Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Ideas for new modules and droid types.
(placed in here for archive purposes in case a dev reads this and my other thread gets lost)
I never read the DE forum, but I know you all need new things. here's some things I would like to purchase. I've worded them as semi-sudo-code thoughts so hopefully the Devs can see how easy it could be to implement. I hope this topic isn't a waste of time. Enjoy
From SotE, and some dank pit in my mind.
First off not all droids looked like droids there were Expensive droids the appeared somewhat human. and faster then most men or faster. Prince Xizor had to keep ugprading to improve his Martial Arts abilities.
1.) A Droid Combat Trainer, one designed for each Melee class. Just using the droid would eventually destroy it. A fencer droid comes with a 1h sword and sparring with this droid will Buff you Dodge Skill Mod. A TKA sparring droid that buffs your Unarmed Speed Mod, and so on... The droids buffs work like Enterainers Mind buffs where the longer you practice with the Droid the longer the buff remains in effect.
2.) A Repair Droid, That actually repairs items. Person would take repair kit Item along with the item to be repaired and place them in your Repair Droids inventory box. Using the radial button on the droid you select "Repair". the repait kit is used up and the item is repaired based on the QLof the repair kit and the repair QL of the droid. No failure rate that would actually destroy the weapon, or whatever you repaired. Butthe item of course would still lose condition.
3.) A Scout Bot, That actually runs out in front of you 45m at your run speed, the turning arc would be slow to match you but would eventually be 45m in front of you again. It's purpose would to take the agro for you. by scouting ahead the bot takes a few hit from the agro'd npc's distracting them from you allowing you to avoidsuch confrontations. very nice for non-combatant artisans allowing them to run by unscathedat the cost of the Scout-Bot.
4.) A Navigator chip, which would allow you to drag-n-drop waypoints onto it. You tell it to GO and it starts traveling to the waypoints you entered in and in the order you dropped them. Allowing the player to autofollow the Droid to pre-designated waypoints.
5.) A Dueling Droid, where the Engineer can program in different NPC lvl's from say like 20-200. The purchase of this bot would be just to see how strong a person was. Allowing player to test tactics on different Con lvl's. No deathblows and no xp gains. 10-20 charges. or fights.
6.) A Speeder-Bot, You always see robots working on vehicles, require speeder/landcruiser owners to purchase Droids that keep the vehicle in tip-top shape. the condition of the vehicle drops everytime it's used thereby the Droids act like stims for vehicles. Say 27 charges per Speeder-bot.
Thats all for now
MickGrey wrote:
"Vendor Module"
Current situation:
People with administrative access choose "create vendor" from a House control panel, and a vendor miraculously appears in their inventory.
Proposed situation:
When a DE builds a droid with a "vendor module" installed, that droid may be placed as a vendor. The "vendor module" may only be installed in humanoid droids -- Surgical, LE Repair, and Protocol for example. Merchants could still use the existing "create a vendor from the panel" method, but this would give low-level Merchants (those without the ability to customize their vendors) some customization options. They could order a droid that has a certain color and chassis. The ability to rename their droids easier would also need to be added.
Ideally, a percentage of the vendor maintenance fee would go back to the DE who constructed the droid, but I give this a very low chance at passing
Take this one step further. You can "path" this vendor module droid and have him walk about barking and selling things for you - also, this droid could remain walking the path even while you werent in game. In event thathe ran out of items, he would return to a "home" waypoint (that would probably be your home)- that would be ... omg ... sweet!
SnowDog2003 wrote:
>>>This isn't exactly a new module or droid idea (sorry to anyone who posted this earlier in the thread), but rather an idea on how to use modules in the existing droids. I think that droieds should only be able to modules of which they are the equivalent level. So a MSE droid can use Level 1 modules, but not level 2 and up. That way, it would take an Advanced R3 or Protocol droid to use the Level 6 droids. It keeps us from having to sell MSE droids with Level 6 Medical modules.
If this were true, then an R2 could never have any modules, since the Global Droid Cluster Module is a level higher than the R2 which requires it.
