Droid Engineer Archive

I'm not sure if anyone has stated this before, but why not create a system that allows us to pay credits, combat xp, and/or apprenticeship xp for the certification of a droid? What I'm envisioning is a Droid Handler Trainer of some sort, where we speak to it and choose a list of droids we want certification for. After paying the credit/xp fee, we are then warped to a short tutorial on using/naming droids, and have a brief quiz pertaining to that tutorial. A typical question which could be, "How many different commands does it take to name my droid?"

Successful completion of this tutorial will grant the player the ability to tame/call the droid. And this certification could be added to list of tools/weapons we are already certified for and would not need to take up skill points or another profession. This would allow any character in SWG to use a droid, which is feesible. Though charaters accustomed to combat would naturally be more attuned to the use of sophisticated combat droids. The combat xp payment would be a means of bypassing the probot problem which permitted newly created characters to kill high lvl mobs. Also, anyone could have the pet control device of a droid, but in order to call or tame the deed, one must first have the certification.

For instance, because droidekas are combat droids, and assuming we'll be able to craft them and have the craftable ones be actual combat droids comparable to the ones on Lok, an individual must first accrue a certain amount of combat xp, which symbolizes an understanding of combat tactics. The credit fee could be a form of a money sink to take away credits fromt he economy.

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An alternative tot he certification system, without using the addition of the "Droid Handler" profession or using more skill points is to replicate the CH profession. However, it is my belief that droids are inherently different than creatures. In Star Wars, droids are machines that do not require a profession to use. With this stated, droids could be based on the Max Droid Lvl and the Max Number of DRoid Lvls.

This would work exactly like it does for CH, say that certification 1 from a Droid Trainer could grant +10 to Droid lvl, +10 to Max Number of Droid Lvl, and +1 to Number of Called Droids. An MSE droid might have a DRoid lvl of 5 while a Probot has a Droid Lvl of 15. Under this example, one could call the MSE droid, but not the Probot and one could only call out one MSE droid total. It's difficult for me to explain, but I'm sure CHs know what I mean. Succeeding certifications would raise the lvls and numbers of stored and called droids. All of this would cost xp and credits, and not take up skill pts.

This is a rather long digression of my thoughts, culminating from my experience as a Master DE and almost a Master CH. I'd appreciate comments and would like even more if someone that agrees with me, could reorganize and add to what I've mentioned.

i kinda like this idea except for one part. if it costs xp AND credits, what about hte non-combat classes. what xp would it use for them as you only qouted combat xp. don't take this wrong. i actually like this idea as it make the most sense out of anything asked for. and as droid eng. do we get these certs for lower or nothing at all? just a little constructive questioning.

In reality this would never be implemented.. We all know the dev's are going to go with the solution that takes the least amount of man hours to implement. Dont wanna burst your bubble but we gotta finda solution that would take a minium amount of "new" resources to make.....

Whatever they do, DEs have to be the only class to be able to have more than one droid out at a time. And the higher level the DE, the more droids out, just like a CH. We invest alot of skill points if we want to be master DE and master artisan (a must for DEs, no way a DE can survive trying to buy GPs Control units and EMMs from other players) so we should gain an advantage from all this hard work.

Technically we aren't like CH for that fact that we are crafters. We are more comparable to Weaponsmiths as we can make the droids, it's doesn't necessarily mean we can use them more efficiently or use more of them at once. Take a look at weaponsmiths, I doubt they are complaining about their inability to use Flame Throwers. Though logically, we should ba able to call more droids, and anyone we can create.

I myself am not a Master Artisan and don't find much of a problem buying crates of the master artisan components as long as i buy them in bulk and insist upon a discount.