Droid Engineer Archive

Thanks in advance. I often get asked by new BH how to use BH droids. So I need to know myself how the customer uses the BH droids I make.

Bounty hunters can use seeker droids at investigation 1, and they track marks on the planet they are on only. Usually a BH will use 3 or 4 seekers during a mission. BH's use arakyd probes to track marks on other planets, and they can use these once they learn investigation 2. They only use one per mission since they know what planet to go to to look for marks then they use seekers to track the mark once they are on the planet the arakyd told them to go. Hope this helps!

When my friend started becoming a BH, he was claiming that my seekers and probes were all broken because he couldn't use them. Knowing that certainly couldnt be the case (because we know that nothing in DE is broken ) I did the search for him. There is a nice FAQ in the BH forums that do explain seeker and probe usage. Next time a customer asks, direct him/her there, or familiarize yourself with it as well. It is a good thing for a DE to know since we sell the droids and it would make good business sense

We use arakyd probes to track the location of our target once we have been trained in investigation 1, as our marks are off planet. We need to be a good distance outside a city, because we call them down from orbit, and there tends to be a little impact explosion. We receive a biosignature of the mark from our spynet operative, which we load into the probe droid. It commences its search, and then takes off heading back into space to locate the mark. Depending on your level of investigation or how finicky the server is being, you may have to use more than 1 arakyd probe to find your target. Apparently, because no one is flying around in space just yet, it is over infested with space slugs that have an appetite for probe droids. Once we get a droid to successfully locate our mark, it gives us the planet name. We then have to shuttle to that planet, where we have a waypoint already set for us (thanks to the arakyd). The challenge with finding a mark on another planet, is that they know we are coming, so they are on the run. Usually, we need to race them to stop them from getting into a city. So this is where we use our seekers. These droids update us on the position of our mark, and again...depending on skill level, how lucky I am, and what I ate for breakfast the seeker either updates me on the location or is eaten by a mynock or hit by a meteorite...We can use anywhere from only 1 to 3 or 4 seekers per mission. Seekers let me know if I should just head out of the spaceport and chase down the mark, or if I should catch a shuttle to a city that is closer to the mark and chase him/her down from there. We head off into the direction the seeker gave us, and usually come across the mark. Some of us BH's take ranger tracking skills, so that we eliminate the need to use 1-2 extra seekers. I hesitate to say most of the time, but we do find the mark and try take him/her out. We have been swamped with bugs in our investigation missions that cause marks to not show up or to be non-targetable white marks. That is the most frustrating for us, as it usually takes an hour or so of chase to just get to our marks. I hope this wasn't too long. Just wanted to thank you droid engineers for supplying us with our droids...without your product we wouldn't have much of a profession, as messed up as it is at times, at all.

Blake Lazarus
Lazarus Investigations, Inc.
BH 3/1/3/2
Ranger 0/0/3/0
Intrepid Server

This is the scoop on BH droids and how they work with BH mission.

Starting with Investigation I, a bounty hunter can use both Probe Droids and Seekers. The BH first picks up a mission from the mission terminal. He then has to go to the appropriate Spynet Operative in order to get the biological sigiature of his target. Once he has the signiature, the BH must go outside of the city to call a Probe Droid from orbit. To call one, the BH selects the "Find Bounty Target" command from the radial menu on the controller(from within your inventory). After 20 sec, the probe falls from the sky in a ball of fire and crashes into the ground somewhere near. You approach it and select "Transmit Biological Signiature" from the radial menu on the droid it self and the droids takes off into orbit again.
After several minutes a message is received and the planet is revealed. The BH must then go to the respective planet and start to track the target with seeker droids. When you get to the planet, you immediately send a seeker (by selecting "find bounty target" for Inv 1-2 and "Find and Track Target" for Inv 3 and 4 from the radial menu in the inventory). After a couple minutes the seeker finds the target. Normally you would send 2 or 3 seekers as quick as possible when you get to the right planet. This way you can determine the direction the target is going. On most planets the target heads to a city (non-player) and all you have to do is go to the correct city and wait, while continuing to track the motion of the target by sending droids everytime the previous droid says "You droid has lost track of the target"(or something to that effect). Once the mark is within reasonable range the BH will just head out to the mark and take him down.
There are 3 factors that effect the droid use process. Firstly, on certain planets(Endor and Lok), the mark heads in no particular direction, causing the use of more droids. Next... sometimes the mark jumps planets. Yeah... it sucks, but itdoes happen. You may track a mark to a certain planet and be close to catching him, when you get a message from your seeker that says "Your target's biological signiature was not located on this planet". The BH must go outside what ever city he is in and launch another Probe Droid and start the process over. Lastly, once you hit Investigation 3, you are given a second command to use with your seekers... "Find and Track Target" With this command, the seeker droid will sometimes continue to track the target up to 5 times(or more), where as the previous command made the seekers as a 1-time use. But with this command, there is also a bug... the seekers are never ending and thus 1 seeker droid can be used to complete Investigation 4.

Hope that wasn't too much and that I helped.

Mechis Kalybb
Retired Pre-Nerf(hahaha) MBH
Master Artisan (going DE)

oops... guess I was too slow

On a side note... to any BHs you have to tell this to. If they find the mark going to another city... DO NOT try to catch them from behind... just hop on a shuttle and meet them head on. Chasing a mark down is the biggest waste of time and causes a lot of frustration, as sometimes it seemsthe mark is outrunning you(even on a mount).

I suspect that swoops will make a huge difference...

oh yes.... DEFINITELY

scooped ya!