Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Fellow DE's: Forming a unified discussion on Combat Droids
ASHRID wrote:
I also found it strange that the devs are proposing a 'discussion thread' but given the timescale they must have pretty much already made their minds up about what we are going to get
I don't think it's strange, I just think is is part of the way things work.It's totally stupid, but par for the course. Sony really doesn't care about communication. They appoint TH to be our "representative" and give him so much to do that he will never be able to do his job effectively. SOE proposes threads that portray to bounce ideas off of players, when in truth they aren't going to listen and are developing the same plan despite any feedback TH has the time to actually collect.
Last week SOE announced parts of the new droid plan they the are pushing for early Feb., and said the they would be collecting our ideas in focus threads starting Monday. It's Wednesday. Assuming the quick timetable SOE raised, don't you think SOE would have posted those feedback threads by now if they really cared what we thought?
This is happening EXACTLY like decay... Players said "we want a death penalty back." Some players wanted corpse runs, some players wanted experience loss, some players wanted forced cloning and high cloning costs. SOE ignores all these thoughts and puts out equipment decay. Players post for weeks that decay is the dumbest thing ever, and propose a million superior death penalty ideas. SOE says absolutely nothing, until Q3P0 posts one day that they are changing the official manual to reflect the upcoming decay changes. Blindsided, players complain. However, devs say they have spent time developing the system and won't change it.
For DEs... DEs have been complaining about droid functionality and bugs, no droid decay (repeat sales), and lack of combat droid models (CHs got to sell pets for huge amounts, making droids worthless for anything other than their crafting stations). SOE comes back with "OK, well we are going to put DE-only modules on existing droids and turn the class into a CH." DEs scream and holler about the bugs not being fixed, and about the changes being un-star-warsy. People discuss widely the desire of some for droid sales, not combat power. SOE says nothing, and makes no effort to host focus threads to weigh player desires (despite the fact that they are devoting an entire publish to droids). I think we all know what comes next...
If REAAAAAALLY pressed into giving a list of droids that I don't think shouldn't be combat capable, I really couldn't come up with much more than MSE, WED Treadwell (looks too delicate to take blows with those arms of its), and maybe the R4 (because I hate their cone-head shape anyway). I would have added 'Power Droid' to the list but then I thought "Give me a welding torch and a really large heatsink and that thing could power a laser cannon!" All the other R2s are out of the list as they can already beam white-hot laser beams out of themselves (if not only in the movies, but also in the game. Head to any Tattoine starport for visuals.)
The design of the modules will also be a large concideration. Will there be melee ones as well, or just ranged ones? I'm betting ranged only, though there would be a benefit to having a melee one as that would in effect instruct the droid to get close and personal with the target. This also would be where the R2's would shine as we've seen multiple times in the movies where R2-D2 used his laser-blast in shortrange combat.
Anyhow.. those are my thoughts on the matter. Course it won't matter much what with my computer getting fried last night. No idea how long it'll take to fix it.
Your box got fried?!?
Does that mean that the DEA is 'offline' for now?
If so, I need to probably build my DE list as a backup, so that I can take the DEA reins when these situations occur. I guess that emailing the full list to me in game is the best way (or send out a MM when you can to let everyone know that I'm the backup).
/bow
Respectfully,
Reply Re: Fellow DE's: Forming a unified discussion on Combat Droids
"If REAAAAAALLY pressed into giving a list of droids that I don't think shouldn't be combat capable, I really couldn't come up with much more than MSE, WED Treadwell (looks too delicate to take blows with those arms of its), and maybe the R4 (because I hate their cone-head shape anyway). I would have added 'Power Droid' to the list but then I thought "Give me a welding torch and a really large heatsink and that thing could power a laser cannon!" All the other R2s are out of the list as they can already beam white-hot laser beams out of themselves (if not only in the movies, but also in the game. Head to any Tattoine starport for visuals.)"
I'd have to agree about the WED and MSE - interestingly though there a story in the SW RPG where a crime lord strapped dentonite to a power droid and told it to walk off a balcony (power droids are notoriously stupid - another reason why I think non-talkers should be able to have personality chips)
several stories below the balcony was a floater containing a rival crimelord - the resulting explosing was, and I quote 'impressive'
Sod exploding MSEs, give me an exploding fusion reactor on legs - sure its only one use, but it'd be worth it :-)
ok _technically_ its not a combat droids
I find that the Power droid and the Protocol have some difficulty keeping up with me just walking around my own shop. The Probot and the DZ70 never seem to have a problem.
