Droid Engineer Archive

NEW PATCH - NEED UPDATED INFORMATION ON ALL ISSUES

This list is updatedas needed (daily doesn't work anymore since changes aren't as often anymore)and 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. 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.

Thanks to our correspondant for all the work done so far. Try not to makethe correspondants' lives difficult bybadgeringthemfor answers that they may not have. They're still only players like the rest of us. Players who have volunteered to organize and prioritize this information and present it to the DEVs. I'm sure any discussions between the correspondant and the DEVs will be shared with us regardless of how insignificant it may be.

We now have a voice, and the DEVs are listening to that voice. Hopefully I'll be able to start removing items from this list instead of just adding new ones.

Many, many, many thanks and respect to all those who have contributed. My personal thanks to Tyim for starting this thread during beta and for starting it up again now that we're live. Also, thanks to the devs who have worked like fiends only to be ranted at and badgered. Special thanks to any dev that cares to respond to this post.

1.Recent updates
2.Bugs still in evidence
3.Uncertainties
4.Wishlist

1. Recent updates
A.Added Item storage module issuewith converse droids.
B.Added repair module not working in LE Repair droids.
C.Added wishlist item regarding combat droids.

2. Bugs still in evidence
A.Droids are not giving any UXP
B.Droid names use the standard name filter.This may beby design, butwe're calling it a bug because droids should use a modified name filter that allows for numbers in the name. Yes, Artoo-Deetoo works fine, but I've seen NPC droids wandering around with REAL droid names. So we should be allowed to do the same.
C. Data modules are functional (don't allow waypoints or missions). The exploitable bug here is that you can store pet controls in them. This allows for an infinite number of pets to be stored since you can store droids with storage modules in droids with storage modules.
D.Information in the datapad no longer lists the commands programmed for the droid (new droids only). Give them back!
E.Droids with no attack capabilities none the less have attack speeds and damage base modifiers in the datapad.
F.Experimentation on droid parts has no noticeable effect on final droid (experimentation seems to alter the part quality, but no end effect is observed). Resources also fall into this area since resource properties influence the experimental property values. There is no point to experiment either on droid components or the final product. The droids seem to all function about the same.
G. The advanced droidchassisschematics allow for colour. However, the final droid loses this colour. This is an improvement, but the bug remains. Droids themselves are stilluncolourable (they tell us they removed this from thepatch since it was not complete).
H. 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. Latest patch says this is fixed. Anyone check this?
I.Storage Module 2s coming out as Data Module 2s during the assembly stage. What you seem to get at the end is a Data Module 2. Since neither of these modules really work, it is hard to tell if it's just a textual bug, or if you've really made a Data Module 2.
J. Droids dragged from the datapad to the secure trade window are invisible. Secure trade itself DOES work, but until we can see the droid in the trade window, this is a bug. If it does not exist for bazaars and vendors as well, then this should also be implemented for them as well. Secure trade is important when you're selling something like a droid.
K. Droid repair kits are fubar. With the droid out in the world, or in your datapad, you always seem to get the error message 'You don't have anything in need of repair (make sure your weapons are unequiped)'... Yes, this was a DROID repair kit. Kind of makes the"Pets don't heal when you store them" update really hard on us when we can't repair our droids.
L.Multiple crafting stations in a single droid breaks the modules in the droid. Only one of the modules seems to work when this happens.
M.Droid deeds shouldn't be tossed into the misc area of the bazaar. They're deed versions of entities. Give droids a proper home so that people can actually find them with ease.
N.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. Thishas the added effect thatcluster module slots are nowpointless and allows any number of modules to be placed in any droid. Clusters should only fit in cluster sockets. Otherwise you're further exploiting the idea that the droid frame used is irrelevant.
O.Storage modules stack (this can be exploited to a degree with cluster modules). The stackingprobably isn'ta bug, but the part where I put two storage modules into an MSE droid and it tells me I've got 15 storage in the datapad, but only 10 once I call the droid and open the container IS a bug. The numbers don't match. Seems there's a cap on the droid storage, but the deed display does not reflect this cap.
P.Skills for the Droid Engineer don't reach +100 at Master. Droid Assembly and Droid Experimentation only go as high as +55. Droid Customization (currently useless) goes to +64.
Q.Repairmodules do not functionat all when placed in an LE Repair droid.

