Droid Engineer Archive

OK, I been lurking here since the day I started on my path to DE.

From a business standpoint, why are all these **EDIT** sissies whineing about perma-death??? **edit** are you wound up about?!?!?!!! WIthout perma-death, or somesuch iteration of that in relation to droids, our business is SCREWED!!!! Can you not see this??

Non DEs can have three droids in their datapad at once. We get six, but that doesn't help business, cuz we make our own. If droids dont deteriorate or die, where is the return business over time?? WIthout some degradation of product, I am WAY behind the 8-ball in relation to those who have come before me.

You know that Goodyear/Firestone/Dunlkop can make tires that will last FOREVER?? WHat about GE and a lifelong lightbulb? How about hoke appliances that NEVER break down. WHy don't we see these items on the market right now you ask?? Because iof they were, they would put themselves out of business and the price for a tire that never wears would be like 10K a piece. 10K too much you say, look at the profits they must recoup by building a tire that last forever . . .

So, for me, I NEED the droids I build to degrade over time. I NEED my customers to come back to me for more items. I am NOT a DE because I think droids rock. I am a DE to be in business, which is EXACTLY what the artisan skill tree and the professions it leads to are designed for. Business, and nothing else my friends.

So think about this some and post your thoughts.

-Stinky, Master Artisan/DE

I cant seem to edit the title . . .

*sigh*

I'll agree, that DECAY is needed. I'm perfectly willing to deal with having to buy a new droid after time. However having a droid be PERMENANTLY DESTROYED at the FIRST incap is utterly redicilous.

I don't want to spend 20k on a brand new crafting droid, have it stockpiled with good resources and be in a camp making meds for someone than some mountain squill comes by, incaps the droid in one kit and BAM I'm out 20k of droid and all my resources, my ability to make meds in the field, the time needed to get another droid and all of that. Meanwhile Ms. CH's uber stinky gorilla she got for free is getting knocked down and dead every single battle and with a push of a stimkit is back in action. That's Wrong(tm).

Kylania, but you over paid for it, IMHO. if you could have the same functionality in a droid that costs 2500cr would you mind permadeath so much?

Droid death means no sales to my mind. Why would someone pay out money for a droid that can die the first time it is incapped?

The droid needs to take damage that can be repaired by DEs, needs to be upgradable with replacement components if necessary, again by a DE of the appropriate level of skill, and needs to slowly decay over time. They need to be comparable to PCs. They should not last forever, or as the original poster said the market will become saturated and there will be no sales over time.

My PC can have a component fail - and I have to buy a new component, it suffers general wear and tear over time, and sometimes the best option is to replace the whole thing at once. I suspect it would do about as well as a DZ70 if I took it into combat as well

Droids that die suddenly when you don't expect it because you were safe one second and got aggro the next as the person above me posted about, will NOT SELL to anyone with half a brain. The fact that pretty much any CH pet is far far better at doing damage than any droid is at the moment and CANNOT DIE, means the only wise purchase is a pet if you want to do combat, or a house and crafting station if you want to craft. Buying a droid for crafting and healing purposes is a very risky proposition at the moment, and the droid death thing absolutely needs to be changed.

As well, buyers need to be limited to 3 droids deployed at any one time, but only 1 combat capable droid at a time. That way there is an incentive to purchase repair droids, power droids etc.

The way i see it:

• Each component needs a damage rating in points based on its quality - and therefore the materials that went into making it, skill of the DE etc.


• Each component should be liable to take damage when the droid takes damage, not every time, but there should bea percent chance. If it takes more than say 50% damage to that component then the component stops working, and the droid starts smoking (as a visual clue to the problem). An Examine of the droid should list the damage.


• A repair droid or a DE using a repair tool should have a chance to repair the component (with the DE having a better chance). Repairing fixes the problem but knocks a few percents off the max the component can ever be repaired to. If the repair chance fails, then the component must be replaced by a DE using a repair tool (and in the case of components that require a crafting station, in the presence of a crafting station (droid based or home based). Sometimes you just need to take it into the shop. Presence of a crafting station should up the repair chance.


• If the damaged component is an inherent (ie required) part of the droid, then the droid will stop working. If the damaged part is a module then the module will stop working.


• Just using a droid should have a minor chance of wearing out a component (say a 1% chance of a random component losing 1% of its integrity per hour of deployment). This value should increase when the droid is in combat to say 5% per hour of combat time).


• When incapacitated the droid will not die, but a component will stop working and need repair or replacement. If deathblowed a component or components will need replacement entirely.


