Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Harvester Droids are Functionally Useless
Jenden wrote:
You might want to explain that to all my customers... they're loving them, they'll hate to hear the news that they're worthless. Seriously, when people can sell some of this meat for 50cpu+, even harvesting an additional 10-15 units (and its not hard to get that much of an increase) it adds up very quick. If you don't like them, don't sell/use them, but people just about everyone else is loving them.
/fully agreed.
For serious harvesters, they are a true asset, and I hear so all the time.
For people killing and skinning rinky-dink gnorts outside Moeina I'm sure it's not of much benefit, but then again, it's not intended for those people.
I do know that people are paying 100K-150K for my maxxed out Harvest R3's, and each one I follow up with has made back the credits in a few play sessions for a droid that lasts well neigh-forever. Those that are serious harvesters, that is - like Endor, Dathomir, Yavin IV selling doc resources.
I agree the interface needs some help, and that's an issue for sure - but the droid is the opposite of functionally useless. Next to crafting and medical modules, it's quickly becoming the most "essential" droid.
AO, who's trying desperately to find some high-cond steel to get mine even higher
Zakalwe-naritus wrote:
Maybe you misunderstood. I'm saying that there's no actual increase in harvesting per hour. if anything it's parity, or parity minus. People might like the gameplay that it introduces but it doesn't make any impact on collection rates. It's also inconvenient when you're in an agro area trying to get it out of the datapad. Would be a must have if it autoharvested (like a smart bot should) or if it gave you serious returns. I'm saying throw the DE's a bone and make this droid better.
I'm eager to dispute these complaints. Once you get acclimated to using the droid, it actually saves time. On my harvest trips I habitually pick missions close together and run between them. No worries about the droid keeping up in that situation. I am a melee fighter and having the droid harvest while I kill is invaluable to me. I have gotten the timing down on issuing the command, and when I can fully switch targets. When in a mob situation, im often automatically attacking the next opponent even before I switch my lookat target, so I sacrifice the ability to use specials for a few seconds, in order to get my droid locked on my previous kill. I only run into problems on lag heavy worlds like Dant, so I avoid using the droid when I'm in a crowded area, but even then 95% of my hunting is at non peak times and places.
Would I like to have a macro language for droid programming? Yes. Do I find my droid useless without it? Hardly. My DE builds the droids, and my BE does the hunting. I and my guildmates love the harvesters on hunting trips even for the simple fact that it partially mitigates the Group Penalty. I see a personal increase of up to hundreds of units an hour, depending on my target, solo or grouped. Give it a little practice, and a little patience, and you can too.
} {Master Combat Medic} {Master Doctor} {Marksman}Zakalwe-naritus said
Zakalwe-naritus wrote:I was excited to get this new type of droid. I bought a 108 efficiency droid and went hunting.When you factor in the 15 second minimum launch time. Combat interuption of launching. Or that Droids can't keep up with bikes. The fact that you have to issue separate harvest commands, often more than once. The time wasted playing with the bot easily outways the minimal % increase in harvest per animal. This was yet another good idea made pointless through poor implementation.If the bot was automated and instant launchable. Or gave a very large increase in harvest they would be worth something. As it is, I don't even bother using it.
It took 2 tries to buy one that worked well enough to consider. But I do like it a lot. mine is a 106 and to put numbers to it I hunted some Kaadu. When I harvested the female I got 19 units each time. when the droid harvested I got 22 units each time. That is about 16% increase. Not bad. Think of what a 120 could do
-Indene-
Zakalwe-naritus wrote:
I was excited to get this new type of droid. I bought a 108 efficiency droid and went hunting.
When you factor in the 15 second minimum launch time. Combat interuption of launching.Or that Droids can't keep up with bikes. The fact that you have to issue separate harvest commands, often more than once. The time wasted playing with the bot easily outways the minimal % increase in harvest per animal. This was yet another good idea made pointless through poor implementation.
If the bot was automated and instant launchable. Or gave a very large increase in harvest they would be worth something. As it is, I don't even bother using it.
There are some big advantages to using the harvest droid. I've tested these out myself. You may want to do some more extensive testing before posting such a jibe on them.
1)A fully loaded R3DOES wield approximately 20% increase (significant!) on harvests. A fully loaded Probot DOES wield approximately 18% increase (significant!) on harvests.
2) A probot can keep up with an X34. I use my X34 when I hunt, so no problems there.
3) You can send your droid in to harvest WHILE YOU ARE FIGHTING. How many times have you had a corpse disappear before you could harvest, because you were still fighting something else? Problem solved!
4) It's cool to use your droid more in the game. Prior to the droid publish, droids were rarely used in the field. Now it's becoming common-place. (yay!)
That said, all in all, the modules added in Publish 8 were very nice additions to the Droid Engineer profession, as well as to the game itself.