Droid Engineer Archive

What a PCD could be used for:

• It would give a combat droid a creature to-hit bonus of +10 while on the planet for which the PCD was made.


• It would allow a droid with the appropriate modules to harvest creature corpses(more on this below)

Making a PCD only requires two items:

• A "[planetname] creature sample collection" (more on this below)


• A "Datadisk", which would be a new item made by Droid Engineers.

How a Creature Sample Collection would be made:

• A Droid Engineer would make a Sample Shell. This is a small computer attached to a high-tech container. It has two new options on the radial menu: Data Requirements and Process Data.




• The Data Requirements option brings up a window that lists all planets. Choosing one of the planets sets the Sample Shell to that planet, and once set cannot be changed.


• Once the planet is set for the Sample Shell, the Data Requirements option brings up a window that lists eight creatures native to that planet. This list is generated randomly, so the requirements for each Sample Shell is going to be different. This list should include general and rare creature types, such as "dragonette" and "veritigated womp rat".


• Next the Sample Shell's creature requirements will have to be met by collecting samples of these creatures obtained by a Bio Engineer. (Quality is unimportant)


• Once a Bio Engineer's sample has been collected for each creature required by the Sample Shell, and all of the samples have been placed inside the Shell (it is a container), the Process Dataoption on the Shell's radial menu will destroy the samples and change the Sample Shell to a Creature Sample Collection (called a "[planetname] Creature Sample Collection"). This will be a single item, not a container, and will have 60 uses.

How will it play?

• Droid Engineers will likely sell crates of Sample Shells to Bio Engineers.


• Bio Engineers will make a list of what samples they need for a planet and try to collect them while out in the field, producing Creature Sample Collections when able.


• Creature Sample Collections would then be sold to Droid Engineers.


• Droid Engineers will make crates of Datadisks and combine them with the Creature Sample Collections, either by hand or in a factory. This will produce the Planetary Creature Database, for which no experimentation is necessary.

How do you use a PCD?

• Each PCD will have "Produce Data" as the first radial menu option. When this is selected, or when the PCD is double-clicked, it is spent and the character gets an item of data in his/her datapad.


• This item of data (also called "[planetname] Creature Database") can then be stored in a droid's data storage module, allowing the droid to have a +10 creature to-hit bonus while on that planet, or to be able to harvest resources from creature corpses while on that planet.


• In disk form a PCD is good for any length of time. Once the disk has been used and the PCD is in data form, it will only last 10 real-world days.

• This would be a new module added to the game


• When these are made the Droid Engineer has to choose whether it will be a Hide, Bone, or Meat harvesting module.


• The type of harvesting module will determine what a droid is capable of harvesting. A droid that only has Bone and Meat harvesting modules cannot harvest hide.


• The base quality level of a harvesting module allows a droid to harvest just as well as a Novice Scout. A harvesting module with 100% experimented quality would harvest as well as a Scout with 40 Creature Harvesting skill (or, just under Master Scout level).

How a droid harvests:

• Droids must have a Planetary Creature Database for the planet in which it is harvesting, stored in it's data storage module, in order to havest any creatures on the planet.


• Resources harvested are stored in the droid's item storage module. If the droid runs out of space it just doesn't harvest.


• A new command would need to be available to droids for each type of harvesting.

The best harvesting droids will have a data storage module, an item storage module for resources, an item storage module for 1 crate of PCDs for each planet (there are ten planets), and a harvesting module for all three types of resources.

This isn't usefull in any aspect a few people will buy it and hunt the hell out of it overstocking the Bazaar and f*cking up the balance with scout/ranger and to those who don't do that 10 days just isn't long enough. Nice idear, but it won't work though...

I dont really see this catching on - firstly its scouting without involving scouts and rangers, secondly BE have enough trouble getting DNA without wasting it on droids and thirdly DE wouldnt be able to produce them in any great quantity as the BE created component would have to be hand crafted, meaning the final droid would also have to be hand crafted, if the droids only last 10 days they're not going to be very popular with customers or droids engineers.