• If a customer wants it, it should be possible to remove a component and replace it with a new one, or remove a module and replace it with a new one - just like upgrading your computer. It should not be cheap, perhaps requiring sufficient materials that its not casually done, and it should require a qualified DE to accomplish it. It should have a chance of failure resulting in the loss of both the old and new components. This will prevent and discourage "flavor of the minute" module swapping etc.


• Creatures who die, should die. They should however be clonable at the cloning facility. It should be possible for a doctor to revive them just as they can a PC etc. This will add balance to CH pets and make droids seem comparable otherwise.


• We need better combat droids that are comparable to a CH pet in their effectiveness - not better, not worse just different.


• Droids and the modules they can accept need to be quantified. Right now it makes just as much sense to make an Advanced MSE and throw in a few modules as it does to make an R2. There is no effective difference. An MSE shoujld only be capable of taking a level 1 module, and R5 a level two module etc. Repair droids should only accept a repair module, perhaps only an R2 can also accept a repair module etc (R2D2 did repairs in the movies). Surgical droids should actually heal, although not as well as a true Medic (slower perhaps), and should make the performance of any nearby medic much better as well (can't put other classes out of business to fix ours). Probots should be capable of taking a materialname (from a list), type, and percentageand then go and survey for a spot with that percentage resource, reporting back via email when they find it, with the waypoint to the location, then return to their owner. If they die on route they should persist and send out a distress email.


• The quality and type of a droid brain should determine what commands it can or cannot learn (with a fixed order to what commands are available). So a poorly manufactured one will be limited in its capabilities - but can always be upgraded later to a better one when it can be afforded ( just like buying a new motherboard).


• Droids should use weapons made only by weaponsmiths, powercores made only by architects etc, the various professions should be more interactive and rely on each other more. This will strenghthen the economy. in reverse, those trades should have some reliance on us and on Master Artisans etc. This reliance should increase as the complexity of the droid or its components rises of course. So an MSE droid relies on no other profession but a surgical droid would rely on components fromaWeaponsmith (for the surgical tools), Architect (for the power core it is powered by), Master Artisan (for the electronic controllers and sensors), etc etc.


• The DZ70 to my mind should be limited and suited to pest control or something, so itsHAM should be quite large, but its damage very small. Right now it can't take out a gnort without dying in 2 blows. Either it needs a purpose or it should be removed, or its combat capability should be removed.


• Seeker droids need to be cheapened to the point that we can crank them out like MSEs, so that BHs have an affordable source once more. In fact, they should switch things so that seeker droids are the better choice to level up on over MSEs, that way there will never be a shortage of seekers for BHs to use, and we can recoup some of the money we burn skilling up to Novice DE, Blueprints 1, etc.

WIth something like this in place, droids will wear out over time - faster if engaged in combat a lot - will occasionaly need repairs or replacement of components, and occasionally it will be cheaper to buy a whole new droid than it is to repair the damaged one. Some folks will STILL repair the damaged one of course because whether or not SOE realizes it, some folks get attached to their droid and don't want to buy another one.

If I buy a car and the transmission fails, I don't buy a new car, I get the transmission fixed (unless it wasa real beater like my current car). Its just more economically sensible, expensive as it may prove to be, than it is to buy a whole new car. If cars worked that way, no one would buy them unless they had to.

There has to be a mechanism to keep droids in balance, to keep the DEs employed etc, but it shouldn't be an all-or-nothing replacement mechanism thats just so unattractive to customers that I can't conceive of them purchasing many droids. Having differentiation between the capabilites of droids and increased abilities will only make them more attractive to customers and their functions clearer.

So what we need is droid decay, component damage, repair and replacement mechanisms etc.

I am guessing 'yes', since the holdings within the droid were lost, minimally.
Really, aside from the issue of 'robots in SW can be put together', the key aggravation (for me) is the imbalance between our 'pet' and other 'pets'. There is an imbalance when ours is unrecoverable while others can be brought back to health. Now, if all pets (and cute lil AT-ST perks) were permadeaths, then everyone would be in an uproar. Our pets are not the strongest in combat, and for me that is perfectly OK; the way the schematics are for bots right now their intent is a versitility tool, not a pure combat machine. I see the usefulness balancing & specialization of bots vs animals to be that. Animals have a strong hold on combat, ours are multi-purpose. Those being equal, the treatment of incapacitiation should be similar. I could see incapacitation requiring a small robotic repair unit (like a robot stim), while a death requiring a DE's repairing skills. While C-3PO did not die, he certainly did not have the ability to put himself together....