III. Uncertainties
A.Is your droid supposed to travel with you when you take a shuttle? It doesn’t, it stays behind. Sometimes it even goes red and attacks the poor people at the starport where you left it.
B.Patrol point list is not saved between store and call, is this by design?
C. Some droids, when given a repair module, gain a 'repair other droid' option in the program menu. Some, when out, add a 'repair' option in the radial menu of OTHER droids. I can only assume that both are possible. 'Converse' droids do not have a programmable 'repair' command, but usually allow the repair option to appear in nearby droids (I've never seen this myself). Seems a little inconsistent. Also, the power droids and repair droids with a repair module do not grant the 'repair' option in other droids.
D. Power droids (possibly also LE repair droidsand Surgical droids... mixed reports on this) are the onlydroid with a non-modular function. Repair droids have had their repair systems removed and changed into a module. R droids have had their crafting functions removed and changed into modules. Power droids remain as an inherent function. Can we get some consistency here? Which droids have inherent abilities, and can we get some kind of visual information on this? Descriptive text in the schematics would be nice.
E. Some of the advanced droids are using 'Converse' instead of 'Program' for programming. Nobody seems to know how to name these droids.
F.Protocol droids and Binary Load Lifters seem rather useless.Protocol droidsdon't help with languages, since everyone who cares about languages already knows all the languages. BLLs don't lift any loads.Neither of these droids have room for any modules. So, from what I'm hearing, they're just a nice droid to look at. Anyone find a good use for either of these?
G.Can friends of the droid use the droid's modules? Or just the owner?
H.The only difference betweenmedical module 1 and medical module 6 from what I read is the boost it gives to medial skills. Some people believe that it should also restrict which medic skills you should be able to use.(I've moved this back to uncertainties since'something' supposed to be 'fixed' in medical modules... but I don't know what it is)
I.Item storage modules do not seem to be working with some converse type droids. The option to use item storage is not available in the radial menu. I have one report that they work with the basic LE Repair droid, and several stating that they do not work with Surgical droids. Anyone care to test all the converse droids (both regular and adv models) and give feedback as to which ones work and which do not?

IV.Wishlist
A.Advanced droid engineers should be able to call more then one pet at a time. I think this was the original intent as otherwise the formation commands would be rather useless.
B.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.
C.Examining droid should give thesame data as in the datapad (for the owner).
D.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.
E.Take another look atthe “only able to callpets in city or camp” thing. I understand the logic and personally have no problems with it. However, many disagree with it and I think it would work better if it was that you can only call a droid when not in combat, or acertain distance from a battlefield.
F.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.
G. 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.
H. 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.
I. 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.
J. A lot of Droid Engineers are calling for some form of permanent decay OTHER than perma death when incapped.BAD DEVS! The current decay rate does not support this (and perma death on incap is NOT the solution). So it would need to be overhauled to better match weapon and armor decay rates.
K. There have been several complaints regarding the 5 droid in the datapad limit. While there are some compelling arguments AGAINST this wishlist item, it would be nice to at least have this limit reviewed.
L. Here's another comon wishlist item. Droidekais. Probably won't get them, but a lot of people are asking for them.
M. Create aslicing module. This module would allow smugglers to get a boost to their slicing ability. We're not interested in putting anyone out of a job here. R2 could slice terminals in the movies, why not our droids?
N.Allow us to drop batteries into the droid's inventoryand have itrecharge itself as needed until the batteries run out.
O.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.
P.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.
Q.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.
R.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.
S.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'.
T.We're tired of losing our droids due to accidental 'release' or 'transfer' commands. Give us a confirmation request to help reduce owner stupidity (I can say that because I've done it).
U.Droid "macros" came up last post. 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.
V.Here's an idea that people are pushing for Protocol Droids. Allow them to have a custom converse menu, programmed by the owner so that the droid can act like a walking FAQ.
W.Either un-nerf probots to be more like the combat pets that non-CHs can get (until combat droids are implemented), or give us more combat droids.

