Droid Engineer Archive

As a Ranger, I was excited about the prospect of droids that could help me on a hunt. However, after having done a little research, I’m more confused than ever. Any help you could give me would be appreciated.

When I first heard about the new harvest and trapping modules, I envisioned buying an advanced probot with a combination of combat, harvest, and trapping (and maybe auto-repair and item storage) modules. However, everything I’ve read seems to indicate that a droid isn’t of much use unless all of its modules are being used for one function. In other words, the only way I’ll get much use out of a harvesting module is if I have an advanced R3 with six harvesting modules (especially the closer I get to Master Ranger). Is this assumption true or can a jack-of-all-trades droid be useful to me?

Can a droid multitask? For example, if a droid is attacking and I tell it to throw a trap, will it go back to attacking, or will I have to reissue an attack command?

I had some questions about how harvesting and trapping works. I was under the impression that I just needed to issue a trap or harvest command and the droid would perform the action on my target, freeing me up to focus on attacking. I really like the idea of having a droid harvest while I’m still in combat. However, I read somewhere on this forum that commands issued to the droid appear on my combat queue as if I was performing the action myself. Did I read that right?

Also, is it true that a droid can only hold one type of trap, however it can hold multiple stacks of that trap? The holding multiple stacks is a nice feature considering some of our best traps come in small stacks. However, the tactics I employ try to make use of the varied effects of different traps. If my droid can only fire one type of trap, then I’m still stuck throwing the other ones. This would basically free up only one turn in my combat queue (assuming droid commands do not show up in my combat queue), which doesn’t seem all that beneficial.

-Takanudo (appreciates your help and patience)

Swapping modules would be nice if...

It's a big if. It would involve the droid system being redesigned, and I just can't see it happening.

I think the principle of BigStack Modules (many of our new modules have stacking functionality) was implemented in answer to two of the bigger flaws in the DE design tree. Schematic overload and rare resource overload. A lot of our original modules were designed on a Level1-6 principle, where the best functionality came from a lvl module that takes named resource and subcomponents to make. You are correct in thinking that stacking what are in effect 6 level 1 modules to get maximum effect is burdensome. I would really like to be able to build a multipurpose droid for scouts. But I don't think its going to happen.

In an ideal world, we probably would have seen all our modules redone on a lvl 1-3 system (like our non functional Structure Maintenance modules) Will it ever happen? I doubt it. would it be nice? heck yeah. Droids are meant to do lots of things, and do them all fairly well. Limiting our best droid frame to a single function galls me to a certain extent. However, I don't work for SOE, and even though I make most of my ideas and opinions available via this their forum, I have yet to see my or any other of our great idea implemented with any great regularity.

Takanudo-

I have questioned the people I gave test models to, and they told me that droid trapping doesnt appear in your combat queue. I wish the Art Department had given us a nice animations to go with it this month, but I expect too much I guess (seeing the LE do an overhand throw, or an R2 firing things from its dome like he did Luke's lightsaber... mmmm now THAT would be cool). Harvesting also has no effect on you, except that you see the result as a sysmessage (watch for the failures if you commanded it too soon, so you can reissue the command)

The best way to get your droid to "multitask" would be to put it into guard mode on yourself or someone else. I believe then if you ordered a trap, it would go back to defending afterwards.

Note that a droid with a variety of modules would not be very effective in any category (see above post). Sad but true, and since we are probably officially "fixed" I dont see anything being done about it in the near future.

Thanks for answers to my DE quesitons. Sounds like you guys would like to see that, but prolly won't anytime soon. I did mean for this ability to be part of the crafting system. And frankly, look at smuggler slicing, it should be doable. They take crafted items, clamps, and change the stats on something that has already been crafted, stated and named, and saved in the DB. I have used the example of slicing for many cases of "it can't be done to change a crafted item after the fact."

Anyway, to answer some questions. Droid commands do not show in your combat que at all. Just like any pet, you're speaking out a command to it, thus it doesn't que. The problem is I found, you have to use /tellpet for trap throwing and harvesting, or actually type it out. It won't recognize a macro saying the command in spatial. Maybe you guys can get that fixed eh? Or is that normal for pets?

I would, sadly and regretfully say, that you would need at leat 4-5 modules of harvesting to make it worth while. I think if I had 4 instead of three, it would probably harvest what I do. But I still see that as no benefit. It needs to harvest more then me to really be worth, the time, expence and learning curve of using it. I am master ranger, and it harvests 1 unit less then I do. I also have found, you have to waite until the target reads "corpse of....." then give the command, wait until you see the droid move towards your target, before retargetting and attacking. I also left it on guard, so when it wasn't harvesting or trapping it attacked. The traps would thow, but you saw nothing launch. You do see the normal particle effects on the critter, and system message of the trap effect.

You can only put one trap type into the droid, so if you use more then one kind of trap, the rest you do yourself. Personally I use mine for the Phecnacine darts, because it snares the target, I can get distance, to kite it, or throw other traps etc. With 2 trap modules it can store 28 traps. That is traps, not 28 stacks.

All in all, im not that impressed. As I said in scout and ranger forums when this was on TC, unless it's a true benefit to "true" scouts and rangers, it's going to be worth it. Even if they just up the harvesting of the harvest modules a bit, it will improve their usefullness. I should "start" to see a havest bonus to what I can harvest with 3 good harvesting modules in it. Then obviously more improvment/bonus with 4, 5 and 6 modules of harvesting. It should be a bonus to what the owner already has. Not sure how it works, but from what I have read and seen, doesn't make any sence. It has to be a based off the owners own harvest skill.

Thanks Squidwalker for your honest opinions. It will help us DE's better educate our customers of the pros and cons of the droids.

I have an alt character that has Hunting IV and I run around with an R3 with 6 modules totaling 102 bonus. I love it because Im getting more meat and can start shooting another creature while my droid go gets the meat. I named my droid "Go-Getter" hehehe

Something I was thinking about: Anyone remember when TH said to take this oportunity we have now to harvest creatures before the Combat Balance? The CB will make it harder for people go out solo hunting on high level creatures. We'll be either forced to hunt lower level creatures or go hunting in groups. In my opinion, that would make these droids even more valueable because meat, hide and bone will be harder to aquire and ANY bonus above your regular harvestingbonus will be sought after.

                          .=+.             ------------------
                  \`--._,'.::.`._.--'/   _/ May the CU       \
Acktu - Sunrunner   .  ` __::__ '  .   _/ \ be with you      /
Beta 3, JTL,          -:.`'..`'.:-         ------------------
ROTW & TOW Beta tester  \ `--' /
                          `--'

Unfortunately with the way things are now, only the "extreme" droids that perform tasks are worth having. You see droids that are "full harvest" or "full combat" or "full med". The only droid that you can really play with multitasking on is the typical "crafter droid" that has a crafting station, usually storage & data mods and maybe now the structure maint. mods (if they ever work.) As far as anything else, you have to go extreme.

The good news my ranger friend is that you can have 3 droids in you datapad. And a full harvest droid will indeed increase your harvesting by somewhere around 30%, maybe more.