Droid Engineer Archive

The following would be an alternative to a certification system for droids:

Before you can use a droid in combat, you must attune it to yourself by spending combat experience.

Sound simple? It would seem to satisfy the main goals of certification without requiring additional skill points be spent. New players would not be able to have a droid aid them in combat from the start as they would have to collect combat experience first. Higher level droids would require higher amounts of combat experience to attune, similar to the way higher level faction pets require more faction points to purchase.

Thoughts?

Nice idea but, how are Artisan Classes going to benefit? They will have to split their time to fight to earn to use Combat Droids. Just asking, not bashing. Maybe some new experience can be introduced or something.

Actually, thats part of the reason I chose combat experience. Anyone who fights gets combat experience. If you don't fight, you don't get it. Anyone who does not fight is still a combat "newbie" and should not have access to combat droids to help them quickly power up the combat tree of choice. Now I understand that a crafter may not want to climb a combat tree at all, but then why do they need a combat droid? The only thing I can think of is for protection while out servicing harvesters, but any combat droid that can do that can be exploited in the leveling process. If you can think of something that would not be able to be exploited, please post it.

Heheheh... You really don't want me to go into a full explanation.. Read some other threads. It will bore you in the end.

With that thinking, in the end this is a Cert System. You have to work for your goals. Which I think everyone can agree on is fair. Your method would in effect, do what a Cert System would want to do, avoid Novices with Uber Machines of Death. Nothing wrong with that.

Maybe for Artisans, expanding your idea on earning Experience, lets say whenever you do something to earn experience, you earn Pet Experience along with it. Say you Craft/Kill something for 100 Exp. You earn 15 Pet Experience. They can create a Tree that takes No Skill Points in which this experience can be used. Minion Tree persay. You earn 300 Pet Experience to fulfill one tree. Just my view on how your idea can be used by all. This tree can relate to Non-Creature Hanlder Pets and Combat Droids.

The problem with alternate forms of experience is that it will not keep newbies from having uber killer machines of death. By newbies I am referring to combat newbies, which master artisans, if they have no combat skills otherwise, ARE. The devs don't want to make low level combat trivial by allowing anyone with just novice marksman or brawler to use a super pet. If you give pet experience from crafting, then someone who was just starting out in combat would be able to use what they should not.

We need a system that will fullfill the minimum requirements set forth by the developers, or it will never be adopted. Hopefully we can compromise on a sytem that will work for all of us, devs and players.

Having a form of Experience will keep Novices from receiving giftsor freebies of Machines of Death making them earn the right to weild such power. Anyway that doesn't seem to be what you were implying so lets skip that sentiment.

Anyway, limiting these pets to just Combat Classes are going to be the turning back point for a lot of existing Droid Engineers. I'm sure a lot of them signed up for DE to be able to Create and Use these pets. Because they are an Artisan Based Class,your methodwill force them to take up a Combat Proffession. Thats a problem I wont get into. A lot of DE will detest to the fact that they can't use the Combat Droids they made. I'll let some other people argue with that. Saying they can easily take up a Combat Class should be irrelevant.

Something to think about...

Can a weaponsmith use the weapons he makes without a combat class? How about a bio engineer using their advanced pets without creature handler?

Note that with this system there would be no restriction on non combat uses of the pets.

lol, all I can say as a master DE is, if I can't have them, thanniether can you , if you want a combat droid, than step up, and spend the min. 92 (actually 140 because you 'HAVE' to be a master artisan to be viable)skill points, kill your master pistoleer status, your master commando, or Bounty hunter status, and make your own Droidika, I didn't become a master DE to feed harvestors for your sole enjoyment.

Compairing us to weapons smiths is not tottaly fair, there dependance on master artisan is not as great as ours.

Compairing us to the other 'Broken' crafting class of BE is just hiralious. "Just be like the allready broken and irate, angry, and unhappy profession Bio-Eng."

"Can a weaponsmith use the weapons he makes without a combat class? How about a bio engineer using their advanced pets without creature handler?"

Let me see... no that does not compare. an average citizen would not know how to use a M16 (that's one of theno brainerweapons), why? because you need to be trained to use it, hence the certification. But droids, having artifical intelligence, sensors, etc. are made to make one's life easier. One only need to know how to speak basic to operate droids (speak whatever if it's a protocol).

a gun is a piece of machinary, it doesn't think, it doesn't move on it's own, doesn't aim on it's own, it needs to be operated by skilled hands for it to be efficient, you load the magazine, insert the magazine, load the gun, adjust the rear sight according to the range, pick your stance, stable yourself, then pull the trigger. after so many shots, you have to take the gun apart, clean it and oil it etc.

Now a droid however, what do you do? first, you have to point at something with your finger then you say "go kill it" (wow that's so very hard), the droid gets the instruction, move within the range of the target, load, aim, fire. all done without you telling it "no that's not close enough for your blaster" "no, aim a little to the right" etc.

That's what droids suppose to do, to do things you can't/don't want to do. as for the BE and advanced CH pets, sure... make a bio engineer to take lion tamer's job for a week, what's gonna happen? bad things. Give an average joe a droideka for a week, what's going to happen? probably nothing (unless he tells it "kill me")

Consider this. Who would you want 'programming' a combat droid, a scientist/crafter with no combat experience or a soldier who was been through many wars?

The scientist can make the body very well, but tactics? This is the 'rationale' behind attuning your droids... you impart your combat experience and tactics to the droid, enabling it to be effective in combat.

Irregardless, some sort of certification is comming. If *we* as a group do not come up with an acceptable form, the devs will think of one we will probably like a lot less.

As a very new DE i have to say that my first droid (which was given to me as a gift by a good friend) was a probot who aided me greatly in my travels to my harvesters. I also am working on my pistoleer skills so i have both crafting and combat experience.

My idea is this. Combat XP gives you ther ability to use droids both defensively (guard) AND offensively (kill). My ptobot was an excellent guard and actually saved me from being killed by creatures that had incapped me and he was even able to kill some of these creatures. Non Combat XP gives you the ability to use a droid defensively only (guard).

The higher you are on whatever tree you are pursuing, the higher level of droid you can use. Thus if you are a master artesian and a novice brawler, for guarding you could use one level of droid and for killing another level. Thus your master level droid could guard you but not be ordered to kill while your novice level droid could do both. It would be up to you which you had or which was out at any given time if you had more than one.

A DE could be protected by his droids based on his level, but could only order them to KILL if he had a high enough combat skill level. Scouts could order their droids to kill creatures (NPC) based on their current scouting level and non creatures of any kind based on their combat skills. Since scouts are a basic profession, even a master scout could not have the highest level droids since these would be preserved for secondary and higher professions. The more Skill points you use, the higher the level of droid and the skills you choose would determine if it could be ussed only defensively or both offensively and defensively.

I hope i am clear on this as it seems a POSSIBLE solution to the problem.

I am just saying that droid engineer is a crafting class, not a combat class. If you did not want to craft, why are you a DE? Crafters make things and sell them. The comparison to Weaponsmiths and Bio Engineers is totally valid irregardless of who they are dependant on or how 'broken' their class is considered, in that the overall concept of the class is what I am comparing. They all make things for other professions to use.

If I can't use the droids I make; bye.

Droids are different from weapons. As has been stated before, a weapon takes skill and training to use, a droid, essentially a computer (AI), does not.

I signed up for Droid Engineering to make droids that I could use, not droids that someone else could use. I didn't sign up for this class to make money, I signed up for this class to make stuff that I could use for myself, and make money on the side.