi's! If I was a droid engineer I would have quit the game, what is the point? Permadeath is a definite no no, unless you can guarantee that I will never lose conn and I will never experience lag, which you cannot. Battle droids are a great thing, but as it is now, there are no battle droids, just expensive pieces of junk that are worthless and die.

You asked what kind of combat droids would we like to see?

Only 2 combat droids pop into mymind thatI have been dying to own. They are Droideka's and IG-88 assassin droids.

Ican see droideka's being a feasable idea, maybe only craftable by a Master DE. As for IG-88, I'm thinking he's a little to strong and you might not want to let us have one

So PLEASE PLEASE let me own a droideka! /drool

What type of droid functions?

One that slightly heals a player in a fight (balanced and just a bit).

A 'scary droid' that artisans can use to scare away critters blocking access to harvesters.

A surveying droid that searches the closest, say 500m, for a resource peak of a certain resource.

A 'Greeter droid function' that can be placed in houses and guild halls. Custmizable greeting phrase, like a vendor, kind of. Make it serve drinks while you're at it.

...

What type of combat droids?

Droideka, of course.

An IG-88 droid.

An RA-7 droid.

A 'Super Battle Droid'. (lol, yeah, that's their name)

And of course a Guri droid. (Shouldn't be so hard)

After 6+ weeks the ONE thing I wanted to see, a post and direct communication from the DEV's has been done! Thank you!

I am disappointed that the DEV's post asked us more questions, many of which we have answered many many times in this forum, then they did ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS.

But, we'll see what develops now. I just don't want to wait another 6 weeks for them to "REPAIR" the repair module! Yes, we already have one, so please don't spend time developing a new one.

Thanks again for the post DEV's. We appreciate any kind of communication! (no sarcasm)

1) Q, There are many SW droids shown at starwars.com/databank/droid/

Personally, I think the surgical droid should be able to be given it's own supply of meds with which to heal or possibly increase the effectiveness of the autoheal (slow wound regen) in medcenters.

The FX-7 medical droid listed at the above location would also be a great addition to the line of droids. It could be cheaper to create than the surgical droid, but unable to heal on its own.

2) According to SW lore, the Dark Troopers are droids. Probots are survey droids. Combat probots are the Imperial "Viper" model, and are supposed to only use combat to achieve their survey objective (threaten shot as an attack comes to mind). Episodes 1 and 2 show a lot of combat droids that would be fun to have. The could almost be just new artwork on the faction pet code (sounds easy, right? ).

It would be fun to see factional perk schematics too (that are not available to DEs of other factions). The Imperial medical starwars.com/databank/droid/ito/index.html IT-O droid comes to mind, as do the Dark Troopers, and Advanced "Viper" probots.

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• Survey modules - short range survey for anyone to use
  
• Survey modules - droid could go hunt for resources
  
• Sample modules - droid could function as a mini-harvester

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/disagree : artisan job. Some of us are miners and we don't want droids to kill our business

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Reduced effect slicing modules - useable by anyone, would be nowhere near as effective as a smuggler

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/disagree : smuggler job =>Encourages players interaction.

BLL : add a new warehouse structre for architects. Make BLL able to load resources, components and schematics infactoriesprovidedthe warehouse, the factory and the BLL have the optional module. Enable the BLL to load new schematics in the factory when a set is done and run the new one. Limit the BLLfrom1to 5 differents schematics we can load in them, depending on the level of the module.

Power Droid :Enable it to unload power from factories and harvesters at a small cost (loss) of power depending the level of the power module in the droid

Combat Droids : Create weapon customisation modules which changes the type of damage a droid does.(Health, Action, Mind, Poison, Stun, Enegy, Cold... Random) Make High end level combat droid have two type of damages they can do, user switchable.

PermaDeath : Give us the ability to store a droid during a fight at a high cost of wounds for the droids. Make droid dies and us to pick it up and bring back to a DE for repair. Implement a module loss when dying, DE could be able to replace it... even with higher level ones

BH Droids : Add a Stun / Dizzy module to Seeker droid to give a BH the ability to capture a target whenits hams are very low => new capture missions for BH. Make the low level Stun / Dizzy module a chance to kill the target...

