Droid Engineer Archive

Ok people, our hybrid professions got Knocked down, and I personaly am still against the DC

miniskills tree.

So below is my idea on how to implement >CL13 Droids into the game (Since DC isn't set in stone

yet, alternative proposals still have a chance).
My first step was to create a outline of what I wanted my proposal to achieve.

Criteria:
1) Combat Droids For All!
2) No free checkers!
3) No new profession
4) An Advantage for Droid Engineers.
5) Balance (Whatever that may be)

Upon looking at SWG one of it's major factors is that it's a market based economy.
And with any free market the more capable the object the higher the price.
And knowing this, it struck me that one way to limit droids is by using free market forces, namely

cash.
Secondly after hearing that a droid battery meter will be included in Publish 8, I sat down and

and came up with the idea below.

Imagine if you will a Droid that consists of 3 parts:
1) the droid itself
2) A droid engine that has a min value of 1 to a max value of 35
3) A droid power regulator

Dependent on chassis type the Droid has a specific engine that has a range of values i.e.
an MSE droid can have a Droid engine of 1-5, whilst a droideka can have an engine of 13-35.

All druids 'default' to their minimum engine level
The droid power regulator can be set by a DE upon request to any of these levels.
This will consume specific 'tuning' tools.
If the droid is incapped or runs out of power then the power regulator is set back to it's default

value.

For an example:
A droideka will have it's droid engine at a default of 13 giving:
Armour(shield Generated): None
HAM: 1500
Resistances: 40% All
Power Drain: 0.5% Per 35 Minutes

If the Droideka has it's engine set at 35
Armour(shield Generated): Light
HAM: 3000
Resistances: 40% All
Power Drain: 0.5% per 45 Seconds


Now since I've outlined the droids stats we have to look at balance. (I know somebody will sit

down and work out some proper stats for all of this)

1) Combat Droids For All!: Since all individuals will be able to call a single droid, no specific

profession gains an advantage.

2) No Free Checkers: Here's the fun part. Since the ability to pull a droid and get your local DE

to set it's power regulator to Lvl 35 seems pretty overbalanced, namely it seems to be a pretty

big Free checker we are going to have to negate this in some way.

This is where the money comes in.
The abilty to use droid batteries will be removed.
Since the technology behind the constant shield generation is highly advanced and new, only 1

power source has been found that has the necessary wavelength to achieve it.

Oh' and guess who controls the only mine in the known galaxy...yup, the imperials.
Oh' and there is another problem, in it's raw state it's highly volatile and can only be

transported or moved using specific stabilisation equipment (which i've heard has been fitted to

all starport and shuttleport craft)

You will notice beside your regular shuttle/star port a new terminal has been erected that can

process and filter the raw components into the fuel required to run your droid.
But OMG those stinky imperials are asking a fortune for it!

Game wise here's what going to happen:
You are going to have to re-charge your droid at these power points for a large fee.
For example 10K for a full charge.
Once this charge has gone your droid auto stores and reset's itself to it's default engine level.
There is no way to charge your droid in the field.
Luckily, although you require a DE to set the power Regulator at a high level, the reverse of the

process is quite simple. You can 'Dial down' your droid on the fly. (if you feel your battery

power is running out you can set your droid at a lower Regulator level to conserve life quite

easily)

So let's have a look at the costs shall we:
Get DE to set power regulator = 10K to 30k (And remember dependent on what skill level you are as

an MDE Sets the level you can set the regulator too, i.e. Novice can set to +5 whislt MDE can set

to +23)
Full Charge of Power = 10K (lasts approx 2hrs if droid set at lvl 35)
Droid Stims For HAM = 5K (approximate usage per 2hour stint)

Total = Max 45K per 2 hour Usage of a Lvl 35 droid. (longer if you start to bump the levels down)

Finally there is a flaw, after your droid has been pulled approximately 5 times from your datapad

the power regulator can reset it self.

3) No new profession: These new advanced powered droids have imperial designed AI chips which

allow ease of use in the field.

4) An advantage for Droid Engineers: Well thats simple we can set our power regulators whenever we

want!

5) Balance: This proposal uses existing game mechanics and allows everyone to use a droid at

whatever level they choose.

