Droid Engineer Archive

* I already posted this on the develpoment forums but it scrolled away into darkness before it got a resonce and I would feel odd bumping my own post. But this monster took far too long to think up to be forgotten. Hopefully it will last longer here.

Okay, we all know 90% of the droids in SWG currently have no purposes or their purpose is so lacking in utility they are deemed worthless. As a droid engineer this concerns me. Each droid SHOULD have a unique purpose aside from whatever mod you install in them or why even have different droids? Over the many hours grinding these silly bots I have had time to think and compile a list with some assistance from a friend. These are just suggestions so don't attack me if you don't agree:

MSE "Mouse" Droid: Anyone who has seen episodes 4-6 (hopefully EVERYONE J) should remember these guys buzzing around facilities (not people). These droids are used for small maintenance and couriering, so they should reflect that in game. Considering the tell/mail system, we can nix the couriering business. However, these little guys should be place-able in houses (where they patrol not sit still) and not count as having a droid out of your datapad (Like an item). This little guy would just buzz around all the time. Purpose you ask? Reduced maintenance cost on the house…hey…some ones gotta change those a/c filters. This would obviously be a small maintenance decrease (maybe 5-10%?).

Seeker/Alks: They work fine!

Treadwell: These too are maintenance droids. So they should function like MSEs, (when in house don't count as pet out) but with a higher maintenance reduction (15-20%?). These guys also have binoculars mounted on them. So when they are following you (count as called pet) they should enhance your characters vision. (i.e. -20% Max Range Penalty; +10% Max Range; +20% Ideal Range; maybe even night vision; thermal visions, zoom, yadda yadda).

Tracker: I can only imagine one use of these flying CDEF pistols…as scouts. Like a remote robot you can temporarily take command of (leaving character alone and vulnerable). You can use it to go first into dungeons, around nasty nests, or into enemy PA territory (muhah). For you /whisper ex EQ players…this would be much like the beloved Eye of Zomm…if that's what its name was?

Astromechs (R2 - R5): I have different ideas for all of these little guys but this post is long enough as is. Hopefully they will be used to repair vehicles/spacecraft when they get damaged in the expansion pack. They would be extra amazing if you could bring them with you on your fighter or what have you, load them with "spacecraft repair kits" and they can zoom around your ship "Episode I style" acting as a "spacecraft medic." As we all know however, our astromech friends need some terrestrial uses as well. My idea is if you could install "tool kits" in them that they wont use up the tool, the droid would just become that tool…let me explain. If you're a smuggler you need a molecular clamp to help you slice. An R2 with a "molecular clamp tool kit" installed could serve as your unlimited supply of that tool but that would be its ONLY purpose, then maybe its only limiting factor would be power, and then batteries could be useful! Enter…. The power droid…* gronk! *

Power Droid: Right now power is useless, but if droids gain abilities, then these abilities could burn power much like we burn action while performing special moves. This doesn't take much explaining…power droids = walking, never-ending battery…it keeps going and going and going… (Sorry, had too)

LE Repair Droid: Pretty self-explanatory here folks. Much like the power droid but works for health of other droids. Droids should have expendable field repair kits and the LE repair droids would be the more permanent form of repair kits (like a medic for droids). Possibly the ability to heal stat lose of the fallen droids? Power droids power the LE's, which repair the astromechs, which repair the ships…wonderful no? J

Surgical Droid: So far they work fine! Maybe have ADV ones slowly heal wounds? But not fast enough to put medics out of work!

Probot: I wont go too in depth here as 4.5 million posts have already covered it. My opinion? Boost the HAM a tad to give it a chance and give it the ability to "probe" a planet for a given resource. You "set resource to probe" wait 2.5 hours or so and it appears back with a WP of a number of highest concentrations across planet depending a little on luck and quality of droid. "Great Success" = 3 WPs; "Crit Fail" = 0 WPs

Protocol: First of all, a language barrier needs to exist in game. Either a max number of languages you can learn or have them skill bases (i.e. Underworld I for smuggler). Oh yeah, and no "common tongue." Then protocols can put their knowledge of languages to good use allowing all spatial chat within ohh, 40 meters of the droid understandable by all. Since protocols are also masters of diplomacy (as seen in the ewok village in Jedi) they can act as a "mask scent" around creatures of reasonable intelligence (i.e. Gangs don't attack you when you have a protocol out).

Binary Load Lifter: This lumbering beast would be the ultimate in high maintenance reduction (40% - 50%?). These guys would also be great for retrieving resources much like the probot would survey. Just hit "Gather resources from harvester X" on its menu, and come 1 hour later you either get a fail or success. Fail = Resources not picked up…still in harvester or Success = You get your resources! It could also be used as a remote harvester status monitor and a way to pay maintenance and power from far way.

Sorry for the long-winded post but thanks for hearing me out. I have been meaning to post but feared how long it would be. I am just very tired of feeling almost ignored by the devs. Hopefully they will see this post and it might make a difference.

-Grizzlefist (Yes…I am a wookiee)
Tarquines (That how you spell it??)
Droid Engineer (surprise!)

I am NOT a droid engineer (don't flame me because i'm beautiful) , but I must comment on some of your ideas. I'll go down the list 1 by 1

Mouse droid- While I LIKE your idea of having these droids constantly roaming around a residence there are a few technical issues. Droids while patrolling tend to run out of batteries pretty quick. Would having a mouse droid patrolling your home and lowering maintainance simply overlook this fact? somthing to think about.

