Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Strakers Space Proposal for finishing the DE profession.
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Straker_Atrella
Sat Nov 06, 2004 5:37 pm
#1
Drashk is doing an excellent job of collecting ideas and thoughts on how to "fix" DE. I wanted to put this idea in a finished form so that it is one that people look at and consider.
First I want to say that, all grounds bugs and glitches should be fixed first.
Before I go into my main idea, I want to explain why I think Space is our solution for "fixing" DE's. By "fixing" I mean giving DE's a renewable market that people NEED. A product that is wanted, desired, and needs replaced.There are many other professions out there, odds are pretty good, we will only see one good change. Here is why I think it should be space and not ground that is our good market.
1. Ground has many variables, Armor, Weapons, buffs and much more. Making droids more needed needs to fit in with all of that. Hard to do.
2. Some people don't like pets. No matter how good you make combat droids, some people don't want to have to deal with giving directions to pets.
3. We already have a CH profession that takes skill points, anything you do to make droids better degrades that profession.
4. People are set in their ways with Droids, it's been a year. Adding decay, without making droids more needed, may get less people using droids. Making them needed is not easy, see other numbers for that.
5. Space is new, people are less set in their ways with space. There are far less variables such as professions and buffs in space, easier to control.
6. Space ishuge market. A lot of people play space all the time, the fact that you don't need buffs, or anything, and can just jump in and fly is huge. Many people who dabble in space would want a droid as well.
7. Currently the only 2 markets in space are SW with a small Droid Market. All other crafting professions got left out there. This means that while our ground market will never equal an Armorsmith or Weaponsmith, it will be balanced by they have no market in space.
Those 7 reasons are why I feel we need to choose Space as our "fix" for our Droid market. There are many "cool" ideas for ground, but they would all have the issues listed above.
Strakers Space Proposal
1. Astro Droids and Flight Computers become important in Hyperspace jumps.
Taking a thought from TK here. Without an Astro Droid or FC, you have a % chance of Hyperspacing to the wrong sector. Space is crazy and chaotic, doing those calculations in your head will lead to mistakes.
Other then saying you totally can't Hyperspace without one, this idea is better, because what happens if your FC or Astro gets destroyed? It would really suck to not be able ot Hyperspace home. This way, you coudl eventually get there, would maybe take a few jumps, but you coudl at least get bck to civilization.
2. Flight Computers and Astro Droids degrade when a ship is destroyed and can be damaged.
This one is pretty simple. Each time you die, it loses some vitality points. Drashk likes 2, I like 5, but that depends if you could repair them or not. I would want Droid Repair kits to repair their Vitality, with some loss, just like pet vitality.
Flight Computers and Droids can be damaged just like any other ship componant. When your shields and armor are gone, little R2 better duck.
3. New Modules are added.
First Flight Computers get 5 module slots. This is to equal and Advanced R3 with 1 data Module.
Now new modules are added, experimentation matters on each of them. The better the quality, the better and faster they work. Currently how well pilot programs work is based on pilot skills. Possibly to fit Droids into the system, Pilot skills may need to be lessened in order for the Droids benefit not to be to large. Using a Droid or FC should be far better then without.
Another factor in the module issue, is it will cause more Pilot DIversity. Right now you can trade Droid Program chips to other players, making it possible for people to have a wide range of programs available. Being limited to 5 modules in a Droid or FC will force people to focus more. They may possibly even want multiple Droids or FC's, for different situations.
Proposed Modules open to change and addition of others. These would work with the different pilot progams. It should also be noted, that these would help with the Pilot programs as well as the Droid and FC programs. Like Bomber Strike and such. This would add diversity to pilots.
Alliance Communications Module
Imperial Communications Module
Freelance Communications Module
Capacitor Discharge Module (jump start)
Shield Enhancement Module
Shield Adjustment Module
IFF scrambler Module
Ship Repair Module
ReactorOverload Module
WeaponAdjustment Module
Weapon Overload Module
Engine Control Module
Enviroment Interaction Module (Nebula Blast)
Thrust Enhancement Module
Energy Pulse Module
Reactor Control Module
Each of those modules ties to different Pilot programs that people get. The module will enahcne the performance of the program, a better module enhances it more.
Now some of those could be put together, such as make a Reactor Control module that does Pump Reactor as well as adjustments. We could do that. Part of the reason that I split them up like that so that people can't be good at everything. Remember you can still do the other programs, the Droid just wont be helping you with them.
