Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Centralized Droid Issues (Dec 16, 2003)
Another new patch... time for updates based on feedback I've seen.
This list is updatedas neededand is meant to supplement the work done by the current correspondant and provide an idea of where this profession currently stands. Please read it over and provide any information you have regarding any of these issues, or any new issues you may have discovered.
I am a Master Droid Engineer on Bloodfin (Lime Akob). I also participated in the beta as a DE and bring a lot of knowledge of the profession from those days. I also read just about every single post in the DE forum and have a good idea of where this profession stands. However, I am one person and need your help to make sure that we've got all the real bugs nailed down, so we don't have DEVs chasing issues that don't exist due to confusion on our part.
Many, many, many thanks and respect to all those who have contributed to this list and to the Droid Engineer profession in general. Thanks to Sin (our correspondant) for continuing to sticky this thread for all to see and read and learn from... And my personal thanks to Tyim for starting this thread during beta. Special thanks to any dev that cares to respond to this post.
1.Recent Updates
2.Bugs
3.Uncertainties
4.Dev Issues
5.Wishlist
1. Recent updates
A.Removed experimentation bug since we've been informed that mechanical rating does play a part in determining things like critical failures.
B.Removed multiple craftingmodule bug. Confirmed as fixed.
C.Removed uncertainty for repair modules. I've yet to hear any further discussion regarding a repair option showing up in the target droid's radial menu. Everything else of a similar nature seems to require the source to act on the target rather than acting on the target because of the presence of a source. Yeah, twisted logic, but hopefully someone understands it.
D.Moved converse droid naming to bugs... been around long enough, it's a bug.
E.Moved BLL uncertainty to bugs. Useless droids are now bugs.
F.Removed wishlist item for more than 5 droids in the datapad. Doesn't look like it'll happen folks, and with new bugfixes, not really an issue anymore... hopefully.
G.Moved droid 'taming' issue from wishlist to bugs. Vehicles are 'generated'... droids should not be 'tamed'.
H.Removed probot nerf wishlist now that probots are comparable to non-ch pets (they are right? we agree?)
2. Bugs still in evidence
A.Droids are not giving any UXP.
B.Droid names use the standard name filter.Droids should use a modified name filter that allows for numbers in the name.
C.Droids with no attack capabilities none the less have attack speeds and damage valuesin the datapad.
D. Droids often stop following without reason.This is a generic pet problem as it happens to all pets, not just droids.Pets seem toget stuck on invisible zone boundries.Walking up to about 10-20m from thepet and re-issuing a 'follow' command fixes it (most of the time).
E.Item Storage Module 2s come out as Data Module 2s during the assembly stage.What you seem to get at the end is a Data Module 2.This is only a NAME/ICON problem.The module is said to function as it should - as an ItemStorage Module 2.
F.EXPLOIT: Cluster modules not only fit into cluster module sockets, they fit into service module sockets.This allows cluster modules to fit into cluster modules ad infinitum.Clusters should only fit in cluster sockets.Otherwise you're further exploiting the idea that the droid frame used is irrelevant.
G.Droid Customizationskill onlygoes to +64 at Master.
H.Repairmodules do not functionat all when placed in an LE Repair droid or Power droid.
I.Medical modulesaffect the effectiveness of stimpacks.Reports say that a stimpack is more effective when a medical module-equipped droid is nowhere to be seen (unless it contains a level 6 module).
J.Some experimental values for droids and droid components are always 0% regardless of the resources used. If they're going to bealways 0%, don't show them.
K.Droid deeds need to show ALL the modules installed and any important properties associated with those modules.
L.EXPLOIT: By telling a droid to stay, running 800m (need to cross a server zone?) or so away and calling another droid, you can effectively call all your droids at once.
M.Droid Storage Compartments use Artisan Experimentation instead of Droid Experimentation. It's a DE craft, it should use DE skills, not Artisan skills. Can anyone confirm this one still existing?
N.Item storage modules do not work with Surgical Droids (basic and advanced). The option to use item storage is not available in the radial menu.