Well, it's not like you have to so set in stone. You can just not count the General Cluster device as a module, and still have the R2 Use Level 4 modules. And by the way, it's the same level as an R2, since both are learned at Expert of their respective branches. Not sure what you were thinking about, but it wasn't the General Module Cluster.
Bartending Module for the droid
Have a chef be able to load up drinks into the bot and place them in a cantina,party, etc... Similiar to the provided vendor module
How about a spy type droid? You know, a mobile camera. You can just immobilize the character, switch control over to a droid that looks like a seeker or something and have the player control it until it runs out of juice or gets ganked. Could be fun. With all the stuff I've seen in EQ, this is definitely possible. Would allow people to scout ahead and see if they can handle that path. Would be nice on those harvester runs, or for a non-combatant to explore the world a bit more at less danger.
Module-wise, there's the entertainer droid.
Maybe we can have an improved storage droid module.
What about a droid that emits an ultrasonic noise that scares off creatures, or at least lessens the chance of an aggro.
Droids that jam radar to anything of opposing faction? Allowing rebels to do hit and run tactics on those dang At-st's?
How about a droid that releases a smokescreen that prevents ranged combat?
Delivery droids that'll drop off an item to someone?
One-shot uses on a corpse retrieval droid like the Necromancer's ability in EQ (for when item insurance is needed).
How about self-detonating droids that you can use in PvP or PvE? Little One-hit wonders so to speak, with an area effect explosion?
Droids that give off more light to the environment?
Droids that you can play minigames with. (GEMS in EQ, anyone???)
A droid that will increase the size of your survey tools range?
Droids for houses that move on waypoints whether or not your logged on, instead of relying on frames for ambience.
A droid that can act as a mobile ATM for your money needs.
Skill enhancement droid assistants, maybe?
A Nurse Droid that can help decrease the time of DOTs and the ill effects of Spice
I know that's a lot of them, but there really is a lot of things we can do, it just seems we've been given only a few modules, and I'm sure most of these won't unbalance the game in anyway.
I have a fewideas for Battle Droids. In the movie, they were all equiped with weapons, if I'm not mistaken. The problem in the translation into the game, everyone will just give them anything they can afford if there's no system for balance. I propose that the addition of Targetting Modules be placed in droids that can hold a weapon. Novice DE's can get a Level 1Targetting Module and on up to Master DE's getting the level 6. Level 1 gives the droid the certs of a Novice Marksman and about the same accuracy, so it can use any CDEF weapon. Level 2 gives all the Intermediate Carbine, Rifle, and Pistol certs on up to Level 6 which gives weapons like the DX2 that players get at Pistoleer and Rifleman. There's 6sets of blockswith certs right now, sojust match up the block with the level. The accuracies should be less that a real player as to not replace them. The devs were also talking about a few new weapons in the elite ranged combat professions, so they can still have better weapons than the droids can, making a real player better, but the droid still handy to use.
One of the other requirements would bea Level 1 Item Module to put theweaponin. I say level 1 because it holds one item and would simplifythings by having it equip the single itemautomatically(no worries about filling it with guns and forgetting to tell it which one, etc). Theradial menu can have a new function thatopens this separate from any other item modules in it and the name can be differentto not cause confusion, like "Equip Weapon" or the like.
Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that they wanted droids to do special attacks. That thought hadn't occured to me before, but with the Targetting Modules they can randomly do the attacks from the equivalent marksman level. That would be really
I'd also like to see more defensive modules. Like an Internal Structure Module that adds a little HAM or even modules that raise specific resistances, but lowers others. This would make droids more unique, like how personal droids should be.
-Lee
PS. Tack on another vote for fixing what we have and disposable Survey Droids(the radius around the user, not the whole planet one)
*BLL Droid - make it do "harvester runs", it can power, pay maintence, and collect resources and take them back to a central location designated by the owner.
* Surveyor Droid - Ability to survey an area and list all resources available in the area and percentages, then allow them to sample the resource IF they have a "resource sampling module".
* Droideka Combat Droid - Self Explanitory, in the movies, people want em, their in game, we need em.
* Battle Droid Combat Droid - In the movies by the thousands even, Not as good as Droideka, better than Probot.
