Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: The What Droids Should be able to do and Should NOT be able to do Debate
I've heard lot's of Arguments going back and forth about this Issue, One side says Droids are useless and should be able to perform limited functions of other professions. The other side says that Droids should not be able to take business away from any other professions at all.
People, believe it or not, everyone can have their cake and eat it too....
Am I the only one who sees the obvious (in my point of view) answer. In real life in todays modern world people can buy products which allow them (to a limited degree) to be able to have and perform many of the things they can go out and have professionals do. But just becauseI have a Karoeke machine doesn't make me a musician, and my first aid box doesn't make me a medic.
Now stick with me on this next point......
I do NOT believe it would be a crime to allow droids do be able to perform limited functions of other professions, and it would not take away from thier respective franchises, but add to them.
First Example: Surgical Droids. The complaint has been that if a droid can allow a non medic to heal themselves with one of these it would render a doctor useless. That would be true if it could perform these abilities in a stand alone manner. But has everyone forgotten this game is supposed to have a high level of Professional interactivity. Give Surgical Droids the ability to heal even Non Medic owners, but here is the catch, without stims or medpacks, the droidwould beuseless. Heck, even give them the ability to use stim C's and D's, just make it so they are not as effective as a real doctor, and now, the droid owner would have to search out a doctor to make stims for them. This would create a big boon to the income of the doctor profession, much greater than the current model of business for a medic who creates stims to sell to lower level medics. I'd say even give the droid the ability to use the "resurrect a corpse" thing that doctors do, (sorry, don't remember the real name of that function) the catch would be that they would have to buy that from a doctor with that ability, and the cost for one of them would be extreme I am sure, BUT PEOPLE WOULD BUY THEM. They would be invaluable, kinda like the Phoenix down in a well known RPG. What this would do is have people searching out droid engineers like crazy to make these surgical droids, and doing the same thing for doctors to acquire thier services too. I myself have been in many situations playing at some early hour, damaged beyone belief, running from city to city looking for a doctor when their seems to be none around at the time when I'm in some remote location. This will allow people to plan for such an eventuallity if they are willing to pay for it.
Second Example: Entertainer. I've always felt sorry for Entertainers and wonder why they put up with it, building themselves all they way up in a profession that is so necessary, but yet so thankless at times. Why not allow them to be able to record holos of thier performances for sell. Again, they don't have to be as effective as the real thing, but be available to those willing to pay for it for those extreme situations. This could finally allow them to be able to have a reliable source of income instead of hoping that Cantina visitors are good tippers, and once again, this could help DE's by allowing them to put mod's into R2 units that can show recorded hologram performances. Yeah, people could go to the cantina for free, but think of what master performers who have paid there dues could charge for these things for people who would like to have them out in the field. As an extension, lower level artisans could make these blank holo's for purchase by the entertainers, since the game seems to so unforgiving to novice artisans by the way of sales and UXP.
By doing this you keep the skills that belong to each profession within that profession. Just because it comes together in one Bot doesn't have to detract from one Professions business. If I want something custome made, I'm going to get each component of whatever it is I want from the respective developers who specializes in each of those fields. This way, the Droid is the starting point for whatever a person wants it's use to be when it comes to generalized functions. And everyone stays usefull, and stays in business.
As far as slicing is concerned, I'm not too sure that it would be that critical where you couldn't wait till you find an actual smugler to do it, at least I've never been in that situation. But incase there or those of you who have been in a fix where you need something sliced and you need it sliced NOW, then it wouldn't be to hard to adapt this philosophy to smugglers as well with some thought, perhaps a mod smugglers could create, or a program which would go out of date or something with time to keep the market moving, and again, would not be as good as a real slicer.
So basically with this Idea you are not giving droid engineers any additional skill that takes away from the other professions, merely supplying the others with an additional means of exercising their skills.
I could be out of my mind or way off based on this thing as far as some of you are concerned, I don't know. But I would appreciate any responses or modifications to this Idea. Give me some feedback.
Peace.
Cyborg Shoryuken
Bloodfin
P.S. I forgot to do my obligitory complaining....GIVE DE's DROIDEKAS's!!! Coming into this game I though DE's would be able to make awesome battle droids of varying types, and they only have one that stinks, and was nerfed to stink even more!
No special purposes for different Droid Chasis's doesn't seem wise, yeah, cross experimentation and add on to different modules sounds good in theory and should be there for DE's to an extent. But you should get the best performance for a certain action from a shell that was meant for that purpose. I.E. a battle droid that can fight but also has a medical mod. on it would not be able to heal anywhere near as well as a surgival model.
'nuff said, I'm out
I do like a few of the suggestions in this post mainly the idea that droids should be able to do stuff but not as well as an player. Personally I keep grinding away droid xp not for now but for the hopes they fix it in the future. As for DE's having Droidekas why not? Make the resource cost very high so losing one would hurt very bad and give some regular combat droids and not something equivalent to a protocol droid with a gun or a floating nerf blob.
Cyborg-I really liked that idea of the holo dancer. It's doubtful a medical droid would take too much away from surgical droids the idea of having them use stims is very good.