The set power regulator = buffing your pet for a specific amount of time.
Fill with power = recharging your bike or powering your harvester
PLUS the dev's get a HUGE money sink! (Have you noticed that we may be heading for hyper-inflation

unless the devs can find more ways to remove money from the game?)
Creatures = you only have to feed your creatures once in a while we have to pay thousands to use

ours!

And finally this does not just apply to the combat droids...if you want to enjoy an increase in

healing/crafting/cooking then BOOST your power regulator! And your friendly droid will give you a

hand (but don't forget..it'll cost ya!)
And let's face it too...the other professions have started to take notice of droids.
Smugglers have a roaring trade in degradeable power filters that extend the amount of times yor

droid can be pulled before it's regulator is reset.
Armoursmiths are overjoyed at all the shield generators that have to be incorporated into a droid.
Weaponsmiths are giddy at the prospect of having to equip a delightful range of their toys into

the new bots.
Architects are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of placing their own Power terminal

outside their house and arranging a bulk discount for raw fuel to fill it with.

Now people have fun, and please don't tear too many gaping holes in my proposal :-)

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THJahar wrote:

If the Droideka has it's engine set at 35
Armour(shield Generated): Light
HAM: 3000
Resistances: 40% All
Power Drain: 0.5% per 45 Seconds

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Ok just to clear something up first, you DID mean to write minutes here not seconds right.

Nope seconds.
if you look that equates to about 150 mins before your droid is empty.
Which is the whole point...if you want to crank up your droid to lvl 35 it's going to eat through the power FAST!
Therefore costing you a fortune...most people will set their droid level at a reasonable amount so they can afford to run them

I highly doubt it will happen. You can't try to balance things with credits.

Scenario 1:
Random new player starts a character. Random new player has friends that have been playing for a little while already. Random new player now has a plenty of credits to get his droid, allowing him to do stuff that he should have to have more skills to do.

Scenario 2:
Random new player starts a character. Random new player has an Ebay account and buys a couple million credits. Random new player now has a plenty of credits to get his droid, allowing him to do stuff that he should have to have more skills to do.

The DEVs don't want to try to keep these things from happening (as well they should, otherwise you undermine all other combat skills).

Message Edited by Jenden on 04-06-2004 03:23 PM

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Jenden wrote:

I highly doubt it will happen. You can't try to balance things with credits.

Scenario 1:
Random new player starts a character. Random new player has friends that have been playing for a little while already. Random new player now has a plenty of credits to get his droid, allowing him to do stuff that he should have to have more skills to do.

Scenario 2:
Random new player starts a character. Random new player has an Ebay account and buys a couple million credits. Random new player now has a plenty of credits to get his droid, allowing him to do stuff that he should have to have more skills to do.

The DEVs don't want to try to keep these things from happening (as well they should, otherwise you undermine all other combat skills).

Also, with power lasting that long, someone could easily make more money on missions than they spent keeping up the droid. 2 hours is enough for at least 100k with a droid of that power.

Message Edited by Jenden on 04-06-2004 03:23 PM

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I can't agree with the scenario you lay down Jenden.
SWG is a Fast levelling game, in barely a couple of weeks you can be mid way through a master combat profession.
If by chance a newbie does start and is given alot of credits by a friend, by merely using the droid it will suck dry that pile of cash pretty quickly.
The pile of cash will no longer be used to fund aquisition of top class armour and weapons that will give him a boost in levelling...it will be used to run a droid that earns them no combat xp and therefore doing the opposite of what u suggest..it will slow the players progression down.

And your second scenario is a minority. the million creds will get the individual into the game fast anyway.
Finally yes you are right about the time levels....but if we can put our heads together i'm sure we can work out a balanced solution.

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Malitevv wrote:

yup. that is one fundamental problem with what you have layed down. credits don't work as a balancing factor in a MMORPG. balancing factors have to be something that cannot be freely traded or they just won't work. anybody can accumulate millions of credits fairly easily if they are focused on that task. any player can buy millions of credits on eBay with a very minor expenditure of real life cash (not that I would advocate that, but it can easily be done). many players have rich friends that can give them millions of credits easily.

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Agreed...but let's look at the other point of the proposal, droids are a money sink, and will be a huge one. The credits disappearing out of the game will be enourmous, and let's face it if you get the balance right, using a droid on a money making mission should almost cancel out all of the profit., making it pointless as a wealth aquisition device.
Ok you'll earn skills but as i've stated before to level in SWG is not hard.

