Droid Engineer Archive

First of all your on the right track.

gatering the initial load of resources is very important. Steel, Fiberplast, Copper, Aluminum are my top ones along with extrusive ore. I harvest what i need for sales and buy what i use to grind. As for subcomponents, i do 1 factory run a day of whatever is lowest. Start with EGP and EMMs if you are a Master Artisan as well. Then you will need Control units, and to a lesser degree of micro sensor units. If you have the lots, which I doubt if your starting out and trying to gather resources, it sometimes helps to have 2 or even 3 factories running at a time.

Then its a matter of keeping up with what you need. I keep about 20 differant backpacks with all my subcomponents and rare resources for easy organization. Also, get yourself a nice high quality W/D/G architect made crafting station and store all your everyday used resources in it.

make sure you keep up on the subcomponents. i usually try to keep anywhere from 25 to 50 on hand for the occasional large order or run on probots.

The only thing i do by hand instead of factory is the advanced chassis and the Final deed.

Hope that helps.

A lot of the resources are pretty general. Once you get to the level 6 modules thats when it get s fun. Just collect tons and tons of steel, when you think you have enough steel collect some more. Other than that is basically just Copper (one Special kind), Aluminiun (2 specific kinds), Ploymer, Fiberplast, Inert Gas (one specific kind), Siliclastic Ore, and Extrusive Ore (one specific). so its not really hard. It could be worse, look at the resources needed for chef.

As for making the subcomponents. Yes make factory crates of them all (once you get to Master) otherwise just make the Artisan stuff in your factory, which should keep it pretty busy. I have one factory for my Artisan stuff, and one for my droid stuff.

Sorry I forgot about the ores, then misspelled one.

Message Edited by MachineZed on 02-23-2004 12:48 PM

Message Edited by MachineZed on 02-23-2004 12:50 PM

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X Machine'Zed X
Obsidian Dagger Squadron

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DarthIguana wrote:

How do you DEs, masters especially, deal with the seemingly immense resource and subcomponant requirements that come with this profession? By that I mean, placing and keeping track of harvesters, subcomponant factory runs, subcomponant inventories, organizing resource containers, etc...

For example: droid brains. They get used in about 8 different droids (only 2 or 3 are common though, I guess). They use 4 different resource types and 2 different subcomponants. Do you do mass factory runs of them and pull the brain from crates as needed or do you keep masses of the subcomponants and make them individually as needed?

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It's a lot to keep track of! I started out just kind of winging it, which is probably good enough for most purposes. But since you asked I'll tell you how I do things now, having been MDE for about 4 months...

First, get yourself a sheet of paper or use a spreadsheet program. Make a list of all the subcomponents. They fall into four categories: Electronics/Misc, Chassis Components, Modules, and Droid Chassis.

Electronics/Misc are the non-DE parts that you need. The most important ones are Electronics GP Modules (EGPs) and Electronics Memory Modules (EMMs). But for some things you make you'll also need pretty much all of the Master Artisan electronics, plus Power Cores (from Architects) andComposite Armor Segments (from Armorsmiths).

Chassis Components are the parts that make droids and chassis that are never optional. I abbreviate them as DSP, ADFU, DB, ADB, DMS, ADMS, MA, MAPS. I'll let you figure out what those stand for.

Modules are the optional parts. Medical Modules, various Crafting stations, Droid Repair Module, Item Storage Modules, Data Storage Modules, and Droid Armor Modules are all in this category. For your list of partsI recommend you stick to just the best you can make, which is Level 6 if you have MDE and every rare resource, or Level 3 or 4 otherwise.

Droid Chassis are the droid bodies that you put into ADV model droids. If you are still "small scale" you don't need to worry about these just yet. Large scale DEs like myself keep crates of chassis around so that assembling the final droid is trivial.

Add to your list the specific resources types: Ditanium Steel, Duranium Steel, Duralloy Steel, Link Steel Aluminum, Duralumin Aluminum, Beryllius Copper, Dioxis Inert Gas, Neutronium Steel, Lidium Extrusive Ore.

Okay, you have a list now of everything you need to track to be an organized MDE. Take an inventory of your resources and set aside any that fit the specific resource types listed above. Watch for these resources every time things shift, and get some of each until you have good comfortable amounts of each. Luckily, 20k of any resource goes a long way for DEs. But I try to keep 100k of each.

As you go forward as a serious DE, try to take periodic inventories of each of the parts on your list. Go ahead and produce 5 of each part by hand if you are grinding. Keep them around so that when you want to make a droid you can just throw the parts together.

When you hit MDE (or just want to get money flowing in), you may want to start factory runs of parts. Starting small, make runs of 25 or 50 of each part at a time. For most things, that works out to just 1-2 crates. When you get to the parts that need subcomponents (like Advanced Droid Brains), plan ahead: First figure out how many ADBs you want, then run the EGPs and EMMs necessary for that run. With 2 crates of parts, you know that when you dip into the second crate, it's time to prepare a new factory run.

Once you keep track of all the sub-parts you run, it gets much easier to move along. Otherwise you'll find yourself missing some crucial part or making aschematic for 100R2 chassisonly to discover that you're down to your last 12 ADFUs. Gradually you'll have the resources necessary to do larger runs, and then to run finished droids of your most popular models. I now keep crates of each chassis type I make, plus each Level 6 module, armor, and Droid Brains with me. When someone in a starport asks for a custom droid, I know that I can throw almost any high-end droid together in one step, with high-quality parts all ready for the final combine.

Lol, all I can say is LOTS of storage space !!! I have 4 factories, a medium house, and use a friends unused lot for yet another house to store stuff in. Even with all this, I find myself rapidly running out of space. Agarage sale is what I need to have I think.