I think droids should be able to "buff" the skills. Give the user a bonus to a skill they possess.
However I'm not against limited use droids either. They just won't be able to do things nearly as well. Give them a high chance to fail whatever is is they are doing. LVL 6 modules in a skill never go above 60% or so.
I have another example to further my Idea of Class Inter-dependency.
As an example, let's say that Droidekas were intoduced, the have lasers and Personal shiled generators. Weaponsmiths make a variety of laser rifles, Armorsmiths make PSG's.
Would it not be too much of a stretch to allow the droid engineer to make the basic droid frame with everything else he deems necessary to be added to the chasis, then go to the armorsmiths for the PSG's and weaponsmiths for the weapons?
Better yet, If those respective clases could make those Items of varying degrees of quality, the Droid Engineer would also have the option of just selling the base bot at a reduced price, then the customer can go to the armor or weaponsmith of his choice to get it outfitted with the accessories he or she preferes.
So Basically what I'm trying to get across is this, Droids (as they should be) can be highly useful, customizable, and versatile, without stepping on the toes of any of the other professions. If there is any profesion tha tthe droid is proficient at, just make it so someone in that profession has to have a hand in it. Everyone is communicating, everyone making money, and I think everyone would be happy.
And then Droids could actually be worth something!!!!!
I already proposed this and many other people have too.
They just don't care I think.
excellent ideas - get this man on the DEV team 
but DE's do need a combat droid of some kind, even if the Probot could do 100 max damage, it really should be able to do that, CH's have all kinds of crazy damage and crazy ham creatures to use, even non CH can use pets that do over 100 damage, my little beetle does 120 - 160 but my probot which cost 4 times as much as my beetle can perma die and only does 40 damage ??!¬!!!
So wot is that all about ????
Im sure the DEV's are reading all this and very soon just after we all get creature mounts the DE profession will get everything it ever wanted, combat droids wil be really kool, we will get new droids and loads of real kool stuf....please please please
I have been saying this very thing since beta. I am still appalled by the fact that droids are less than pets and disdained by most of the community. I basically make two droids. One for those who craft things, and one for those who heal. They could be portable holes for all they actually do, because they project a field in a radius that lets those with a certain skill do what they could do anyway in a camp or near a crafting station. People tell me that is great, or worth something. No, not unless you are a medic or crafter, and then not all that much.
I point you to Starwars.com, where you can find a droid database, just in case you aren't a fan of the movies.
2-1B (or Too-Onebee) is a medical and surgeon droid that was stationed with the core group of Rebel Alliance soldiers on Hoth's Echo Base. This humanoid mechanical aided Luke Skywalker twice during the events surrounding the Battle of Hoth. He revived Luke from a state of dormo-shock after the young commander suffered exposure to the Hoth elements. After Luke's confrontation with Darth Vader on Bespin, 2-1B affixed Luke with a cybernetic hand. 2-1B was assisted by an FX-7 droid. 2-1B is a humanoid droid with a skull like head, a transparent trunk, and numerous surgical appendages.
Like others of its class, this roughly humanoid-appearing droid has surgical manipulation appendages, a medical diagnostic computer and a treatment analysis computer. For detailed patient status information, 2-1B relies on medical instrumentation or useful analysis droids like FX-7.
The sturdy FX-7 medical assistant droid aids both live and droid doctors in medical procedures. The FX-7 is a cylindrical droid, with a number of retractable appendages.
The surgicaldroid was just that. What we are using it for, at a stretch, is an FX-7 droid. Now I argue for a new droid schematic - the FX-7,to do what the surgical droid currently does.But instead of a max medical additional capability for a medic of 110, I think it should be more like 150-200. Now you are talking about a useful droid.
Let us have multiple droids out, and with a 2-1B with an FX-7 assistant, you are talking about more than decent field healing with medic-made stimpacks, woundpacks, or other kits. Now I know what some of you are saying. That will kill the doctor profession. Go play a doctor and then talk to me. Doctor is my profession of choice on an alternate character on another server. I am convinced that this will HELP me make money. If I want XP, I go out with groups. If I want money, I sell my wound packs and stimpacks. I cannot rely on tips in the med center.
I found it incredibly strange also that when, on Endor, I brandished my completely worthless protocol droid in the midst of an Ewok Village and they did not worship it! I thought for sure I had finally found its use. But no, like the Niemodian Bird Cage, its use eludes me.
Play balance. Yeah, I hear it all the time. Whatever. Droids are supposed to do things.And I would prefer that those things make me feel like I was in the universe that George Lucas thrust upon my psyche at a tender young age, and sparked my imagination from that moment forward. Telling me that droids should be basically what they are now is like taking away my favorite cat and spilling its guts on the ground right in front of my face. Yeah, a lot of you would enjoy that, I think.
You know, at least Episode I had the pod races and the nice Jedi fight sequences. It didn't kill my enthusiasm for Star Wars completely like the Droid Engineering profession has.
Please note them as old posts when you push them up. If we've "been there/done that" already and didn't even get the lousy T-shirt, why do we need to see these again? I'm thinking some of these are brand new ideas but they are from launch. Makes it even harder to make sense of what is going on.