Droid Engineer Archive

I'm no longer a DE, but was for a few months, and after having seen the OT again for the first time in a while, I was struck with several things droids do in the movies that they could easily be set to do in game that haven't been addressed. These issues have probably been brought up over and over again, but oh well, I guess it's my turn.

First: Scanning. R2 does this constantly in the movies. This could easily be added to the game by giving droid users with this module the ability to either further or with more detail on the radar.

Slicing. Han and R2 are the ONLY people in the OT even shown slicing, and Han only tried it once. Droids should have the ability to hack into systems. The slicing ability shouldn't be usable on weapons or armor, but security systems? hell yah!

Nagging. Stupid idea, maybe? but let's say you're a merchant...or just any soul who's stuck in an overpopulated city listening to spambots. Any droid with a personality chip should be able to be turned "on" to a target spammer, to send gracious messages to kindly use the proper auction and planet channels for their spam. In emails to the person. Yes, just like c3p0 in...well, every movie, we should allow players to be annoyed by droids to fulfill the sw experience!

mobility. this one might be a bit weirder...but bear with me. a droid user stops movement to direct the movement of their droid to scan forward areas. because droids are innocuous...and nearly everywhere they easily pass through checkpoints etc. they can then scan systems, pick up hard to get quest items and the like from heavily guarded areas with minimal threat to the user. This would be accomplished by having a first person mode witht he droid where the player avatar is unable to move while directing the droid, but instead "sees" through the droid scanners. If the player is attacked, perspective returns to the player, and the droid is "lost" and has to be recovered in person, or not be able to be stored again. This idea is inspired by most of A new hope, where r2 and c3 roam tattooine and the death star independently. This is probably the only idea I have sitting that would cause a serious programming obstacle as well, so is probably the least likely to be well thought out.

Flicker Skylighter
Fatal Exceptions
Master Ranger

Estemus Ithorius
Fatal Exceptions
Master Entertainer, Musician

Wabicajo Aleranga-Master droid engineer/pilot/Novice armor smith
Eclipse
Your sig is too wide for my screen

and Han failed if you remember correctly... he tried to unlock the door and all he did was cause it's blast shield door to slam closed.

but unfortunately, they've made slicing part of the smuggler profession, us asking for it in our droids isn't going to be fair to them. Unless it is a smuggler only module that enhances slicing (which isn't such a bad idea).

in terms of annoying droids: I've programmed my merchant barker to insult people and ask them to step aside. Then I power him up and leave him in random places. as a rule, he draws a lot of laughs. it would be nice if he had a longer list of messages to spit out other than the one I programmed him with.

I don't really like the last idea.

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In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot

As far as what droids do in SW that they can't do in SWG, I have one word for you:

HOLOCHESS

I wanna watch my R2 play against a wookie.

Seriously, I think it would be a total blast to have a droid that you can "bind" to a house, and set it to patrol and spout off things occasionally (no other functions period) that uses no battery power and doesn't count as a droid up (but only one of these up at a time). Essentially the same thing as a chassis used for furniture, but a little more entertaining. Perhaps even a special chassis type that allows this with it built in inherently.

Holochess would be fun! So would holographic messages...or just messages at all.

I'm really just trying to think of things to make droids more useful that there's an obvious canon precedent for. I mean, I am now a ranger/creature handler. I have all the out of town crafting stations i need in my camp kits, and get better backup in the wild from my pets. I want droids, I like them, I think there should be about 40 more droid models which, even if they did nothing else different, would add to the immersion factor of the game. But droid usefulness is (and I know I don't have to say it in this forum) so limited it hurts.

Flicker Skylighter
Fatal Exceptions
Master Ranger

Estemus Ithorius
Fatal Exceptions
Master Entertainer, Musician