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Bihlbo wrote:

1. What "balance" with scout/ranger? Currently there isn't even half as much supply as there is demand, and even scouts and rangers agree that bio prices are inflated.

2. Scouts and Rangers already "hunt the hell out of it", and this proposal doesn't allow a harvesting droid to harvest even as well as a CH or BH. I don't see how this would result in any amount of overstocking. There are a great deal of limitations on creature harvesting as it is, and with as limited as this proposal is, I don't see any overstocking being possible.

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You forget that this droid will essentially remove any real point for anyone to become a Ranger.

Anyone who has maxed out their skill points to form an uber combat profession will be able to out-harvest Rangers with one of these simply by the fact that they can kill faster than us after we've comitted most of our skill points to mastering both a novice and an elite profession, leaving us only enough points to master one weapons profession (along with either mastering the novice weapon profession or taking something like medic). Compare this to the PvE killing speed of someone like a Master Swordsman/Master CH plus one of these Droids and they'll be killing fast enough to far out-harvest us.

Ranger is already an unpopular profession, simply because other than our harvesting bonus over Scouts (which can be gained by a Scout with Veghash these days) and 500m area tracking, there are no real reasons for any normal player to become a Ranger.



(See the uproar against this on the Ranger forum here)

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This isn't usefull in any aspect a few people will buy it and hunt the hell out of it overstocking the Bazaar and f*cking up the balance with scout/ranger and to those who don't do that 10 days just isn't long enough. Nice idear, but it won't work though...

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1. What "balance" with scout/ranger? Currently there isn't even half as much supply as there is demand, and even scouts and rangers agree that bio prices are inflated.

2. Scouts and Rangers already "hunt the hell out of it", and this proposal doesn't allow a harvesting droid to harvest even as well as a CH or BH. I don't see how this would result in any amount of overstocking. There are a great deal of limitations on creature harvesting as it is, and with as limited as this proposal is, I don't see any overstocking being possible.

3. The 10 day limitation isn't much (in fact it supports #2). In fact, when my brother and I first discussed this we thought it should only work for the day. Pay 1K to be able to harvest creatures all day, but only all day. At that price, if you harvest just 40 avian meat you've covered your costs. The only reason I bumped it up to 10 days was an inconvenience issue.

4. Smart buyers and DEs will only deal in crates of PCDs. 1 crate is going to last you 250 days, or over 8 months, assuming that you ONLY ever hunt on one planet, and feel the need to keep your harvesting or battle droid equipped with the PCD at all times. That's more than reasonable - any less and there won't be enough of a market for PCDs.

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I dont really see this catching on - firstly its scouting without involving scouts and rangers, secondly BE have enough trouble getting DNA without wasting it on droids and thirdly DE wouldnt be able to produce them in any great quantity as the BE created component would have to be hand crafted, meaning the final droid would also have to be hand crafted, if the droids only last 10 days they're not going to be very popular with customers or droids engineers.

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I'd hardly call that an uproar, but thanks for the link.

Obviously if this were added into the game tomorrow, it would cause problems. I should have, but didn't, mention that I don't think it would be a good idea to add this to the game today. The Ranger profession needs to be more than just a creature harvester with a few tools, and eventually it will get to that point. At that point, it might be a good idea to add in a harvesting droid. But as with everything else in the game, I'd rather see fixes than new content.

There are plenty of changes that could be made, however, to this design to make it more balanced. For instance, a cap on the amount of resources collected per corpse by the droid. Maybe 20 units, no matter what. It would never be able to compete with a Ranger, unless it were competing to harvest kreetles.

Basic purpose of the proposal: To add something to the game that produces another renewable income source for Bio and Droid Engineers. Even just ignoring the creature harvesting feature, I think the creature to-hit bonus would make a PCD worth buying for those who use droids in combat. And, if the creature harvesting feature were ever allowed for droids, the PCD could already be in place and have another use.