Droid Engineer Archive

I talk to CHs and sometimes feel like a real jackass for the following reasons...

1) They went out and hunted and killed stuff while I sat and grinded parts... the same part over 2000 times.

2) They can field 3 pets which are exponentially stronger in combat than any droid which you will only see one of per owner at a time.

3) One CH tells me, " yea i got 3 million credits sittin around with nothing to spend it on, so go ahead and make those uber repair tools for 2000 each"... I guess I should switch to making repair tools fulltime. Tried to sell em a nice new probot with L6 armor and quickly realized how nice the person was being by not laughing at me right away like "Are you serious?"

In closing I apologize for whining, but do you guys feel the pain? I guess I should get on my knees and give thanx that our droids have no chance at all of dying or wearing out now. I am so curious as to how the DEVs intended all of us who make non-degradable items to make a living over the long haul. DEVs need a cash drain, start having stuff degrade over time regardless of use. Depending on the item either repair or replacement should be the call... BAH I have detracted.

Right now droids are good for medical abilities and crafting stations. I have a droid with a level 110 medic and chem crafting station to make StimCs in the field with. As it is now, they can't compete withcreatures in combat. The Sarcastic Chip in my Probot is pretty funny, but he rarely lives long enough to sayhis first witty coment. They need to bring probots up to the prenerf HAM and damage levels. In terms of comatcompetencies, this would make them just under the max level 15 Non-creature handler pets.

I would also like to see somenew, more powerful droids, like a shielded destroyer droid (like EP1) with status comparable to level 18-20 depending on the experimentation and quality of materials used in the creation. This would make the droid comparable to a mottled wrix and still nowhere near higher level CH pets (not to mention AT-STs).

There's only two advantages to droids (and they aren't much):

1. They are ready to go right away. (Creatures take over a week to grow to adulthood)

2. They can do other things like boost your healing abilities and allow you to make higher level supplies.

Creatures have many advantages, here are the biggest two:

1. They are way more powerful in combat.

2.You can heal them.

If DEs want me to buy their droids for battle, one of threethings will have to happen.

1. They need more HAM. Something like the old probots will be fine.

-or-

2. You need to sell them for less money. Creature handles are selling non-CH pets that are more powerful than your most powerful droid for only 3K. This being the case, why would anyone pay 20K for a probot?

-or-

3. Why the hell are probots using their arms to attack when they have a blaster attachment? Let them use the blaster for ranged attacks. This would be great!!! Being a TKA, I could tank the creature while my probot stays back and fires low damage attacks (under 100) at a safe distance. If an enemy gets toclose, I give the droid the Melee comand and it switchs to the normal melee attack.

Another thing that would help DEs out is the ability for users to buy replacement parts. The various parts (like the crafting station) would wear out over time based on useage. When it wears out, I should be able to buy a new crating station component to put in my droid (you don't want the entire droid to die because users get attached to their droids/pets which = use). You should also be able to upgrade and modify the droids. "hmmm. My droid seems to be week on defense, I think I'll go to the DE shop and see if they have an armor upgrade.....Hmmmm. My droids rate of fire is pretty slow, I wonder if the DE has a droid blaster attachment with a higher rate of fire (this could be offset by shorter range or less attack damage)

I would rather be using a droid than a CH pet. When SWG first came out, I was using a probot, not a Grand Wrix. But you need to give me something worth using. I hope the DEVS allow you to do that one day.

Also, this is only going to get worse when the creature mounts come out. I watched the trailer for them, and they look awsome.

I hope this post doesn't make anyone upset. My goal was to give you, the DEs, a user perspective of your products and to provide some constructive ideas on the improvement of the profession.

I wish you all the best of luck!

Your right, why would anyone want to buy a probot for 20k (or even 15k which is the price I charge) when they can get a better pet for 3k off a CH.

Now even if I charged at resource costs I probably couldn't make a probot for 3k, even if I harvested all the resources myself (not easy concidering it requires 6-7 different resources), the simple fact is we cannot compete with a CH who just has to go out into the wild and tame a baby.

