Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Engineer, Droid Commander, and Droid Cert System A possible compromise
I do agree that as a CH i have to master a combat profession. For instance, some CH's are either TKA or Commando with Flame4, in order to have combat abilities. Nelus, i do agree if i spend the points that i should get the benifits a CL42 droid (thats that farthest i can go under this system) a CL40 droid is a Thune Guardian incased in steel that has some weapon type rather than Kinetic. Ranged attack which would work as opposed to ours. So even if i can only call two i get a nice little combo of Ranged weapons+Graul Tank (BE pets are looking better the more i hear about Certs). Because i can now drop master and get all these short trees at once.
Most DE's wish to say that there is in no way any comparison of them to BE/CH or WS/pick a weapon type. If you mean to say that you dont want combat droids at all in the DE profression tree then i would agree. If instead you are arguing you want a CL20-50 version of a probot, then i disagree. And would see nothing stopping any other crafting profession. With the current BE crafting bugs if they were allowed to follow this argument of "if we can make it we should have the ability to use it" then BE's would have Bio-engineered pets that would equal your droids in some way. The weaponsmith would have Flame throwers, can you imagine them with the pre-nerfed T21.
The problem is you wish to keep your class, in and of itself distintive. When i first heard about this profession i was ready to change. I came to this board in order to learn more about the profession, but instead got caught in this riptide of mayhem. My plan was to go DE to learn the ropes then drop DE for each DH box. I dont consider myself a powergamer by any means but i do consider my self a soloist or small groups person. Any class or groups of classes that gives me better ability to avoid people will in the long run favor me. What i am seeing with Certs and Mini-profs will better allow myself and others to do this as well. To get my second pet i had to grind up to management 3, this mini is at 2.
Pets need to be tamed is why there is a class for them. I dont buy that as a reason to be an owner of a bot. Unless bots are sentient they need to have active controllers or they will run around aimlessly doing the same repetitive things over and over. Droideka and other battle bots will need direction. Well we build them we should know how to use them. Yanno im sure some smart guy made Socom1-3 but if you think hes gonna last 19 seconds as point man in the navy seals youre wrong.
Any argument that follows the line that DE's use 92 points to master a prof and CH's only use a fraction more is invalid. We didnt sit in the safety of our own home to get our pets. So when you argue we get them for free, there is an associated cost of combat experience. Yet one more reason the DE tree should not contain COMBAT type droids. There is no combat requirement for them.
Just a thought. Instead of combat xp couldnt we use something akin to merchant xp.For instance, in order to get droid xp you would have to have a droid out and you could get a certain amount of xp over the time that the droid was out and functioning. I admit this thoery needs tweeking, but it would definatly slow the progression alot. Look how long it takes to get Master Merchant if you only had 1 or 2 vendors. This would allow non-combat profs a way to get better droid certs and as an added bonous increases droid sales if you add additional droids.
Any thoughts?
Pluto9Moon wrote:
Nelus first off Drashk and the DE communtiy wish to cloud the issue by saying Master Artisan is required (maybe in the future it will be, currently it is not). So what we see is them saying it costs 210 to max out but in my most first page this thread we see it only takes 92 points to MDE. 20 to cert. And to get to a second droid at 6+5+4=15 points. This quickly gives 5 droids. Plus being MCH for a total of 106 points allows us to be MCH/and a pretty effective DH.
Evidently you have not been a droid engineer yet. No, Master Artisan is not required, but it is almost a necessity if you want to be a viable droid engineer. If you just want to grind your way up to MDE, then by all means, ignore MA and do it. You just need a few schematics toget there. Or if yourgoing to be the casual DE who makes a few droids here and there for friends and such. If, however, you want to make and sell your droids on a consistent basis, you really should have MA as a skill. If you don't you are at the mercy of Master Artisans making you schematics on demand.
I don't think you have any idea how many Electronic GP modules and Memory Modules we go through. Not to mention what a pain in the arse it is to make a factory run of Micro Sensor Suites so you can make your probots.
Gribnitz wrote:
Evidently you have not been a droid engineer yet. No, Master Artisan is not required, but it is almost a necessity if you want to be a viable droid engineer. If you just want to grind your way up to MDE, then by all means, ignore MA and do it. You just need a few schematics toget there. Or if yourgoing to be the casual DE who makes a few droids here and there for friends and such. If, however, you want to make and sell your droids on a consistent basis, you really should have MA as a skill. If you don't you are at the mercy of Master Artisans making you schematics on demand.
I don't think you have any idea how many Electronic GP modules and Memory Modules we go through. Not to mention what a pain in the arse it is to make a factory run of Micro Sensor Suites so you can make your probots.
EEEK! sorry for the TRIPLE post.. when I hit submit, it just kept bringing up Nelus' profile.. how odd.
Can mods remove the duplicates? or even edit them to blank?.
where i see the problem is not that u cant use droids, but that mastering droids is highly ineffictive with so high skillpointscost. noone will play 3 professions to get 1 pet thats is weaker than pets from 1 profession. they can always paint their rancor grey and say its a droid.
i prefer to have droid use in DE as it dont affect crafting or to have one profession for droids which can be balanced against others in anyway. i for myself are not going tomaster 3 professionsjust so i can be 50% as strong as every combatprofession alone!.
- the miniprofession (10dl for 10 skillpoints)could also be included in CDC, which will enable all players to get +10dl thou investing 10 skillpoints in DH, simply.
- DE didnt wanted combat abilitys so i wont add any to DE. butwhenDE get droid use bonuses theyshould not stack with CDC bonuses so they dont affect balance and allow to get to the best droids without the need of 2 professions.
