Droid Engineer Archive

Where do we fit in now?

I think all Droid Engineers can agree that our profession is one of the most unique professions in Star Wars Galaxies. We are able to build droids that can touch upon every single profession. We are often sought after by Crafters, Doctors, Bounty Hunters, Entertainers, and now Pilots. Droid Engineers can build 13 different styles of droid, with hundreds of different variations. The Droid Engineering profession has the greatest potential for diversity, in all of the crafting professions, due to the modular/chassis design. Unfortunately our diversityis also one of our most difficult selling points.

The Droid Engineer profession is one of the more difficult profession to learn, understand, and prosper at. Due to long standing bugs, design flaws, and lack of overall vision, our profession is one of the least needed crafting professions. Architects, Armorsmiths, Weaponsmiths, Chefs, and even Tailorhave a very soild market place, due to their realitively simple to use products and appeal to the general player base.

All of the crafting professions revolve around Architect. Without Architects we would not have the wide scale coverage of products that we see. There wouldn't be enough weapons or arnor to go around, nor would we have a place to store the items that we collect. We wouldn't have Player designed and built cities, nor would we have a safe place to log out, away from static cities. The Architect profession is not perfect, due to not having a strong form of decay system in place, but the profession is still able to produce a lot of repeat business, for a number of different reasons

Combat could almost not exist without Weaponsmiths. Every single combat profession, including TKAs, could not participate in combat without the goods crafted by a Weaponsmith. The large majority of the player base has at least one weapon sitting in their Inventory and many have 2 - 3 weapons in a bank vault or some other storage area, in case their current weapon wears out. The biggest downfall that I can see with Weaponsmithing is demand. Even though a Weaponsmith has 50+ weapons that they can build, most of the weapons sold are limited to those used exclusively by Elite Combat Professionals.

Weaponsare to damage as Armor is to absorbing damage. Armor can turn a 1.3 meter tall Bothan into a formidible fighting force or can make the difference between instant death and a fighting chance. From Chitin to Composite and everything in between, armor gives the Combat Professional an edge in combat. If it wasn't for the Armorsmiths, many of today's combat types would have never made it to Dathomir, Dantooine, or even Endor. The one thing that hurts all Armorsmiths is the lack of armor demand, at least non Composite Armor.

The food industry in SWG was completely reshaped during the Chef revamp. Chefs are like Droid Engineers, in how they are able tooffer goodsthat can assist many different professions in a multitude of ways. Chefs have a constantly renewable market, since each and every one of their products is consumable. Chefs tend to be the most effected by supply problems, because of the previous fact. None the less, Chefshave a huge market in both the Combat and Crafting Professions.

Tailors are an odd lot, when it comes to the crafting world. Though Tailor has few products that actually offer some type of game mechanic advantage, the Tailor Profession provides a good that most people want, when they have the credits to spare. Tailor is the one of the few professions that gives a player character the chance to express themselves, onscreen, in hopes of making themselves appear unique. Clothing can help to transform Nollan, the human male, into Nollan theidealist Imperial officer who likes to flaunt his earning in the clothes that he wears. Shortly after character creation, a large majority of the player base will hunt down a Tailor, or vendor, so that they can deck themselves out in the latest fashions. Like the Architect profession, Tailors suffer from a lack of decay, or maybe I should state it correctly, a lack of working decay.

Let us use the following chart to see how Droid Engineer compares to the above listed professions.