We all know that mobility is a serious factor in any kind of combat situation (in the real world or in the virtual SWG world)and, I would remind everyone, that droids who should receive combat modules should be able to be mobile and agile.
Of course,SOE could tweak their movement numbers on movement for our current chassis, but I still contend that the Protocol and the R2 just aren't battleworthy chassis.
In response to the comment about the R2's having a well known arc welding (?)torch in their front, I agree completely, as we can all see it on Tatooine. Ask any military strategist or weapons designer and he'll say it's a terribly flawed design. If we want to get extremely technical, the beam only fires in a narrow arc, I'll be generous and say maybe 5 degrees (sure looks like 1 degree though). That would be the equivalent of having the Battleship Iowa's main battery of 6, 16inch forward guns welded immobile facing only the direction the ship was moving. If the R2 droid were truly designed to be fitted with some sort of beam weaponry, it would logically me mounted on it's dome, to allow for a 360 degree firing arc.
Bah, I'm getting too fricken techinical! You know the long and short of my argument... 
Personally I think that providing they don't produce hidiously overpowered combat modules and they provide us with proper dedicated combat droids I can see no problem with being able to put a combat module into an R series or a protocol droid chassis. The actual stats and survivability of the droids would be by far the best tool to prevent R2s or protocols taking up the roles as main combat droids. As has been said before, 45 HAM is still 45 HAM.
As such I am in favour of ensuring that there is a clear line between dedicated combat droids and utility droids that can fight. There shouldn't be any sort of combat module that could get a utility droid to half the damage of a proper combat droid.
There are ways to compromise on this, it's simply a matter of finding some things that everyone can agree on, given some of the conditions
Hehe.... now you're talking about how to mount weapons onto the droids you dont' want to see have weaponry Strike the idea down with all your hate. Give in to your anger. With each passing moment you become more my Engineer
**snaps to**
whoah.. sorry bout that. Don't know what came over me there. But good news! We here at work have been fiddling with my computer all day, and after much poking, prodding, parts swapping, and general wire-wrangling we finally got the neon blue lights to display and the monitor to pop up!
Good thing too, as the DEA name backups are also on my computer
TheWoody wrote:
Hehe.... now you're talking about how to mount weapons onto the droids you dont' want to see have weaponry
Ahhh!!!When I said: "If the R2 droid were truly designed to be fitted with some sort of beam weaponry, it would logically me mounted on it's dome, to allow for a 360 degree firing arc" I meant it to be obvious proof that R2 just can't cut it as a combat chassis.... I think.... right master? 
Plus welding stuff isnt eactly long ranged (R2 did kinda sneak upbehind salicious crumb while he was busy 'working on' 3PO's eyein order to zap his ass)
Having said all that none of the combat droids in the films were particularly fast, quick or nimble - sure the droidekas were fast while rolled up but they couldnt attack until they deployed and once deployed their speed was terrible.
andthe battle droids (both the trade fed ones and those advanced jobs) just had this kinda march thing going on.
I do have an adventure in the old SW RPG where a droidterrorist group replaces the holo projectors in the domes of a load of R5 units with a blaster and introduces a virus to their programing which destroys the life preservation routines - that was 'interesting' and the last thing the players were expecting 
Thank the maker, we now have a correspondent! Congrats Drashk on this fine accomplishment.
With that new development, I'm going to attempt to make a summary of this thread and post it Drashk's more official DE thread at the URL listed below. Consider this thread retired.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=48359
I hope that, with a new DE correspondent appointed, we can cut to the chase and have our voices heard by SOE with strength and unity.
Better for all sides of the combat droid argument for the devs to see the truth, that there is a lot of disagreement. The fact that once-a-week "Let's unify" threads always have intense dissension raging through them should be an eye-opener
neshura wrote:
The fact that once-a-week "Let's unify" threads always have intense dissension raging through them should be an eye-opener
Nietzsche: "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."
I'm confident that, once we see the varying points of view on this subject, some compromise might be found. I'm already working on some ideas that would grant our current chassis some degree of combat capability while also keeping in mind the arguments against them.
Ifbetter ideas anda workable middle ground arean end product born out of some disagreement and dissention, then I'm all for it.