Cook / Barmaid Droid: Create new droids for chef acting as vendors in hotel / cantina. Make chef pay a small fee to deplay those droids.

BE Droid : Fridge to store DNA / eggs collected in the wilderness, otherwise decay very fast...

ANy chance they would make a Cute Cat Girl robot...or perhaps a nifty Maid or Butler robot.

On a seroius note....how about modules that are weapon modules....like make it possible for a Droid Engineer to take some weapon and then to craft it into a module that could be put on a droid.....and then also maybe a module to give the droid the ability to use the weapon.

But also I would love to have a super battle android.....name it Nuku Nuku and for it to look like a Cat girl...thats would be super killer.

Although I wouldnt mind having one that could be a little more entertaining...like maybe one that danaces...I dont care if it heals the mind or not...just the fact that it danced....

Woohoo a response...better than nothing I guess =)

Hot swappleable modules are needed. Now you did this with power ups on guns...so the code is there...can we do this with droids as well too? ONLY to be done by a DE though.

More modules - ex. Slicing module to increase effectiveness BUT not usuable by anyone who is not a slicer. This is where certifications could come in. IF you are a slicer, you geta certification to use a droid with a slicer mod. Could be done this way for almost EVERY profession.

Going to add a repair tool? Yeah, did you even check for one in the artisan tree???

I would love Droidekas...or the combat droids from EP1. We should actually have a whole line devoted to combat droids...components at tier 1, weak droids at tier 2, better at 3 and 4, droidekas or the giant walkers at master. The armor line should be in ARMORCRAFTING! We shouldn't be making armor as well. The weapon mods for these should be in WEAPONCRAFTING. These higher lvl droids should also be able to be outfitted with a shield generator (for droids).

Even adding one of these suggestions would tide me over for awhile.

This is my favorite line from the post;

"All professions are important to us, but we realize the DEs have some more serious issues for us to look at than most professions."

It's almost like they care =) /smile

At last a specific response to our issues. Here's my feedback.

1) Droid Uniqueness and Usefulness – There are currently no inherent functions built into a droid. Add features and functions to different droids to make them each more distinct from each other.
We’ve made some changes as of the last patch, and have many more in the works. We like some of the ones you suggested in the email. What types of droids would you like to see in addition, and what functions would they have?
I haven't noticed any changes in this area, other than some droids no longer may be fitted with personality chips. One suggestion for a new type of droid (or module) would be a vendor droid. DEs are dependent upon Master Artisans and will eventually be dependent on Merchants when elite-elite DE becomes available. Let's make them dependent upon US for a change. Currently, NPC and droid vendors come out of thin air when a Merchant wants to place one. They should buy them from us.

2) Working Modules – Many of the Droid Engineer modules are not working. Modules would be useful as “hot swappable” for customers.
We’re adding more power ups and buffs to droids, but we currently don’t plan to make modules hot swappable. The concern here is we want to encourage specialization with droids, not make every droid able to perform every function. This specialization actually helps the crafting market.
I'd prefer to see hot-swappable modules, but I'll accept this Dev answer. If specialization is desired, then modules (current and new types introduced later) should be altered so that they can't be fitted to ALL droid chassis types. For example, maybe the Medical Modules level 4 and up may only be fitted to a Surgical chassis.

3) Usage Experience and Master Experience – The grind to get intermediate blueprints is too difficult. Usage experience could help make the grind less painful.
We’re going to change the Usage Experience to programming droid commands in the future. This should help the progress for Droid Engineer. Expect this to work somewhat like the Creature Handlers pet trick experience.
This answer is acceptable.

4) Variation in Combat Droids – Combat Droids are too similar, and could use more variation.
We agree. What kind of Combat Droids would you like to see?
This answer is acceptable. I'd like to see the Trade Federation combat droids as a model we can sell to customers, and Droidekas for DEs-only. HAM and attack values should be revisited for DZ70, Adv DZ70, Probot, and Adv Probot. There is little difference between the Adv and "base" model, and the gap is too large between DZ70 and Probot.