I would like to see more variety of colors for droids too.

And I'd like to emphasize the point to give load lifters a use. One idea is to let it do harvestor runs for you.

Wow, lots of stuff to digest there. Lots of unhappy stuff as well. Here is one thing in particular :

C. Data modules are functional (don't allow waypoints or missions). The exploitable bug here is that you can store pet controls in them. This allows for an infinite number of pets to be stored since you can store droids with storage modules in droids with storage modules.

Then what in the heck is the purpose then? I thought the purpose of data modules WAS to store waypoints. Am I correct in believing that (when the pet "exploit" is fixed) that they are only good for schematics? That's really lame - only advanced crafters even need them, and with the huge amount of storage in the datapad already, it seems relatively useless.

Besides that issue, I'm going to try not to /rant here, but being a DE is really, really starting to tire me.

This is the only crafting profession I'd ever want to do. There is something so fun about creating an actual "living" thing.

But lately, it's just gotten to be too much. I mean, each customer takes 30 mins to explain everything, the modules, the models, the limitations, the broken things, and that's before you even have to explain everything about how to use it, name it, etc.

I have a few pre-fab email "manuals" I send to buyers, but it's really just getting to me. Like I read above that we are again having problems with certain mods in certain droids - which means that the very nice person I made a surgical droid for last night, with storage, probably has a bum droid now.

This probably isn't the thread to say this in, and I almost want to just not post it, LOL - but as very, very much as I appriciate this list, it also just reminds me of how far we have to go to even be decently functional.

I think the worst thing for me is feeling like people are going to think I scammed them, or that I was dishonest, because a /bug kicked in, or something I didn't explain as fully as I could have (though I try my best - trying to describe and explain an entire profession worth of things is difficult, especially when you are trying to craft the order at the same time); when all I want to do is make cool droids andmake people happy...

Again, sorry if this isn't the place...but at least ya get a /bump out of it.

Audio

Here's a couple more issues culled from recent threads:

1. Medical modules stack just like all other module - so you can make a number of lower level ones and combine thtem to have the equivelent of a high level one, making the high level ones somewhat useless (I'm uncertain how high you can stack them though).

2. Storage modules stack, but it seems the highest amount of storage you can get from multiple modules is 10, regardless of the nunber and level of modules that are placed in the droid.

3. As for the effect of medical modules, the number in the "Medical Capability" seems to be an efficiency factor of some sort (my guess is the scale is35-110 where 100 would be effectiveness in a med center). The lower level modules allow for wound healing that is less-efficient than a med center (which is fine) but they ALSO affect stimpacks, making STIMPACKS less effective when the droid is around. Many medics have seen this phenomenon. Medical modules should affect wound healing effectiveness, not all stimpack effectiveness.

Novice armorsmiths get +10 armor assembly and +10 armor experimentation

Novice weaponsmiths get +10 weapon assembly and +10 weapon experimentation

Novice chefs get +20 food assembly and+20 food experimentation

Novice tailors get +20 clothing assembly and +20 clothing customization and +20 clothing experimentation

Novice droid engineers and novice architects get zip, nothing. This was on Tyim's thread in beta for a while as I recall. Maybe it was just posted to the beta Droid Engineers Issues threadin the Focus forums that the devs seem to have deleted without reading. It should be on ours now. Especially now that quality means something (allegedly) for droid modules and now that it looks like they are trying to add customization to droids.

We should get at least +10 droid assembly, +10 droid customization, +10 droid experimentation at novice.

I have two boxes in the refinement branch now and still only have 1 experimentation point. No good.

2-I The level 2 data module/level 2 item module confusion seems to just be a naming bug. The actual item produced functions as it should when you examine it or put it in a droid.

I tried stacking 2 level 1 item storage modules in an advanced MSe droid and the maximum storage I got was still "1" item. is this how it's supposed to work?