Drashks plan has 2 problems, my ideas solve this two problems and dont creat new ones, and all of drashks points are acomplished with the same result so i so no reason why this cant be considered as solution if nothing better shows up.
Jenden wrote:
You obviously haven't tried being a DE without it. I have a high volume business in pretty much ever kind of custom droid with every module combination out there and I've never needed master artisan. All you have to do is go to theed/coronet/bestine/AH and say you'll pay a master artisan for 2 minutes of their time. Pay them a couple k to make the schematic, then go run them through your factory. Sure, it might cost you 10-15k per week for schematics (I go through 1-2k of each per week) but you don't have to take any of the artisan skills. The real trick is we pretty much only need 3 parts (plus the micro-sensor suite, but a run of 1000 of those will last you a good long time). I could see if we needed 5-6 different parts in bulk, but thats not the case.
We have had this arguement before Jenden. Sure, you can do without MA, but you are at the mercy of MA's to make your schematics, which I have already stated in my prior post. You have to waste your time running around finding someone to make this stuff for you, micro managing your materials to make sure you have what you need for the specific schematic, and hoping someone is around when you run out of GP's or what have you. I micro manage my materials for armor segments and have found myself almost screwing up and using the wrong stuff for basic materials. You are in the minority not having MA as a primary skill and you pay the price by having to rely on others to get what you need.
It is almost the same as Pluto9Moon saying this "I do agree that as a CH i have to master a combat profession. " We know this is incorrect, there isn't any combat tree required to make CH, but it sure makes life a lot easier.
Gribnitz wrote:
We have had this arguement before Jenden. Sure, you can do without MA, but you are at the mercy of MA's to make your schematics, which I have already stated in my prior post. You have to waste your time running around finding someone to make this stuff for you, micro managing your materials to make sure you have what you need for the specific schematic, and hoping someone is around when you run out of GP's or what have you. I micro manage my materials for armor segments and have found myself almost screwing up and using the wrong stuff for basic materials. You are in the minority not having MA as a primary skill and you pay the price by having to rely on others to get what you need.
It is almost the same as Pluto9Moon saying this "I do agree that as a CH i have to master a combat profession. " We know this is incorrect, there isn't any combat tree required to make CH, but it sure makes life a lot easier.
That is all convenience. If you don't want to have to plan ahead and you don't want to have to deal with others, then yes, it is a requirement. But, that style of play is completely optional. Furthermore, we aren't alone anymore, with the upcomming publish more crafting professions are requiring MA or DE parts.
Eutock wrote:
This is a well thought out idea. I have two areas of concern -
1.) This proposal gives combat skills to the DE profession (droid control) but there is still no basis upon which these skills are earned. In other words, all of the DE profession's experience and skills are 100% crafting-oriented, and so do not provide for either combat or pet handling modifiers.
Just a thought....
Let's assume, for just a minute, that this plan (or something VERY similar/exact) is put into place. I'd be betting that they'd undoubtedly put something like "Droid Combat XP" into the DC/DH profession down the line. It makes sense to create that kind of XP now, and it's optional for all DEs to get.
If you want Droid Combat XP as a DE, just whip out your Probot and have it do it's thing. Voila!
A way to differentiate Droid Combat XP from crafting XP, as it relates to application of that XP towards Drask's system.
2.) If I read the proposal right, the only requirement for the Droid Controller profession will be apprenticeship points. This would make DC a half basic/half elite profession, with a leaning towards the former. The consequence of this is that all droid difficultly levels will have to be inferior to the equivalent creature difficulty levels. Moreover, this would make combat droids always sub-par to creature pets, since creature pets will alway be more powerful due to the extra skill points required to attain the CH profession.
Looks to me like it's more than just AP.
"Cost - 75000 Combat Experience / 600 Apprenticeship Points / 8 Skill Points"
That's 8 skill points, 75k Combat (or "Droid Combat") XP and 600 AP.
Those numbers seem 'mini-profession' enough to me to be a good trade-off in the overall proposal that Drashk has made.
I have to state, this idea still gets me more positive about what solutions could be done and has some chance of being accepted nearly "as is" by the Devs than any I've seen to date...........
EVER.
It just seems to provide the most balance, to all the stated desires, for how our profession could progress to get better.
I do believe that a part of this plan that's not quite there is the balance/feature/"new stuff" for the non-combat DE crowd, in terms of a new module or 2 (or 3). If that becomes a part of the overall "plan", in addition to fixing a good amount of bugs from Gorantoth's list, I think I'd say......"Get setup to make your attack run!" and /bow to the Devs and all community DEs.
Seriously.
/bow
Respectfully,
Apprentice XP represents the responsibility of a potential Master to train up-n-coming members of his or her profession, and that's all (Politician excepted). It makes no sense to apply Apprentice XP for any other purpose.
I understand the idea of steep costs for these new abilities, but you have to find a different way. Higher Skill Points, or higher Combat XP requirements, seems the only other way.
Otherwise, excellent ideas Drashk!
Re-read what I wrote Pluto. No where did I state that it required Master Artisan. I was merely pointing out that itwould take210 Skill Points to master all 3 professions.
Pluto9Moon wrote:
Nelus first off Drashk and the DE communtiy wish to cloud the issue by saying Master Artisan is required (maybe in the future it will be, currently it is not). So what we see is them saying it costs 210 to max out but in my most first page this thread we see it only takes 92 points to MDE. 20 to cert. And to get to a second droid at 6+5+4=15 points. This quickly gives 5 droids. Plus being MCH for a total of 106 points allows us to be MCH/and a pretty effective DH.