O.Droid customization isborked. No xp is gained from colouring droids, the colours don't always hold (use the first white box to reproduce). R# units have random colours when they are first tamed and randomly change until the droid is customized. The number of colours available with the customization tool are different than the colours available during crafting. New droids are reported to not be customizable (certain frames perhaps?)
P.Droid customization tools give General Crafting xp instead of Droid Crafting xp when crafted. Can anyone confirm this one still existing?
Q.Droids suck batteries like there's no tomorrow ever since they no longer recharge on store. Please find a happy medium.
R.After calling or storing a droid, the datapad radial menu doesn't immediately update to reflect the status of the droid, causing the store item to appear after storing the droid.This seems to be a general radial menu problem with 'optional' items in the menu.
S.Armor resists sometimes degrade.The armor resist changes to a vulnerability and it isn't just visual. Can anyone confirm this one still existing?
T.Crates of droid batteries don't tell us how many charges the batteries in the crates have until you remove them from the crate. Buyer beware until this is fixed.
U.Converse style droids cannot be named.
V.Binary Load Liftersareuseless beyond being walking signs or furniture.
W.Protocol droids (basic)are useless beyond being walking signs or furniture.
X.Enough with the 'tame' thing... let us 'activate' or simply 'use' the deeds to first create our droids.
3. Uncertainties
A.Patrol point list is not saved between store and call, is this by design?
B. Power droidsare the onlydroid with a non-modular function (ignoring combat capable droids here).Why not make it modular or give otherdroids inherrent functions?
C. Some of the advanced droids are using 'Converse' instead of 'Program' for programming. Nobody seems to know how to name these droids. Can it be done?
D.Many of the 'level' based service modules stack.However, there arecaps in place which make stacking kind of pointless with thehigher level modules.Also,by stacking lower modules, you can achieve the same effect as a higher level module, reducing the point of using a higher level module.This is further enchanced by the cluster module bug.Also, when crafting the droid, the stacking results show values which do not take the cap into consideration.So a droid while being crafted can show a storage value of 15, but the final storage when the droid is tamed is capped at 10.
E.Information in the datapad for some droids no longer lists things like the commands programmed for the droid, customization, etc. some of them do.What's the deal?
F.I'm hearing that BH droids aren't using their last charge, making them infinite use.Anyone confirm?
G.Droidscannot be called while inside acity building.I see no reason to preventus from calling droids in a city. Shouldn't matter if we're in a building or not.If this is intended, then why?
H.Seeing several reports of 'broken' Medical modules.The modulesbreakand remain broken even after recharging the droid.
4.Dev Issues
A.Combat modules (usable only by DEs), granting abilities(combat modes, short range blaster, long range blaster, anti-droid reactions, anti-creature reactions).
B.Allow DE's to take out more than one droid at a time (with restrictions).
C.Increase droid repair functionality.Make droid 'healing'work similarlyto the current pet standards.
D.Give droids expendable items to be 'charged' by a repair droid.
E.Add stim and healthpack functionality to medical droids.
F.Increase thenumber of locations wheremedical droids can be called.
G.Allow medical droids to reduce the mind cost of healing.
H.Allow medical droids to auto-stim incapped players.
I.Have all droids take power and wound damage (requires rework of repair droids).
J.Allow power droids to power harvesters (increased maintenance, power droid degrades over time).
K.Allow MSE droids to act as remote bombs.
L.Have more commands trigger animations.Possibly a decoration mode to haveparticular animation repeated.Possibly more personalities.
M.Give protocol droids a stronger role.
N.Add adroid certification system for combat droids.
O.New combat droids in Jan & Feb
5.Wishlist
A.Give us information on droid power levels in the examine window and/or in the datapad.Also,since droid batteries repair mind,how about using mind as the droid's power level indicator?The action pool would also work.
B.Examining droid should give thesame data as in the datapad (for the owner).
C.We really want certain droids to only be able to take certain types of modules. There have been a number of really good posts on this topic, and due to space constraints, I'll leave it at that.
D.Consider droids that can survey and report back on a particular resource.Perhaps even a high-end versionwith the ability to go toother planetsto determine which resources are available.
