Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Engineer Issues Designer responses
I would like to see Xim War-Robots (Source: Star Wars the Essential Guide to Droids) be available. Though a very old design they are remarkably resilient and impressively lethal.
Waren Xim
Droid Engineer
Corellia, Radiant Galaxy
Jabetha wrote:
You all continue to post responses to this thread as if someone from the development team is actually going to read them. Baffling it is... truly baffling
Normally I'd agree, but Q asked what we wanted...
I will tell you this - if he replies or not, he does read the replies to postings he writes.
Wouldn't you? 
Just to see what people are saying about ya? 
Audio
Well... he made a reply to many of the suggestions on the Creature Handler forum less than 2 hours after posting the original Designer Responses... then he made a second reply last night before even posting our designer responses.
As I mentioned before... surely you can tell by their answers and questions in the Designer Response that they never read this forum... what makes you think they will start now?
1. Droid uniqueness and usefulness:
I really think that droids should have a specific purpose. All droid types shouldn't be equal in all aspects, but it would be cool if you could give any type a very limited, basic abilityto do any of the tasks other droids can do, but I think that their specific purpose should be where they shine. I'd like to see more modules to cover basic stuff like a small blaster module, nothing to constitute a combat droid, basically the ability to equip a droid with a cdef pistol and a basic ability to shoot it. I had an idea a long time ago, and I'm not sure how to explain it best in technical terms so I'll explain the situation and how I see it working in game.It's an advertisement / direction givingdroid that you can situate, sort of like a vendor, that you could give text msg's for him to say on occation ( Ideally you can give him 2-3 msg's to say, but to keep from spam I'd give it something like a 3 min timer between them ). Players can talk to the droid and get the option to get waypoints from him, or maybe the droid could actually walk tothedesignated place. I'm thinking for setting this up the engineer would have to be allowed to enter 1-4 option titles for when players talk to him, and a text response for each option. Anyways, that's just one non-combat idea I had. I really think that droids need to be situated with certifications just like everything else. The only way I can see this working is with a certification system, with a set of droids being available for anyone, and a set that require certification. A master droid engineer should be able to use any droid in the game, with some certifications being given to other professions too, like BH's being able to use seeker droids, etc... Also I'd like to see droid engineers being able to handle more than 1 droid out at a time.
2. Working Modules:
I know you guys are working on this, and I really can't see how you can not be aware of most of the problems here so there's not much for me to say about it other than good luck, hope it turns out well.
3. Usage Exp and Master Exp:
I guess I'm not totally clear on how this would work, but I think that maybe working usage xp off of the durability of the droids you craft might work. like you get 1 xp every 50 or 100 pts of durability that a droid you crafted goes through. A small amount, but when you get a good number of droids out there being used it would really help I think. and the number crunching's really not my thing, just the idea's
4. Variation in combat droids:
As for the combat droid types Ipersonally don't know near as much about the starwars universe as most of the droid engineers I see out there, and from what I do know the other posters have covered the topicwell. I would like to post how I picture the powerlevel working, I don't think any droid should be as tough as some of the creatures out there, as far as I know there aren't any droids out there that could handle a rancor or a similar creature. However, there are combat droids that I know of that are pretty awesome, in game terms I don't think that droids would be all HAM like creatures, I'd think they'd have relatively low HAM, but massive armor / shields, which, by the way, I really think shields should work differently than armor, maybe adding a 4th bar to your HAM, for your shields rating, being like a 200 or 400 pt bar that regenerated incredibly fast... anyways, I love the combat droids that I've seen in the starwars universe, and was really dissappointed to find out they aren't in the game, and that I wouldn't be able to make any of them. And as for peoples complaining about the probot and its stats, I don't think they realize that it's main function was to scout / probe... somewhere it picked up the label of a "combat droid" and everyone expects it to make droid engineer a creature handler equivalent.
5. Droid Repair issues:
Would love to see this fixed...
6. Experimenting:
I really haven't crafted enough droids of my own to see any of this.
Jabetha wrote:
As I mentioned before... surely you can tell by their answers and questions in the Designer Response that they never read this forum... what makes you think they will start now?
LOL, not gonna argue with ya.
Replying or not isn't the question - it's if it's read or not.
They have to be careful when replying - but I'm just about positive that he will come back, just to see the reaction.
