Droid Engineer Archive

Each week at least one thread pops up regarding droids and slicing. Most of the suggestions center around either enhancing a Smuggler's slicing abilities or enabling the droid with Smuggler like abilities. The motivation behind the desire is clearly a fascination with R2-D2's slicing abilities as portrayed in the movies. I do not believe a droid directly or indirectly slicing a terminal for illegal monetary gain, weapons and armor beyond 'safety standards' or unlocking secure containers is in keeping with the continuity of the Star Wars saga.

However, it did occur to me that the slicing activities we saw R2-D2 doing would earn him a Temporary Enemy Flag. Which got me to thinking about Faction Bases. Four of the five steps required for either taking control of or destroying a faction base were exactly the kind of slicing activities I believe a droid should be capable of doing:

1) Jam the Uplink Terminal (requires Bounty Hunter: Investigation II)
2) Slice the Security Terminal (requires Smuggler, Slicing I: Terminals)
3) DNA sequence the Override Terminal (requires Novice Bio-Engineer)
4) Switch alignment of the Power Regulator (requires Commando, Heavy Support Weapons I)
5) Activate overload at primary terminal (Control: anyone can do) (Destruction: requires Novice Squad Leader)

In regards to step five, a droid either isn't necessary or would probably be against the droid's programming. A droid with these slicing abilities would give us a product in the GCW beyond a combat pet and be in keeping with Star Wars continuity. If devs or players feel these activities are intruding on the role of Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Bio-Engineer and Commando in the GCW, then a timer could be either added to or between each step.

Why not - it looks to me like they just threw in random professions and actions that 'sounded good'.

Besides, when was the last time you heard somebody say 'I'm going to become a Bio-engineer so I can DNA sequence the override terminals!' I don't think they would be offended.