* Slicing Module - not as good as slicers abilities, but still has a decent chance at slacing weapons, armor, and other things that slicers can do.
* Vendor Module - Droid functions as a vendor, but with limited number of items it can hold, since it is mobile.
* Tracking Module - Able to locate NPCs and PCs at double the range of the users radar.
* Weapon Module - (Combat Droids only) Ability to change out the defualt attack speed and damage with a weapons stats that was inserted into the module. Example - Put a CDEF into the weapon module during crafting process, and putting the module into the combat droid - thus changing the combat droids attack speed / damage / dmg type to that weapon.
- Kamikaze droid (smart grenade kinda thing?, this would generate a lot of revenue
)
One of the major problems I have as a DE is that very few people want to buy anything from me because I am not a Master DE. I survive off the output of my harvesters and sales of Seeker droids to Bounty Hunters, though those sales were decimated when charges were added to Seeker Droids. I do not love grinding out R4 Chasisis endlessly in order to get to the level where I can make probots and other droids that people might have bought if they hadn't been nerfed.
What I need as a DE are bots that I can sell for a profit at each level of ability. At each level I should be able to make things that are useful to other players, like Architects and other professions can.
Here are my suggestions:
Make MSE droids more useful. Perhaps you can allow someone to take contol of the MSE droid when they are in a house or camp and use it for spy/recon missions.
MSE droids should be able to carry small explosives on kamakaze missions. Perhaps they could be equivalent to a land mine. If you allow someone to direct the MSE from a camp,it would be even more interesting.
MSE droids could be equipped for vermin extermination missions. They would have a small combat ability, perhaps equiv to a basic Whomp Rat and could only be used agsinst creatures, not humaniods.
Provide similar feature sets for the Fugitive Tracker Droids and Probot type droids, but with increased abilities.
Provide a Survey Module, similar to what has been suggested but one that will show the concentrations of all types of minerals or chemicals or whatever, rather than just a single type. That would make such a module more valuable than a regular survey tool.
Survey Module II, can store old scans and build up a map of where good deposits are...
Binary Load Lifters should be used to transport cargo in crates. If someone decides to buy 4 crates of Seeker Droids from me, I should be able to load them onto my BLL and send him off to a waypoint I drop into him. When he gets there, he makes the trade and then returns.
Binary Load Lifters could be programmed to service my harvesters. The BLL could make my rounds for me and bring home the resources, saving me a great deal of time.
Provide missions that can only be completed using droids. Perhaps MSE droids can be used to retrieve items from dangerous structures. Perhaps they can be programmed to navigate mine fields. If they don't succeed you use another MSE droid and try again. (And I make another droid sale.
)Perhaps you need a Treadwell droid to enter a building that is contaminated by radiation or atmospheric poisoning. Using a "portable droid control station", which allows you to directly control droids without being in a camp or house, a player can take control of the droid and navigate it through the hazard.
Allow players to learn to understand other languages via the Data Pads, but make them learn to speak them only slowly over time. If they don't wish to learn a language, they can get a protocol droid to speak it for them. Make language skills cost points.
Make it so that a couple of items or types of droids can be made at the very highest level by each of the interim DE levels. That way, people won't insist on only buying from Master DE's and us little guys might eventually survive to get to Master level.
Creature pets and droids should not be so alike in situations where they take damage. Except in extreme cases, a DE should be able to restore a droid to 100% effectiveness. The variables should be time, materials, and parts. When a droid is "incapped", it could recover as it does now. If it is "deathblowed", a random component that went into making the droid would be destroyed and would have to be replaced by a DE or repair droids. A stronger creature would destroy more components.
No player should ever hesitate to send a droid into a dangerous situation where it might protect the life of a humanoid. That's what droids are for. You shouldn't be worried about what will happen to the droid beyond the cost to repair the damage done or the cost to replace it.
Ideally, a DE should be able to view all the components that went into any droid and attempt to replace any given component with one of higher quality, perhaps improving the quality of the droid. It would be a type of "Droid Slicing".
