Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Update from the Test Center..
Well, yesterday morningI did it again. I hit Master Droid Engineer. Seventeen days from noob to MDE, not too bad if I say so myself. Ok, enough with patting myself on the back. For the information you have all been waiting for.....
I'll start on a down note, and update everyone on the results of the great Probot test. As of this moment, Experimentation has only minor improvements on the damage caused by a Probot, just like the currently Live HAM improvements. I have run about 20 tests total, and have come to the conclusion that the Damage caps are still in place and that the damage increase is only minor. The quality of the parts that go into the droid have no effect on the end product droid. One thing that I did find out, was that the listing on the Probot Chassis, as well as all droid chassis, is inaccurate in the fact that the schematic states that 50% Shock Resistance and 50% Unit Toughness are key elements in a chassis construction. It should read that the 100% Overall Quality of the resources used have an effect on the crafting of all Droid Chassis. Now for the hard facts.....
Ihave been using a 1000 OQ Chemical on the final production of the all the Probots that I have built in the testing process. I have run experimentation on the Effectiveness and the Quality. The only experiments that have shown any improvement have been with Effectiveness. I made 3 different Probots since I hit Master, 1 with a Crit Failure in the Experimentation process that resulted in a 0% Effectiveness rating, 1 with a good success that resulted in a 45% rating, and 1 that ended up with a 100% Effectiveness rating. The results are as follows......
HAM 819 0% Exerimentation Effectiveness
Speed 2.45
To Hit 0.21
Damage 60 - 80 (69 - 85)
HAM 824 45% Exerimentation Effectiveness
Speed 2.42
To Hit 0.22
Damage 70 - 80 (71 - 86)
HAM 828100% Exerimentation Effectiveness
Speed 2.4
To Hit 0.22
Damage 70 - 80 (72 - 88)
As you can see, the there is not much change, considering the difference in experimentation levels. I think I was being a little too hopeful in my previous thread listing the first changes. Now that I have all 10 Experimentation boxes, I can state, with out reason to doubt, that unless the code is changed, in regards to damage, exeriementation is still not that useful to a Droid Engineer, with the exception of the Customization tool. This brings me to the newest addtion, that was just added earlier today.....
The ability to place multiple crafting modules into a single droid will be working. I tested this out with 2 different droids so far and was able to experiment with all4 seperate tools. I have also found that droid crafting stations are no longer interupted by the other crafting stations in the area, this includes droid, private, and public stations.
The big problem with this however is that the Module Socket Clusters can still be placed in any droid and can be nested inside of each other.
I was just able to get a set of factories up and running, so I will try and see if the Protocol droid has any new animations. Thats all I have from the TC front, for now.
Are all droid results scaled down by a factor of 100 or something? You can add up to EIGHT points of HAM to a probot, when by rights you should be able to add up to 800 points, to get a 1620 HAM monster. Similarly, the damage numbers seem to need multiplying, perhaps only by a factor of ten, to make any sense... Boosting from 60 to 70 minimum damage is meaningless... boosting instead from 60 to 160 minimum damage would be a heck of a lot more interesting and useful.
They've decided to keep the same caps in place even after the "Probot Redesign", it seems. Typical. We can't have a droid as tough as a P O K E M O N Handler has, now can we? Perish the thought! 
Thanks for you effort and testing.
On the speed note, I watched a probot's combat log vs a mob and it was shooting at the advertised 1.5 speed.
What "Probot redesign"? Wasn't aware that there was one.
On a lighter note, the crafting station one is interesting. Wonder how that'll play out with customers. Guess it also means that I better be ready to build some R3 droids soon.
Multiple crafting stations in 1 droid will be good as long as you charge for them, and not toss them in for free like some DEs do.
I've given up on the probot significantly changing. I don't think it will, and I really don't think it should. I'm waiting to see real combat droids. Probots should be for new players in the long run, while the other promised combat droids should be for advanced players.
Calous, if you need to create inventory room by selling those probots super cheap, or the ones with weapon/gen/droid crafting stations, be sure to look up your wookiee friend on TC, Therynn (Efon's alt).
Excellent information, Drashk! Well done, and congratulations on making MDE on Test Center!
I actually fear the ability to put multiple crafting stations in a single droid. Far too many Droid Engineers, including a number of otherwise well-respected ones, charge too little for crafting stations. I do understand the impluse to charge based on chassis and toss in the capabilities for free (essentially), but in reality the only sensible way to charge for droids is based on their capabilities.
The chassis is irrelevant for the most part. Yes, you should charge more for an R3 than for an R5 because it is more difficult and uses more resources, but the real price differentiator should be the droid's capabilities. There are people out there charging (for example) 30k for an R3 with 10 spaces of Item Storage, and then they turn around and charge a mere 34-35k for a fully loaded R3 with everything in it. That's just stupid. Charge 20k for the R3 chassis and then 3-4k for each and every ability that you put it in.
Oh well, it probably won't affect me either way. But I see a definite downturn in sales coming because of this ability - people will only buy loaded droids and then they'll never need another one for any reason.
So what's the final verdict on this? Is 50-56 dmg at 1.5 speed better than 72-88 at 2.4 speed? This doesn't seem like an improvement at all, especially in light of the inability to heal droid damage.
Kiom wrote:
On the speed note, I watched a probot's combat log vs a mob and it was shooting at the advertised 1.5 speed.