|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
| Does the profession | Architect| Armorsmith | Weaponsmith |Chef | Tailor|Droid|
|provide a service - | | | | | | Engineer |
|=============================|===========|============|=============|=========|=========|==========|
|Neededby other professions |Yes |Yes | Yes |Limited|Limited| Limited |
|to stay competitive | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that gives a Combat| No |Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Profession a decisive| | | | | | |
|advantagein PvELevel 20 | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that gives a Combat| No |Yes | Yes| Yes |Limited|Limited |
| Profession a decisive| | | | | | |
|advantagein PvELevel 40 | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that gives a Combat| No |Yes | Yes | Yes |Limited|Limited |
| Profession a decisive| | | | | | |
|advantagein PvELevel 60 | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that gives a Combat| No |Yes |Yes | Yes |Limited|Limited |
| Profession a decisive| | | | | | |
|advantagein PvP | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
| that has an intuituve means | Yes |Yes | Yes | Yes| Yes | No |
| of use | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
| that clearly shows benifical| Yes| Yes | Yes | Yes |Limited|Limited |
| results from use | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that can be used by anyone | Yes | Yes|Limited | Yes | Yes |Limited |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that gives a crafter a|Yes|No | No |Yes |Limited|Limited|
|disticnt advantage| | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that a Combat professional| Yes | No | No | No | Yes |Yes |
|can completely do without | | | | | | |
|and still stay competitive| | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that a Crafting professional| No |Yes |Yes| Limited| No |Yes |
|can completely do without | | | | | | |
|and still stay competitive| | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that aMedical professional |Yes |Yes |Yes| Limited| Limited | Limited |
|can completely do without | | | | | | |
|and still stay competitive| | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that is requiredin|Yes | No |Yes |No |No |Yes |
|order to be complete a task | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that is required bymore | Yes| No|Yes|No|No|No|
| then one profession in | | | | | | |
|order to be complete a task | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that provides a steady flow | Limited|Yes|Yes|Yes |Limited| Limited|
|of return sales | | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|
|that provides a steady flow | Limited|Yes|Yes|Yes |Limited| Limited|
|of return salesfromits| | | | | | |
|featured product| | | | | | |
|-----------------------------|-----------|------------|-------------|---------|---------|----------|

When we compare the answers provided in the above chart, Droid Engineer appears to match the answers listed for Tailor, the best. Looking at Droid Engineer from strickly the comparison, it would appear that Droid Engineer is of moderate use and is not needed bya majorityof professions, in order to stay competitive. It would appear that only one profession truely depends on the products created by a Droid Engineer.

Here are my questions for eveyone -

1. 
   
   Does the above appear to be an accurate account of our current situation?


2. 
   
   Does the above chart appear to be correct?


3. 
   
   Based upon the answers listed in the chart, which one of the Artisan based professions should our profession most closely emulate?* Why?


4. 
   
   What single item could be added to the Droid Engineering tree that would help it meet the goal listed in Question 3?

*see below for clarification*

Message Edited by Drashk on 10-31-2004 04:09 AM

Message Edited by Drashk on 10-31-2004 04:21 AM

1. 
   
   Does the above appear to be an accurate account of our current situation? Yes


2. 
   
   Does the above chart appear to be correct? No, just one part is wrong I think. Droid are not limited in PVP, they are a total non-issue. Not even a distraction. Even bomb droids against Composite armor don't matter. Yes fpr Jedi's they are, but were talking SO limited it should be a no.


3. 
   
   Based upon the answers listed in the chart, which one of the Artisan based professions should our profession most closely emulate?* Why? That's tough. Chef I guess. Chef is of use to crafters, as well as combatants, even dancers. No other profession really reaches everybody. I just want to say I don't like this question.


4. 
   
   What single item could be added to the Droid Engineering tree that would help it meet the goal listed in Question 3? One item equals a super Droid market in space. DE isn't really "broken," on the ground, were just not as good as everybody else. In Space Shipwright is the deal, yet they have no ground market. Besides DE, no other crafting profession has a place in space. Leave DE's and the ground game alone. Get us into the new space market HARDCORE ( I have posted suggestions for this.) The ground game has been there a while, if you muck with droids on the ground, it could cause bitterness. Such as Droid decay. Space is new, there has been no time to settle in.

We keep our mediocre market o the ground, yet add a great market in space, a market nobody else (but SW) has, and we have a "fixed," profession.