I dont want any extra combat droids right now, I just want one droid that I can sell to the masses that can compare with a CL15 creature. If they have to implement a 1 Droid or 1 Creature limit to do this then I dont mind, as long as we can add extra functionality to our combat droids (like the Adv probot can currently), then people will be more likely to choose a droid over a creature. I fear that they may implement the 1 droid or creature before giving us an viable combat droids, and further reduce droid sales.

It's sad that our most powerful combat droid is a joke, even to non CHs, and that half of our droids dont do anything, data storage is useless, item storage might as well not exist, repair droids dont, BLL does nothing, Power droids cost a fortune because of the Power Core requirements, and an MSE can do everything an Adv R3 can because of cluster module stacking.

I do quite well selling Advanced Probots with Armor6, Med6, Food/Chem Crafting stations, Droid Repair, and Item Storage6. Now that Permadeath is gone, people are considering these as their last buy droid. I sell these for about 25k. I've even sold a few Binary Load Lifters. For what reason, I have no idea. But people have WAY too much money to burn. That is to our advantage.

Well not to burst your bubble but last time I checked my Grand Wrix couldn't let me tend wounds without a tent or boost my healing, or provide extra cover fire from range for my other pets.

Actualy today I plan on buying 2 probots. Why cause its one more pet which means more dmg better abilities and better healing AND a crafting station to. I also plan on recomending the DE I'm buying the Probots from to my customers who by pets from me. a Rock Beatle + Probot is a GREAT combo if you asked me.

Owe and those CHs selling pets for 3k are nuts in the head. I sell mine for 5k-25k depending on how good it is vs how hard it is to find/tame.

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DUD-73Y wrote:
Your right, why would anyone want to buy a probot for 20k (or even 15k which is the price I charge) when they can get a better pet for 3k off a CH.

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Hang on now, my basic probot w/ L6 armor is tuffer than most non-CH pets I'ves seen. Regens healther faster, takes more damage, does less damage than my cowardly gurreck. Bottom line it's saved my ass alot more often than a flesh pet.

I have to disagree with those who say that a probot isn't equal to a non-CH pet. With top level armor (why would you spend the credits on anything less, really), it has medium armor with 40% resists. That means that it takes 15 points of damage for every 100 done to it.

So what? you might ask. Well, a top of the line non-CH pet (a cowardly gurreck, for example) has no armor. That's right, zero armor. So how much damage does it take for those 100 points done to it? 100 points. Given that a Cowardly Gurreck, at full size, has 3200 HAM, when it's attacked it will take 3200 points of damage to bring it down. Not bad for a tank.

But, the probot discussed above, the one with the medium armor with 40% resists and a measly 800 HAM, will take about 5466 damage (100/15 * 820). (As an aside, that's why pre-nerf probots were so overpowered- think what 3200times the armor bonus [6.6) will soak up. A lot, especially when you could insta-heal it by storing it and calling it again). Note that some non-CH pets have light armor, but these creatures also have HAM's of about 1000.

Added to its huge ability to soak up damage, the probot will fully regenerate its hitpoints in 1/4 the time of the non-CH pet. Why? Because it has only 820 hit points as opposed to 3200 hits. Less hit points to regen means less down time.

Of course, non-CH pets have three advantages over probots. First, they can be healed. This is a big one for people who can/are willing to spend the money on stims to heal their pets. Then again, it takes a lot of stims to heal a 3200 HAM pet. Second, you can insta heal the mind pool of a non-CH pet by telling it to do a trick. Very nice little bonus. Finally, non-CH pets have a higher DPS rating than probots (100-150 DPS versus 50 DPS for a probot). Added to this is the fact that non-CH pets will close and melee with the target, which is a big benefit if they'reusing energy weapons, while probots stand back and shoot. However, given that the player is usually the one doing the big damage on the target while the pet is just tanking, this may not be much of a consideration.

So, the short of it is that probots can take more damage but don't dish out as much compared to non-CH pets. Optimally, one would get both and let the pets (and the probots' armor) tank while you sit back and fire.