5) Droid Repair Issues – There is no mechanism in place to heal the white bar of a droid. Is droid perma-death going to come about?
We are going to add a repair kit for droids crafted by Artisans. Your droids will be able to heal with these.
This answer is partially acceptable. Will repair kits heal wounds, or HAM damage? Droid repair kits should be crafted by Droid Engineers, not Artisans. Please don't cripple our profession further.

6) Experimentation On Droids – Experimentation on droids seems to be broken. Currently, experimenting with all the points and successes produces no gains.
This is fixed as of the last patch!
Well, yes and no. What does experimentation on a Droid Brain or Advanced Droid Motivator do? Apparently nothing.

One other question... we submitted 12 items, not 6. What happened to the other 6?

Ok what I'm getting from this is that "New" droids will be in the Elite-Elite profession or something like that......

And just were are the skill points that we can use for this? In order for us to get this Elite-Elite profession. We need more skill points. I already have to drop Carbine Specialist(which is pretty useful when I'm out in those dangerous places trying to get the ore that is barely around...ya know since probots are pretty much useless) and Novice Scout.

Answer please? Andnot answering with a question or totally evading the question at hand.

This thread is long, and I'm too tired to read another two pages of "Droideka" and "We knew that already".

So I'm just throwing in my two bits and leaving:

Make droids desirable by giving them unique utility functions. Skill enhancements to slicing / combat / crafting would be excellent, so would a spybot that you can actually take remote control of and go scouting with. This makes far more sense to me than making the probot a tank, I mean geez, Han shot it once and it blew itself up. I don't expect DE to be a "pet class", but then the droids should have more useful and varied functions.

Skill enhancer droids! And a Camera droid!

This party's over.

I dont need to say much, because its all already been said

This reply is a stalling tactic, pure and simple, but throwing the question back at us (what would you like) they create a time buffer while we hash out what we want between ourselves, then submit it

I think the most insulting thing is that all these ideas have been available on this board for weeks - it really does go to show they dont read the boards....

Bottom line?

WE WANT WHAT WE HAVE TO WORK!

Lets not go clouding the issues by adding new stuff at this stage, let get what we are already supposed to have fixed or we'll just end up with more buggy and broken stuff that wont get us anywhere


Personally...... (and just off the top of my head)

Perma-death removed on incap (only on deathblow)

Perma-death repairable with loss in overall quality (i.e. droid stays in datapad, or is salvaged as inventory item which can be traded and repaired)

Storage module 1 holding more than 1 item (say 10) and scale the rest up from there

Medical modules fixed (heard that the top ones still all the same - is this only in surgical droid though?)

Reapir tool fixed so it can actually repair droids

MSE restricted to either only Storage and Data modules (perhaps only low level ones as well) or just to low level modules.

Surgical droid to be able to heal autonomously and have _innate_ medical ability (i.e counts as already having a medical module of a certain level (doesnt take a slot) which can be overriden by installation of a higher level one)

R2, LE & WED droids to have _innate_ repair ability or scaling levels (see notes for Surgical droid)

Substantial stat increase for DZ70, stat increase for Probot (and perhaps restrict the non-combat modules these can have)

Protocol droid to actually be able to translate for you

Remove 5 droid limit (maybe only for DE's) I need to be able to show customers what each chassis type looks like (as a droid merchant with now DE skill currently this is also a problem)

I also trust the devs have some seriously good ideas on integrating droids with player vehicles (for repair and recharge purposes) when they are impimented (although given you reply I doubt it)


I think its important to restrict chassis to certain modules (and grant certain chassis innate abilities) to differentiate between droid types (which solves the usefullness and uniqueness issues) but as a DE gains in skill (or only perhaps at master) his ability to 'shoe horn' modules into chassis that werent designed for such a purpose in increase

To take an example the MSE chassis should be increadibly limited (hence my suggestion of low level modules only or only storage and data) but in the hands or a highly skilled DE the chassis can be modified to perform tasks beyond what it was designed for (by function of installing other modules)