Thoughts? Good or bad.
Message Edited by Straker_Atrella on 11-06-2004 07:37 PM
Atan
Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:16 pm
#2
Some toughts and questions:
- 1. Astro Droids and Flight Computers become important in Hyperspace jumps.
I dont think that they should jump to the wrong sector, just to the wrong coordiantes in the right sector.
It would be really hard to do a emergency jump just to land somewhere in endor at some tier 4 enemys (Or if you really want to be evil, even into a gunboat in kessel)
- 2. Flight Computers and Astro Droids degrade when a ship is destroyed and can be damaged.
I think 2 points per death are enough, compared to the decay of the other Ship components. Or better 1 point but a growing rate of "miscalculations" (longer time needed for jumps) and jumps to the wrong place.
- 3. New Modules are added.
What are theseCommunication Module's?
And im a bit out of the material, are these the commands that can be programmed into the droids/FC's or are they thetactics you get within the tactics branch?
Should they only enhance the commands that are used in the FC, or should they also be like "external" commands that you dont need to programm into the FC?
Straker_Atrella
Sat Nov 06, 2004 7:08 pm
#3
Atan wrote:
Some toughts and questions:
- 1. Astro Droids and Flight Computers become important in Hyperspace jumps.
I dont think that they should jump to the wrong sector, just to the wrong coordiantes in the right sector.
It would be really hard to do a emergency jump just to land somewhere in endor at some tier 4 enemys (Or if you really want to be evil, even into a gunboat in kessel)
- 2. Flight Computers and Astro Droids degrade when a ship is destroyed and can be damaged.
I think 2 points per death are enough, compared to the decay of the other Ship components. Or better 1 point but a growing rate of "miscalculations" (longer time needed for jumps) and jumps to the wrong place.
- 3. New Modules are added.
What are theseCommunication Module's?
And im a bit out of the material, are these the commands that can be programmed into the droids/FC's or are they thetactics you get within the tactics branch?
Should they only enhance the commands that are used in the FC, or should they also be like "external" commands that you dont need to programm into the FC?
The communication modules are what you would use to set a Pirate trap or Bomber strike for example.
Hillslayer
Sun Nov 07, 2004 6:36 pm
#4
Firstly DE will never be _finished_. As for the modules... no. I don't want my choices as a pilot limited plus, if anything, it will make people cry for interchangeable modules which would kill ground sales. We need work on the ground, lets face it.
wornol
Mon Nov 08, 2004 3:17 pm
#5
Dont forget having your Astromech repair your ship when it takes damage, it is afterall an Astromech.
ASHRID
Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:58 am
#6
I'm at work right now so forgive me for skimming your post...
Personally Iagree that, without an Astro/Flight comp you should have a chance to mis-jump
However I'd go as far to suggest a 'mis jump' zone (kinda like witch space in Elite where the Thargoids lived), I'm tempted to suggest this be a PvP zone (since your light years from....well anywhere really) but I suspect you get people trying to mis jump just so they could gank mis jumpers (not that I'd expect a great deal of them) and that your hyperdrive needs repairs before you can jump 'back to civilisation'
I'd like to see droids fitted with [the old?] repair module able to make repairs on board multi player ships (and also the ability to spawn your single player ship at the starport (instanced hanger bay?) for your droid to repair it there) and also power droids able to augment the capacitor of multi player ships
It would also be great if you could set your droid to 'auto pilot' your multiplayer ship allowing you to do other things (not necessarily turrets!) on board.
Gron_DM
Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:35 pm
#7
ill support any change that makes us moreof arequired part of the SWG experience and not just there for looks. (excluding docs and 1/2 BH)
Boondaga
Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:06 pm
#8
I agree any change that gives us more to do is awsome. I like the Mis-jump thing, would make it a requirement to have a Astromech to do jumps sucsessfully...and the ability to repair our ships in flight would be awsome. These are all things astromechs are sapose to do. I think new modules to "assist" the abilities of pilots would be AWSOME. I am a Pilot and a DE so i use a droid or FC All the time...advertisment haha.
But seriously i think new modules would be great and the ability for droids to do more then just sit back there and help every few seconds would help alot.
Boondaga
Master Artisan/ DE/ Fledgling Rebel Pilot
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