Ea. Consider droids that can help maintain installations.Senda droid out to pay mantenance.Send a droid out to collect resources.Send a droid out to deliver power.There are many ways to implement this as a viable system.
Eb. Another viable idea for this is to add droid chassis' as optional components in the harvester schematics. One optional slot for mediums and two for heavy harvesters.Allow for apower droid chassis toremove the power requirement at the cost of maintenance and extraction rate.A BLL might increase the extraction rate at the cost of power and maintenance.A repair droid might remove the maintenance requirement at the cost of power and extraction rate.
F. Consider droids that can act as standalone vendors in cities, and/or droids that can act as Barkers. Perhaps even let droids deliver goods to a customer in another city or on another planet.
G. Droids to remember if they were stored or called over a logout.Running around in the middle of nowhere and logging out causes your droid to hide back in the datapad.This means having to go back to town or putting down a camp in order to recall your droid.This is undesireable.
H.A DE equivalent to vitality packs would be nice.
I. Create aslicing module to boost smugglers' slicing ability.
J.Allow us to drop batteries into the droid's inventoryand have itrecharge itself as needed until the batteries run out.
K.Create an entertainment module akin to the existing medical module to allow entertainers to work ouside of camps, cantinas and hotels. This module would be also level 1-6 with each level giving a little extra boost to the entertainer's skill.
L.Saw a request for a training droid as seen in the movies that 'harasses' its target, pulling aggro. Thisidea is intended togive a little variety to the Novice DE's life.Could also be used as a consumable for training the combat classes.
M.Let usname our droids through the datapad controller.Droids shouldn't need to be 'taught' a name like pets do. The name is programmed into the droid separate from the other commands.
N.Add the creator to the droid view information, not just theowner. When you look at a pistol, you seewho made it. When you look at a droiddeed, you see who made it.When you look at a droid, you SHOULD see who made it.
O.Allow droids to be re-deeded forease of transfer.Since we can only have 5 droids in the datapad, it makes it really tough forDE's to take old droids astrade-ins for upgrades (like a car). We either have to immediately re-sell the droid or delete it. Would make more sense to re-deed the droid so that itcould be sold to another customer as a 'used droid'.
P.Droid "macros" came up. Let us create macro-like droid programs to have a droid execute a series of commands.Not sure how this would be implemented, but it is an idea.
Q.Make the droid deeds show pictures of the droid itself rather than a silly deed icon.
R.Make BLL Droids useful in 'city planning'.Let us use them to move buildings around without re-deeding. Great for once the player city expansion is released.
S.Please review the customization lifespan.20 is too short. I have people complaining to me personally that they have to get their customization updated almost daily since they're always calling and storing their droid. I'm sorry, but if my car needed a new paint job because I took it out on the road 20 times, I'd be most displeased.
T. Weapon and armor components have modifiers tovarious properties of the final product.Do the same for droid components... like have the motive system affect the droid's speed.
U.Customization changes areonly visible to the DE until set.Would be nice if everyone could see the changes so that the droid owner can decide if they like a particular colour before it is finalized.
2.L Does not exist any more now that all pets autostore if you get more than a couple of hundred metres away from them, even with the stay command active. Accidently tested that one last night, and had the droid return to the datapad.
2.M Yes, still exists. When I experiment on them I get my 10 MA points, not the 12 (ie +2 bonus tapes) for droids.
3.D This can be removed. Note TH's reply from last week sometime where he said this is an explicit design decision by the devs. Modules are supposed to stack, the only problem there is the nested cluster issue. Once that is fixed, module stacking will be working as intended - if you have 3 slots in your R2, and you're not a MDE, do you put 2 lvl4 meds and a F&C station, or a lvl4 med, f&C and item storage? What is more useful to your sales?
3.F Has been confirmed many times. See the BH forums. It comes at Investigation III missions using the Find and Track radial menu option.
3.H Is still around and pokes it's head out about once a week for me (say about 1 droid in 50). Haven't managed to confirm with any post-Dec-patch droids. Sold 3 last night, all in probots. Will have more data later in the week I suspecct.
1A. So noted. I'll add something back in for Architect crafting station conflicts.