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THJahar wrote:

The credits disappearing out of the game will be enourmous, and let's face it if you get the balance right, using a droid on a money making mission should almost cancel out all of the profit., making it pointless as a wealth aquisition device.

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if the cost of the using the droid is equal to or greater than the payoff from the mission nobody will like it or use it. If it's cheaper than that you will be back at the problem where the credit expense is not working as a balancing factor.

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Malitevv wrote:

maybe something could be theoretically balanced, if the cost is obscene. but if the cost is so high that no new player with lots of cash could get an unfair advantage from it, then it would need to be so costly that no experienced player would be able to use it very consistently either (because in the end there is zero difference between how much money alow level charactercan have and how much an experiencedcharacter can have). and if it's that expensive, only people who learn to exploit the system to squeeze massive amounts of credits out of the game in a short time would be able to use it effectively.

certainly, casual players who do not buy credits from ebay would never be able to access these droids. and how is that beneficial? i'd rather no combat droids be in the game at all than have something like this.

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This is where the 'Dial Down' part comes in...people will quickly settle on a level of droid that they can afford.
Uber players with lot's of cash will set it at the highest level, whilst lower plays will set their's lower.
You will see players 'charging their droid with just a couple of K of power and setting it to say lvl 15 or 18.
Whilst if you're going on a nice big POI then you'll have the power set to the top.
My main example of this is the speeder bikes. In the first few weeks of the bikes being available, people all bought swoops because they were the fastest, after a while i was unundated with tells for speeders as people realised just how expensive a swoop was to run. (unfortunately this all changed when the shuttle bug became widely known)
And my point is this: it wasn't 'poor' players asking for speeders, it was players who had millions, but just couldn't stomach the constant extraction of cash from their bank account.

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Malitevv wrote:

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THJahar wrote:

The credits disappearing out of the game will be enourmous, and let's face it if you get the balance right, using a droid on a money making mission should almost cancel out all of the profit., making it pointless as a wealth aquisition device.

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if the cost of the using the droid is equal to or greater than the payoff from the mission nobody will like it or use it. If it's cheaper than that you will be back at the problem where the credit expense is not working as a balancing factor.

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The cost will be equal or less if you have your droid 'maxed' out so most people will opt for a mid to low range power setting. Therefore creating that self balancing factor

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Malitevv wrote:

but in the end, if it is to be balanced, thenthe level of the droids that players are able to afford without draining their bank account faster than they can replenish it will have to be equal to the level that combat droids are at now. and the fundamental problem is that it is extraordinarily easy to replenish ones bank account very quickly for any non-casual player.

In the end, all you'll be doing is turning droids into a money sink, without upping the effective combat level of droids at all. the combat level of the droids accessible to most players will not increase from what it would be without this system(it cannot increase, if it does, it will be obviously unbalanced by the metrics the dev's already have in place). you'll be stuck with a system in which the high level combat droids are only available to players who are extremely rich or who exploit the system. it couldn't possible end up any other way. if droids higher than what the dev's are willing to give us now end up in the hands of the average player because ofyour system,than the system is unbalanced by definition. if droids higher than what the dev's are willing to give us now don't end up in the hands of the average player because of your system, than the system isn't really accomplishing anything other than funnelling high level droids into the hands of hard-core players and/or exploiters. which isn't good for the profession or for the game.

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Ahh but in life everything is not constant.
I for one spent tonight soloing some imp missions.
Now with my 'Powered droid' I would have pulled my droid out and dialled it down, for an extra little help.
But I stare longingly over my shoulder at a spawn of force crystal hunters. I can't take them by myself but I store my dialled down droid and pull my Dialled up droid and attack!Now you maybe wondering that I've just unbalanced the game, but no...luckily the AI of the MOB means that it will switch targets every now and again, or spam multi target shots. If i was a n00b i'd be dead but because i'm mid-level combat i'm gonna just about scrape through.

People will invariable set a level for their day to day droid but use a dialled up droid for those special occasions...it is no more or less than the equivalent of getting buffed by a master doctor. And let's face even n00bs can have 3K HAMS nice average composite and the best pistol in the game after just a couple ofweeks playing.