Hey, I'm a bh and a good de customer, and since our professions are intertwined now, i feel I should share my feelings on perma death for probots.

I don't mind spending money, but since i've gotten inv 2, i'm a little morefrugal because i lose money doing my missions. The way I see it, perma death will not increase sales, and it is does not reflect the star wars universe.

Keep in mind that ur main competition now, beand ch, are selling, imo, better products at cheaper prices. There's a lot of them, so I can find the same stats for a tank for half the price of a good probot. And durability is a concern. I lost koko, a decent probot, within two seconds of commanding him to take on one of my marks, but when i sent one of my pets of the same challenge lvl and lower resist, he might get incaped.

The other point is this: how many times did C3PO die?

Infact, the only reason I still buy probots is to keep up my relationship with my de. He gives me a good deal on seekers, I buy droids from him. But, if he wasn't such a nice guy, i wouldn't waste money on a probot.

I suggest, you guys look at repairs as another source of income. When a droid dies, you should be able to take him to a de for repairs. This aproach works for car dealerships, where the most successful dept. is not sales; its the repair dept.

and, no i don't work for a car dealership. I just remember that fact from a economics course.

Sorry to post on your forum. Just thought I should offer some consumer logic to the debate. You may proceed to flame, but forgive the typos and such. I didn't have my sixth cup of coffee today.

Oh some one already made my point. Sorry.

I think droid permadeath is good, and for the reasons the original poster listed. The solution isn't in my mind for DEs to become mechanical CH puppetmasters. Get a different competitive ladder.

Let the CH have general tank pets. DEs can have 1 too. But wtih permadeath, you need different droids with different modules....ones that are specialist tools.

I posted in the massive thread of designer responses, but if you think about it, droids can be made to be very specialized with a lot of power...with known disposability.

What about a kamikazi droid seeker that self-destructed wounding other droids in an AOE? What if a version of the same droid became a very expensive grenade that was an AT-ST killer, usable only by DEs themselves...maybe not 1 downs it but 1 is a real bundle of hurt.

Sentinel droids to raise defensive perimeters in scout camps?

Probe/Perimeter droids that had probabilistic concealment that allowed a DE to extend their overhead radar and warn an encamped party when enemy forces were inbound?

In my mind the niche for DE isn't to just sell sell sell, but add a tactical and mundane-relieving element to the game. I'm not a DE...but if i were you guys I'd stop carrying on about permadeath (though i liked the theoryi read that it was temporary to get rid of the old probots) and start lobbying that DEs can heal droid damage themselves, just as a medic heals PCs in combat.

Permadeath isn't so bad then is it? And then parties want you around. And you don't have to spend all your time grinding. What if you were the wild card in a party that could turn the tide with very specialiized stuff...that yeah was permadeath.

I think that might just make you one of the coolest classes in the game. And doing it could fit into SOE's balance framework.

Give it some thought,

Jacore.

I can't agree more. SOE has definitely dropped the ball here. Making droids perma-death on incap without the possibility of repair. That's just stupid and is the cause for our lack of business. On the other hand, I know SOE is going to add the repair capability to dead droids. It' makes too much sense to not do such a thing, so with that in mind, when that idea is implemented, we're going to be quite busy making and fixing them.

If I'm wrong, doesn't matter cause I know SOE is going to do our profession right...and soon.

Let me give u an example of why perma death sucks. Say you go out and spend 20k on a new car and u leave the lot and get in an accident and ur car is totaled and no insurance coverage for the car. So you have lost your money and you lost your car how would you feel? I had a person buy an advanced probot and 10min later he got aggro doing a mission and the droid was killed. He had the droid for approx 10min max and lost it along with his money. So did he run back to me and buy another? Hell no he didnt he will do with out one. If Droids were a necessity then perma death would work. I think the key is decay not perma death.

Hyla Crucifer

Droid Engineer, Radiant

So where before I could spend the time making one advanced probot for 35k with no permadeath -- I can now make three for 12k each .. tripling my efforts and time for barely a scratch more profit. UNless you are lucky and actually have customers who are buying them for the pre-nerf patch price.

Doesnt compute for me.

Permadeath and/or decay are needed.

But permadeath is NOT needed when half of our droid models only have 40 - 270 HAM with no armor, and the other half can't hold any modules.

THAT is why people are against permadeath right now - our droids have no staying power. The first time a red happens to appear in front of us because of lag, or just because it decided to spawn there, there is a good chance that it will attack our droid, and destroy our X amount of credit investment in one shot.