Also, since CH characters can have 2 pets out at a time (or at least they did last time I checked, please coorect me on this) why can't we have 2 droids out? droids aren't as useful in combat as these pets are, so there are no game breakers there. what's the story on this?

Then what in the heck is the purpose then? I thought the purpose of data modules WAS to store waypoints. Am I correct in believing that (when the pet "exploit" is fixed) that they are only good for schematics? That's really lame - only advanced crafters even need them, and with the huge amount of storage in the datapad already, it seems relatively useless.

Devs once reported that they plan to add many more types of data types to the datapad. So I guess the best I can say here is wait and see.

1. Medical modules stack just like all other module

Hmm... is this a bug or intended? Will add it to uncertainties.

but they ALSO affect stimpacks, making STIMPACKS less effective when the droid is around.

Ok, I'll add that to the bugs.

Novice droid engineers and novice architects get zip, nothing. This was on Tyim's thread in beta for a while as I recall.

Don't remember seeing it in Tyim's beta thread, but I've already added something back in to cover this. Hopefully when we get to +100 skill, they'll add something in for the novices. I'll consider refining this item.

2-I The level 2 data module/level 2 item module confusion seems to just be a naming bug. The actual item produced functions as it should when you examine it or put it in a droid.

This is somewhat good news. Thanks for the update on that one. Couldn't tell before the big patch since both data and storage modules were broken.

Does experimentation actually do anything? If I experiment in say Advanced Droid Brain would it actually have an effect?

Ok, here is a n00b question from someone who should know better. I assume now after trying it that crafting station mods don't stack. Where was that written? Is that a bug?

Raj of Naboo

I actually think the medical modules should stack.. it still makes the higher modules usefull (once the bug with the cluster module is fixed)

you can either have 3 medical lvl 2 modules in an advanced R4 for 100 effectivness, or a Lvl6 module for 110(?), a repair module (to repair ones self if it gets attacked in town), and a food/chem crafting station.

The cluster bug/exploit(?) need to be fixed first. But the higher level mods are still viable if you want multifunctionality in a droid.

Gorantoth and Sintrosi:

One more thing to add to this list is armor for droids. Currently the different level of armor on droids does not appear to work. I say this because last night we finally got duralloy steel on our server. I harvested it and made armor modules 4. I built two adv probots. First probot had one lvl4 armor module and one lvl3 armor module. It was listed as medium armor with 40% resists across the board. I build a second adv probot and put two lvl4 armor modules in it. It also had medium armor with 40% resists. If I am reading these boards correctly even if I pay the expense to get the parts to build lvl5 and lvl6 armor for my droids, I will still get the same armor ratings as with the level 4 armor modules.

I may be wrong here. Like I said last night was the first night I could make that level of armor. I will do more testing the next couple of days and post what I find here. But from what I have seen in game with my droids and armor it does not work like one would expect. i.e. higher levels of armor provide higher level of protection.

Back after a few days of vacation. Will get back to working on this list in a day or two.

2. Bugs still in evidence

H. 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. Latest patch says this is fixed. Anyone check this?

Apparently this is not fixed yet since the droids I've tested (Pre-nerf Probot, R5 Droid, DZ-70 Droid) still gets stuck on server boundries. If you move within 32 meters of the droid, you are able to re-issue a succesful "Follow" command.

III. Uncertainties

G.Can friends of the droid use the droid's modules? Or just the owner?

As for Medical Modules I'm not sure, whether the players the Droid have befriended is affected by the bonus. I'm not sure about the Data Storage or Item Storage Modules either.

As for the Crafting Stations you do not need to be befriended by the Droid in order to use these. If a droid with an installed crafting station moves within range of you, you automatically gain the benefits from it.

...and a new one for III. Uncertainties:

Does the Crafting Stations in Droid work as 'Personal Crafting Stations' as in housing or as 'Public Crafting Stations'? They should probably work as 'Personal Crafting Stations', but seeing as it's the DE profession it's more likely that they are 'Public Crafting Stations'