Audio
you asked what other droids i would like to see..remember you asked 
1. A solar power droid ... collects power and feeds it to installations.
2. R7 combat droid ... They look like the federation trooper droid ham 250-500 +armour and 25-50 damage.
3. Advertising module for protocol droids ...... a 35 character stream line that they would spout every 5 minutes.
4. Survey Droid .... lots people would pay for a droid to hunt down a resource ... add different module for the different resources would make them even more versatile. add metal module for the droid it would seek a metal out for you. add food module it would hunt that down. Now that's diversaty!
5. Repair modules for (armour...weapons...clothes...vehicles) I could see a Wed-Treead working on repairing a suit of armour.
I don't want to over whealm you so these are my top 5 =)
Ahap, this one's for you...
In terms of the SWG universe (at least during the movies), there were NOT many combat droids.
Two things. First, Episodes 1 and 2 contradict this. Secondly: gameplay first, continuity second. Youof all people should get that were SWG to have 100% continuity with the SW universe, there would be some serious playability problems
Droidekas were not around at this time.
We don't know that. In any realm such as this, we're shown what's pertinent, but there are hundreds of other things going on that we don't see. The content of the movie doesn't define the boundaries of the mythos. More to the point, they are around in "our" time - they're on Lok at all of Nym's camps. Again, I'd expect you to get from a technical perspective how the model is already done and in the system, making this an easy asset to add.
Having the DE profession come down to basically making a combat droid is, in my mind, the 'simple' and less-thoughtful approach to the droid engineer position.
But the DE community as a whole was economically devastated when their one combat droid was nerfed into oblivion and saw the player base as a whole switching to CH pets. This demonstrates the need for us to have one. No one said you have to build them. You can build.. uh.. fishing droids
Just thought I'd come out here and give you a hard time!
I'd like to train a protocol droid to hold a gun and any other bypedal droid with hands 
as for more ideas on combat droids don't ask me, there all in the movies just look for any droids wiht an attack
I'd like to add that lighting zap thing that R2 has to R series droids
all pets can have a attack no matter how small, as long as its possible in the movies I see no reason not to add similar attacks to some of the existing droids
Great ideas, guys. I second all of them!
Just a little story happened to me last night: I lost 2 sales of droids because I could not custom color them. The guy wanted a custom colored R2 unit, even though I had an R4 with this same functionality. Little things like this matter to people!
Two nights ago, I run into town and shout "They are no match for Droidekars!!" and immediately someone sends me a tell; "Can you make droidekas?!" and I told him "Sorry, no".
I know there are 33 professions; I know at most you probably have 10 developers actively working on the game still (possibly less); I know there are probably 1,000 unique, reproducible, known bugs in the game, but help us out, guys!
Peace,
Cyprian Carthage, DE in Coronet City (Naritus)
Almost Every Smuggler would have to get one, raising profits for DE. Also as more people buy weapons that are better sliced from smugglers, their profits raise too.
I would love if they added the IG Assassin Series to the line of combat droids, maybe being able to customize the weapon taht goes on it? Like being able to drag a weapon over the droid and for them to use it?
Also Place in some Melee Combat droids, taht would be more interesting.
Add Human Replica Droids
Would like to have much increased capacity on the binary lifters in the ability for them to carry items.
Also Addd Maybe Servant Droids for bars? like if you make a stockpile of jawa beeer and other drinks, you could customized the servant droid to go to the bar and take out of the stockpile and then go back to the customer that ordered it. though this would extremely hard to code.
Maybe a house keeping droid, to make the house look more alive?
Oh, how about a droid for scouts? the 87-RM scout collector out of the essential guide to droids is one. If a person hsa this out, they can harvest more out of a dead animal, like more hides.
Giving scouts a way to make more cash from selling hides.
Armorsmiths can make better armor to compete more.
And DE can sell a lot of these droids for common use.
Add Security droids like the Red terror or ZED, for PC owned cities.
Maybe a crafter droid to aid weapons or armor making.
Anyways my ideas for now.
hmm, well here's what Id like to see.
First, change the permadeath.
Instead of as it is currently, how about when the droid does die the player can gather up the scrap pile and return to the Droid Engineer to have it reassembled. In other words allow us a Ressurection type function likeDocters have, butfor droids. Of course when we do that, it's overall quality (Or whatever it's called) drops some, meaning that sooner or later they'll have to buy another. But until then they still have a functional droid. (Well kinda ) As it is now there's really no reason to get a droid as that they area one shot wonder.
While getting rid of it might be nice, I doubt it will happen, hence this idea.
Binary Lifter Droids
They need a function. Any function. But perferably something that fits with what they are, a Heavy Load lifter, or glorified automated Forklift. Of possible use when the space expansion arrives (If such a use even appears then) it currently has no use.