Provide a message module, so that a flying droid can carry an encrypted message disk to a given waypoint. This could be a type of faction mission that anyone could undertake. They might have to get the disk, then the waypoint, and then get the Message Droid.
I think it might make some sense to require droid certs in order to do some advanced programming, but I think that droid certs for just using droids don't make much sense. Droids should be made easy to use. Perhaps there might be regulations insisting that only scouts and rangers could use critter extermination droids of a certain level, though. There might be other regulations considering the posession of droids capable of attacking humanoids by covert faction members, etc.
One slightly unrelated suggestion. Get rid of vendor fees and replace them with sales taxes. That way, the poor DE, who has to maintain a very large inventory, isn't crippled by vendor fees based on the retail prices he wants for his goods. You can also do a lot of interesting things with taxes, such as allowing imperial sympathizers to pay bribes to get theirs lowered... allowing income tax evasion by smugglers and perhaps a new type of merchant, etc.
That's my rather longwinded contribution to this discussion,
BamitJim of Kettemoor (See my column Wookie Walkabout at swg.warcry.com)
I think reading all of the posts to this thread would give me a headache so forgive me if this is a duplicate. Here is a new droid Idea.
Salvage Droid
From the official Star Wars website....
While a crashed Podracer can please an audience starved for entertainment, the resulting debris makes for an even more hazardous course. To clean up the wreckage, race organizers employ these hovering salvage droids. They are carried to wreck sites in hovering holding arms that deposit them through ventral chutes. The cap-shaped droids then pick up the wreckage with articulated limbs.
Since we know that Podracing is a thing of the past and I believe is outlawed at this time frame it is safe to asume these droids aren't being used in the above capacity... but what if they were used to haul junk?
Haul Junk you say?
Thats right, just as bounty hunters have specialized droids for missions why not have a junk retrieval mission. This could add new missions for junk salvage from junk vendors and/or heavy item retrieval from other npc's or terminals. This mission would be similar to escort missions where you would go to a location to retrieve an item that spawned that only you could retrieve and only by using a Salvage Droid. The droid would pick up the item and you would have to escort it back to the vendor for your reward.
Like bounty hunter droids they could have multiple uses before burning outor maybee they could justbe purchased once and require some sort of fuel be placed in them which would be another idea altogether.
Anyway thats my idea for this week...
--Dolomite
Actually I had one more Idea since I didnt post anything for the past few weeks.
WA-7 Waitress Droid
From the Star Wars Official Website.........
A spirited antique droid waitress, WA-7 served the patrons of Dexter's Diner with officious precision and the programmed equivalent of sass. A streamlined mechanical in a shape that suggests a humanoid female, WA-7 had a sleek build complete with a decorative metallic skirt and an agile unipod wheel.
So what could we use this droid for, how about a mobile food/drink vendor with limited capacity. Sounds strange doesn't it. What if you had a droid that allowed you to add items to it like a vendor, maybee top it at 20 items. Perhapse the droid could be set to patrol a house or cantina or even starport, but might need a new action such as pausing in place when someone selected it. Playerscould access the droids vendor list and get items from the droid. I am thinking the droid would need to be limited to food related items (non spice related)however so we don't have a bunch of walking weapon sales droids.
Anyway there ys go.. hope ya enjoy the idea...
--Dolomite
p.s. SOE when making new droids... start here --> http://www.starwars.com/databank/droid/
I think we need to bear in mind that a survey module that actively located the highest concentrations of a resource (particularly across an entire planet) would make a complete mockery of, for example, surveying missions (and right now, they are my primary source of income).
That said, though, I do really like the idea of a 'Survey Droid' that works somehow like a seeker droid. It might be possible to make it so that you give the droid a waypoint (anywhere on the planet) and a resource type, and it will later return with the concentration of that resource at that exact location (possibly having limited charges?). That way, finding good resource concentrations still requires activity by the droid user, but having the droid just makes it easier (you don't actually have to run out there, and you can take multiple sample points to find areas that you might want to investigate yourself).
Perhaps an advanced version could be sent to other planets, or might bring back a single sample of that resource... (Survey the entire galaxy from the comfort of your own home!)