---

Straker_Atrella wrote:

Wow Drashk, awesome post. It covers exactly how I feel and what I htink our problems are.

Wait for a bit of what I have to post in Phase 2

Based upon the answers listed in the chart, which one of the Artisan based professions should our profession most closely emulate?* Why?
I just want to say I don't like this question.

I think I may have to strike this question. I think you saw where I was going with it (trying to judge what level of market we should be at.) I'll leave it for the next dozen or so posts to judge whether it goes away or not.

---

I think you need to make the following changes:

1. PvE Level 60 - Change to No. **

2. PvP - Change to No. **

3. Return sales from featured product - Change to No.

** - Unless your thinking of Arakyds, Seekers, and Bombs. If so then leave at Limited. But I say its way on the low side of limited.

The problem on Eclipse with the way they did "mid level" combat driods is that on a mature server, people's mid level combat career is all of 2 or 3 days at most. They transition from novice to master in less than a week. These droids have to be viewed as an combat assest at the master level or might as well forget it.

Message Edited by ArdenStarmariner on 10-31-2004 09:05 AM

---

ArdenStarmariner wrote:
I think you need to make the following changes:

** - Unless your thinking of Arakyds, Seekers, and Bombs. If so then leave at Limited. But I say its way on the low side of limited.

---

All three of your suggestions fall under the Limited category. For ease of overall listing, I chosethe termLimited for anything that was not exactly a Yes/No answer. It saves me from doing a complete and indepth report of each and every profession, in relationship to Droid use. (I enjoy spending time on creating threads like this, but I don't want to spend that much time doing so.:robotsad

---

Vampiric_Hoshi wrote:

1. 
   
   Does the above appear to be an accurate account of our current situation?
   yes /agree
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Does the above chart appear to be correct?
   yes /agree
   
   
   
3. 
   
   Which one of the Artisan based professions shouldour profession most closely emulate? Why?
   I don't think we shoud emulate any of them. It should be a breed of its own. We are, afterall, completely unique. If *anything*, Shipwright would be the closest... but that has it's own issues.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   What single item could be added to the Droid Engineering tree that would help it meet the goal listed in Question 3?
   More independance and necessity.

---

What he said pretty much covers it for me, with the exception of a couple of small changes.

Does the above appear to be an accurate account of our current situation?

Yes, I'd say it covers it pretty well.

Does the above chart appear to be correct?

While I think there are some external factors that would change some of the boxes marked Yes to Limited and some of the Limiteds to No, by and large I can get behind it. Two of the external issues I think you need to take into account is the proliferation of "exploited" BE pets that limit our low level combat droid sales, and the seeker droid bug which eliminates 75% of our sales to the only profession that "needs" us.

Based upon the answers listed in the chart, which one of the Artisan based professions should our profession most closely emulate?* Why?

While I think this question is a good one, I don't think you'll get many coherent responses from it. The reason is that I don't envision us fitting into any of the other profiles. We have some aspects of Tailors (the strong RP aspect of droids in a SW MMO is hard to resist) , some of the aspects of Architects, and a strong aspect of Bio-Engineers. I really don't see how we can ever be a "necessary" profession without unbalancing some other profession, but the thing we need to strive for is to make our "enhancements" stronger so that they seem more of a necessity than a luxury.

What single item could be added to the Droid Engineering tree that would help it meet the goal listed in Question 3?

Wow, you want just one? Ok, new droid functions...

This is probably the most important question in the poll, so I'd like to give you an expanded answer. One of the biggest things we should work towards is getting the seeker bug fixed. (finally) I think this has a more drastic impact on our sales than most DEs realize. Another change we should make is to get lower level detonation droids certed to the masses. Even if we limit it to MSEs, it will be a big stimulation to our sales because of the demand for them. Adding bonuses to entertainers who are using our effect droids will help stimulate sales in that market, and I think that it's time we had a slicing module in our toolchests as well.

Good job on this Drashk! I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!