Perhaps then it could be modified to move harvestors about, and turn them back into deeds without needing to pay the maintence usually required. Or aneven better use could be to adjust tohe position of a house that is devoid of furniture, moving it around like you would a chair in you house. (forward, back, rotate 45degrees, etc) Not much of a use, but better than nothing.
Combat Droids
I had an odd idea for the Ep1 Battle Droids. Instead of buyingand using them individually, how about having a command unit that directs the others. One theing I remember about EP1 was seeing a number of Battle Droids with yellow makings being lead around by a Command unit Battle Droid with red makings. This idea takes borrows from that.
Once the buyer purchases a command unit they then purchas the more basic and resource cheap battle droid units. The basic units are loaded into the Command units storage like you would load Bait into a fishing pole. Then when you deploy your command unit. it deploys up to five other battle droids as well. If one is destroyed the command unit deploys another unit it's supply of Battle droids is used up. Commands for the Battle droid units is cotrolled thru the Command droid of course.
So in effect what you should have is One droid with a certian amount of 'Droid ammo' (ie basic battle droids that will attack thier target, expected to die, cheap enough to be created with ease, and cheap enough to be replaced with ease all the while giving the effect of a larger group of droids that's in battle.) Perhaps limiting the total number of ballte droids that the Command droid can have out at any one time to the Certification of the player or the Faction Rank the player holds in the Empire/ rebellion. Of course you shouldn't be able to reload the Command droid until after battle etc.
Just some odd ideas.
Rugoe
1. Variety - Visual
This is the spice of SWG for many, with character creation talking half an hour or more for those intent on visual appear. A major attraction to beasties classes, aside from those who only crunch numbers, is the visual appeal of the creature variety. With all the races and all the societies, I would think there are more than a small handful of bots. I would love to see both color tinting and a variety of chassis; keep the capabilities the same for a class of bots, but allow some more visual templates for us.
2. Swappable Slots
No, I agree with the SOE post, I don't see any reason for swappable slots. It forces a distinct personality/configuration for a bot. I see 'module' not so much a plug N play component as a hard assembly step. Maybe, though, I could see it capable of being done by a DE at a cost using a toolkit which would allow module & maybe personality changes or total reconstitution of the robot.
3. Permadeath
I hate permadeath, not from the aspect of losing the combat effectiveness of a group on droid death but because I don't want Jojo to die. I would rather see a 'Jojo remains' left behind which could be fed into a droid repair kit with a very large reconstruction time. Make it prohibitive enough that it will take minutes to rebuild it, but at least let us keep our dear bots. Would the end have been the same if R2 bit it for good?
4. Bot variety - capabilites
Covered very well in the thread IMHO. The key, I believe: Droids are an assistive tool. They should provide capabilities and adders to other's skills, not do what others can do. I do not invision an ubertankdroid, but could see a number of assistive combat droids. I could see a chassis drive the available modules for some of the variety (including weapon modules at different power levels) and do like the design of the existing assistive modules like the medical, even if it makes my current in the field capability suck. I paid for a sucky robot and got what I paid for. Skill adder modules, bots that can help with harversters, heck I could see a droid that would be assistive for almost every class without infringing on their capabilities. Combined with #1, I could see levels of bots provide a set of chassis with specific module capabilities, each level of DE skills providing more capable modules or more sturdy chassis. There are a large number of skills where a DE skill module could provide specific adders making it worth while without infringing on player interaction or the capabilities of other classes.
5. Disposable Droids
Limted resources....keep our deserts clean....take what you bring...blah...blah...blah. Face it: it is practical that there are disposable droids. There are a number of things which disposable droids could be used for which could enhance the game for all classes and, if designed right, be a nice income for DEs while not being cost prohibitive. The key is to make the droid cheap enough to make that it has a low market cost while providing some limited functionality that makes it worth the expenditure. Some examples:
a. Harvester Health Bot - A disposable harvester helping bot which can go to a specific harvester and perform the maintenance cost or deliver power.
b. Track Bot - Fired in a specific direction, gives a list of encounted creature types and distances (but probably not additional details) for a good distance.
Yes the game is supposed to be fun, but it is not supposed to be easy. There is supposed to be challenge and when developing so many classes and capabilities, avoiding toe stepping comes above a gaming being a replication of a Star Wars bible. Many people just want worthwhile variety, not droid twinkdome. I would like to have a purpose to the lower level DE skills, other than crank N burn MSEs.