2L. I just tested this myself while writing this reply. I called a probot in Tor Vella (player city on bloodfin) and told it to stay. I then got on my speeder and drove to Coronet and called another probot. I had this probot follow me back to Tor Vella, where my original probot was still waiting for me. I issued a follow command, and they both followed me around.
2M. Thanks for checking, I can't test this myself anymore since I have 10 for each.
3D. Ah yes, I missed that one in my pass of the issues. Thanks for catching it. I'll remove it.
3F. Great. At least it's confirmed.
3H. Keep me posted.
Stolen from Drashk's reply in the last thread... so many changes already this time that I missed these completely.... Thanks to Drashk for the testing and reporting of these issues.
Here are a few issues thatI have found while spending time on Test Center, and then verifiying that they exisit on my Live character as well
- All of the chassises are have the wrong resource value listed for experimentation. The Experimentation Effectiveness lists as being based upon 50% Shock Resistance and 50% Unit Toughness. It should be listed as 100% Overall Quality. This goes for the R4, R2, R3, LE, Protocol, Probot, and Binary Lod Lifter Chassises. The Chassis' experimentation should be displayed just like the non-Advanced Deed versions, with 100% Overall Quality displaying as being needed for the best Capability Rating.
- Experimentation on the Repair Module is erratic. You can get an Amazing success during the experimentation process and get a worse Mechanism Quality then when you started.
- Experimentation on level based modules needs looking into. I ran a few experiments on level based droid modules (Data Storage, Item Storage, Medical, and Armor) as a Master Droid Engineer and noticed a lot of less than 'perfect' successes during the process. I've been at the crafting biz for a while, so I know what to look for in my resources and tools, so that isn't the problem. When running experiments on all of those modules mentioned, I tend to get good successes, rather than great or amazing sucesses. This happens even on the lower level schematics. I am able to craft all other droid items, except those listed in 1 and 2, and max out the experimentation value approximately 91% of the time. The success rate of maxing out the experimentation values on level based modules tends to be approximately 70% of the time, even for a Master Droid Engineer
- Droid Complexity tapes are no longer reducing the Complexity of a schematic. This issue needs to be commented on, since many Droid Engineers have spent credits on buying these tapes, in hopes that it will help our abliities. I have seen these tapes sell for upwards of 100k for a decent tape. This is just like the issue that arose with the collector glasses and should be addressed accordingly. if the tapes are meaningless.
Personal nit-pick of mine: Power droids should *never* run out of power. They have a power generator in them for crying out loud!
Virtanis wrote:
Personal nit-pick of mine: Power droids should *never* run out of power. They have a power generator in them for crying out loud!
While we're being nitpicky, are you saying that a power generator is some sort of perpetual motion machine that generates free power forever?
Philomorph wrote:
Virtanis wrote:Personal nit-pick of mine: Power droids should *never* run out of power. They have a power generator in them for crying out loud!
While we're being nitpicky, are you saying that a power generator is some sort of perpetual motion machine that generates free power forever?
Well, it works for houses...
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Heh, I anticipated that type of point as I was writing that post. To be honest, there are so many other examples of items in this game which seem to contain some sort of perpetual power supply in them (houses of every type, crafting stations, crafting tools, survey tools, vehicles, shield generators, the visors on Composite/Ubese helms, your datapad, bulky terminal vendors, your personal light, street lighting, "torches", etc, etc, ad infinitum...), that, even if I were a proponent of magical infinite power production, Power droids should be exempt from the battery consumption all other droids suffer from.
But those items and that argument isn't at all directly relevant to my point:
The fact remains that the Power Droid *requires* a power generator core in it which is exactly the same power core that used by architects to power HOUSES in this game.... Houses never run out of power, therefore, a Power Droid should never run out of power, IMO...... Period.
Alanbane posted this, but I've also found the exact same thing, as have a few others it seems...
"I don't know if its just me, but I had a mount out (wanted to be able to shoot and run) and I tried to bring out my probot. The message said I couldn't control the droid. I think the latest patch has made it so that ANY pet counts against the limit. "
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=46243
