Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: is droid customization a functioning mod?
Message Edited by Briar on 06-04-2005 12:48 PM
"Complexity" is a skill that was taken out in beta of SWG well over two years ago (sad they still drop as loot).
"Customization" is useless - I've never seen proof that it did anything, and if it does it's only intended function is for more colors to show up for people without skill. Big deal - not worth building a suit over.
"Assembly" is close to the same deal - again, no one has ever proved it did anything, and the most it would do is slightly reduce your chance for a critical fail on the assemble. At master you rarely fail anyway, and if you do factory work it's completely useless as factories don't fail. I know some people have bothered to build suits with assembly, but I'd be willing to bet they'd spent more building it then they'll ever save on reducing the occasional fail. Again, however, there has been no conclusive evidence it does anything.
The only useful skill mod for a DE is "experimentation", which has limited usefulness itself. Since with 10 points it's easy to max any single-line and a profession that has few products that have multi-line experimentation. After you take away our nerfed products (like the stim-dispenser) the only things that I can think of that are worth putting a suit on for are droid repair kits and survey droids.
Don't waste your time with anything other than experimentation, and don't spend a fortune on that; it's not going to give you much of a financial return and mostly is for bragging rights as opposed to actual usefulness.
AO
AudioOrgana wrote:
Neither of them are useful to anyone.
"Complexity" is a skill that was taken out in beta of SWG well over two years ago (sad they still drop as loot).
Actually, it was about8 months after release that the Complexity modifier was removed. Ihad a+20point suit, on TC, that allowed me to craft majority of our goods without a crafting station being present.
"Customization" is useless - I've never seen proof that it did anything, and if it does it's only intended function is for more colors to show up for people without skill. Big deal - not worth building a suit over.
Customiation SEAs do increase the color palette of any non-Master Droid Engineer. With a +25 bonus, a xx2x DE will have the same color palette as a Master DE, on all droid crafting. There is a possiblity that a +25 bonus, for a Master DE, may increase the number of possible colors that can occur when crafting a Mandolorian Helm. I have read reports that the code used to determine the Helm color using the same 255 value that Armorsmiths and Tailors have, and is not based on the 64 value that a Master DE has. Not much testing on this has occured, for obvious reasons....
"Assembly" is close to the same deal - again, no one has ever proved it did anything, and the most it would do is slightly reduce your chance for a critical fail on the assemble. At master you rarely fail anyway, and if you do factory work it's completely useless as factories don't fail. I know some people have bothered to build suits with assembly, but I'd be willing to bet they'd spent more building it then they'll ever save on reducing the occasional fail. Again, however, there has been no conclusive evidence it does anything.
Assembly does actually help with some of the more problematic craftables that we have, such as Data Storage Modules, Repair Modules, and Droid Armor Modules. Those three components tend to have erradicexperimentation results. This is most likely due to bugged code. These three components are the only DE products that I have seen Assembly modifies to have a noticable effect on. With a +25 modifier, a Novice to xxx3 DE will see some degree of increased assembly sucesses.
The only useful skill mod for a DE is "experimentation", which has limited usefulness itself. Since with 10 points it's easy to max any single-line and a profession that has few products that have multi-line experimentation. After you take away our nerfed products (like the stim-dispenser) the only things that I can think of that are worth putting a suit on for are droid repair kits and survey droids.
Don't waste your time with anything other than experimentation, and don't spend a fortune on that; it's not going to give you much of a financial return and mostly is for bragging rights as opposed to actual usefulness.
12 point crafting, in the DE profession, has little to no rewards. Some day in the future, they may have larger meaning, however right now there are only a total of12 items that benefit from 12 points of experimentation.
Diagnostic Circuit
Adv Diagnostic Circuit
Droid Repair Kit A - D
Droid Reconstruction Kit A - D
Interplanetary Survey Droid
Stimpack Dispenser Module
-
Repair Kits are DE use only
Repair Kit Ds are the best of the lot, so why make A-Cs? -
Adv Diagnostic Circuits can replace Diagnostic Circuits -
Interplanetary Survey Droids are fairly limited in sales and use -
Stimpack Dispensers don't have a large market, mostly due to an uninformed user community.
Personally, I wouldn't pay anything over 50k per point, but thats just me. Playing on TC, I only pay 10k per point. 
Sorry about breaking down your responce AO. I just wanted to include a bit more info on what you already stated.
Drashk wrote:Sorry about breaking down your responce AO. I just wanted to include a bit more info on what you already stated.
LOL.
Not at all, Drashk.
However, the fact remains they are all useless to a MASTER DE, except for experimentation, and making them while you are working your way up is not going to give any appriciable benefits that would even be worth the clothing you attached them to, let alone the cost of collecting them.
The modules you listed that are supposedly affected by assembly don't need experimentation in the first place, again, making it useless. Personally, I've never experienced "erratic" behavior from the three items you posted - but again, the fact remains that even if you experience the occasional erratic behavior it STILL is not worth putting together for such little benefit.
I can't imagine a DE bothering to put together a customization suit at the lower levels since when you progress you get the skill anyway, and it is capped at Master DE. I haven't crafted a mandalorian helm, hehe - but if you are one of the .01% of DE's that ever will, then possibly, if you are really obsessive, you may want to do this.
As to complexity, what you experienced was left over from the original removal of complexity, which happened in beta 2. Originally schematics were granted based on complexity level, not in tiered skills like we have now. If you had a higher complexity rating you could make more advanced schematics instead of having to wait until you are granted them by skill.
So, while yes, your answers were more detailed, I don't want to mislead people into thinking any of these are actually useful. Experimentation is the only skill mod that people can actually use, and even that is not terribly useful as you confirmed. Assembly, customization, and complexity serve no useful purpose to working DE's, especially once you hit Master.
AO
AudioOrgana wrote:
So, while yes, your answers were more detailed, I don't want to mislead people into thinking any of these are actually useful. Experimentation is the only skill mod that people can actually use, and even that is not terribly useful as you confirmed.
Hey, you should know by now that I like the sound of my own fingers hitting the keybaord. /chuckle
I completely agree with you on your break down of what is what on the skill modifiers; however I also like to think that the crafting system will get get a bit of a change at some point in the near future and that the mods will have meaning at that point. (I'm also the endless optimist.)