Tredwell- very interesting idea in having these guys give you a ranged combat bonus. For some reason, I REALLY don't see these guys out in the field helping rebels shoot down storm-troopers. I think their primary function is Maintainance, which you stated in your post. Sort of a more advanced mouse droid.

Tracker- I have one ofthese and had no clue that they actually fire now. Do they? The idea of having them be a controllable mobile scout is a great idea. Sure it's just novelty (much like the wonderous eye of zomm), but I'd imagine it could have an interesting role in PvP, (scouting out that cantina before you waltz on in)

Astromechs- wow.. you have quite a lot of interesting ideas for the astromech. Let me destroy them. muhahahaha. Okay, your second idea is to make the Astromech into a sort of universal tool. While this sounds great, I can't for the life of think of many expendable TOOLS in the game currently.. hmm.. a bone spur trap, no that woulden't work.. a Survey tool.. possibly, but they aren't expendable. Grizzlefist, help me out here, i'm a lowly woodsman with little knowledge of expendable tools in this world.

Power droid- Without droid engineers having the ability to have multiple droids out, then these guys serve no purpose that to wander making that adorable little *GRONK* sound. Good idea having them restore burnt out droid abilites such as the astromech who fires bones spur traps.

LE repair droid- I see no problem with this idea.. it's awesome. But again, DEs need to be able to call multiple droids.

Surgical droid- I think they work fine too. Leave the slow wound healing to the ranger camps sucker.

Probot- This is your BEST idea on this whole post. Make the probot actually probe! Downright brilliant. I myself have never searched for resources, but i'd imagine it's pretty dern painful. This would ease some of the pain and give these guys a use.

Protocol- Hmm I dunno about the language barrier, while it would be more "Roleplayish" it just tends to do nothing but slow things down, while it would give the protocol a definite purpose, you'd also see 1 protocol per player, which is unrealistic.PS> thanks for posting my idea about protocols lowering aggro range.

Binary load lifter- This idea is perfect as well. Have them lumber out to pick up supplies from all your harvesters on a given planet. You know HOW many requests for these you'd get?! and you could charge double their production cost at the very least , what's that over 200,000 credits? Every engineer on the planet would want one.

...

Anyway, great list Griz. I'd like to see a lot of your ideas implemented. I don't know if any of them are actually doable due to coding limitations, but hey if they can make me ride a rancor, i'm guessing they can make a binary load lifer actually lift somthing.

-Sleep Under

-MCH

-Frontiersman

-Other stuff

I too am not a Droid Engineer...sorry...but in relating this to Bio Engineering...we too have many creatures we work hard to make only to be nothing more than furniture.

I love the idea of the Protocol Droid lowering aggro with various humanoid creatures. Also the Binary Load Lifter is another great one. I would love to see a wandering load lifter out gathering its daily steel. None of your suggestions I think are asking too much or taking too much away from other classes. Iwant to have a droid scurrying around my house and it actually lowering my maintenance costs...amazing. I personally would love to see some sort of DNA housing droid. Seeing as how our DNA samples can not be stacked like most other resources they fill our inventory rather quickly.

But thats just the breeder in me.Great post...i hope the devs look in tothis one.

Thank you for the post Kind, even though it made me cry...just a little...hehe

*Little note: I type like a goon and didnt spell check so if it sonds like greek at times, dont worry...I am still speaking english

First off, batteries run out after a droid has been out a while, yes, however it doesnt stop them untill you issue a command after their battery is out. Lemmi explain...I can have (rex) my binary patrol the cantina and harrass the dancers all night...but he will only have a *low power* if I walk in an hour later and tell him to follow. As soon as I do he gives low power. So droids could patrol houses indefinitly but you just couldnt give them commands while they are.

About the treadwell, I only suggested the combat idea because its a great looking droid and I would hate to see it become an advance ADV mouse (already and ADV mouse...oxy moron huh?). Besides, i dont think most rebels in the star wars universe would bring gaint car sized house cats either...*stabs Kindstod and his CH self*...im kidding CHs, I dont want this to turn into a CH vs DE post...

Trackers fire and they have the same stats of a CDEF pistol and 40 hps....its a meany!

Ahh yes...the astromech and tools...this is what I ment. To slice a terminal you need a lazer knife that only has so many charges. I consider it a tool *shrug* didnt know what to refer to is as. What this would allow is you to slice without the tool IF the astromech is out. *imagines R2 sticking that probe thing into terminals in the movies*. Im thinking to make a droid like this...instead of having a module for EVERY tool in the game you have one mod thats HARD to make and you just put the tool as one of the components. You gave me an idea too! About the spure traps...what if you could load an R2 with traps/genades and he fires them outta his head like at jabba palace with the lightsaber. I know its weird sounding but we know R2 can do it...and it would save actually using the grens mid battle....we could jsut say a command to our droid.

About surgical droids...how about they INCREASE healing wounds in a ranger camp?? See we can compromise with you frontiersmen!

About surveying...imagine running around your yard with a metal detector, same thing hehe.

Well if there is no language barriers then we need to either scrap the protocal or attach rocket launchers to its back...because thats all they do is tlak hehe. They are too expensive for just a weak mask scent.

Aye, thank you westich! I also think its weird how bounty hunters get two droids only THEY can use. The devs really need to add more proffestion specific droids to help everyone out. I know very little about bio engineers but i wanna see a tracker droid with a "DNA sampling mod" installed sneak into a pack of rancors and **edit** one and buzz out before its noticed! hehe