Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: What a Non-DE would like to see out of the DE profession
I'm not a DE, never plan on being a DE, but, I have an interest in the profession and hope you guys get fixed real soon. There are some things I'd like to see out of the profession however. And I have an idea of what I would like to see from the droids you create.
First I'd like it if you remained crafters and not mechanical CHs. That's lame. In this time frame of SW there aren't many Battledroids left in the galaxy. They were proven ineffective in the Clone Wars. Clones were proven superior because of human intellegiance, thus, making droids obsolete. That said, however, I'd like to see a uber-loot schematic for an IG-88 robot. Keep them rare. Droiddekas shouldn't even been in the game, IMO. I am to assume that the Separatist Organization was crushed by the Republic/Empire and that their schematics for droids where siezed and classified by the Empire.
That being said, I'd like to see DEs given an Ion Blaster cert (make that a DE only cert) used to capture droids and reprogram them. It should work like CH taming and training. So maybe a MDE can capture a Droid Deka and reprogram it and maybe they can't transfer them. As much as I'm not for everyone and their brother having a graul mauler, I'm not for everyone and their brother have destroyer droids. This isn't the prequal timeframe.
I'd like to see droids used in the game like they are used in the OT as automated support units. Off the top of my head here's what I'd like to see from the following droid types:
Protocal: They need to change the languages. Every human should be able to speak/understand Basic, understand wookie, and speak/understand ONE other language. Every wookie should be able to speak/understand wookie, understand Basic and understand ONE other language. Every non-wookie and non-human should be able to speak/understand Basic, speak/understand their native language and understand wookie. This does three cool things for the game: (1) As long as you speak basic or wookie everyone will be able to understand you. You can choose speaking your native language so not eveyone can understand you, creating a more Star Warsy environment. (2) Creates more usefulness for the Smuggler skill of total language comprehension. (3) Creates an extra function for protocal droids.
I'd also like to see Protocals used for maintaining harvesters. You should be able to dump harvester waypoints, power, and maintenace funds into a protocal droid and he should be able to maintain your harvesters. Down side of using Protocal droids for this is that they wear down quickly and are somewhat expensive to buy. Something like PSGs.
Astromech Droids: Your swiss army knife. By giving them harvester way points they will perform maintenance on them and the result should be increasing the bang for your buck on maintenance costs. Which should decrease your overall maintenace costs and the amount of times you need to go out and add maintenace funds. Should be able to slice terminals, but, the results should yeild half the increase of a smuggler with terminal slicing ability. They should be used for in GCW for disabling faction bases. But, their real benefits should be made with the flight expansion pack.
Surgical Droids: Not sure how they should work. Part of me thinks they should have the same healing ability as the master. The only benefit being more/seperate storage for stim packs and zero mind costs for healing. The risk is the droid can be destoyed by the enemy losing the droid (permdeath) and all stims inside the droid. But, I also like the idea of the droid having the abilities of a Maste Medic. But, they only have a limited number of charges and they are fairly expensive to buy. I think the limited charges would keep it from stepping on Medics' usefulness, because the person's ability to heal in battle can be ended by destroying the droid.
Probe droids: Ahhh.. the infamous probe droids. These things shouldn't be tanks and they shouldn't have much in the way of offensive power. They are used by the Empire for recon missions and sniffing out rebels. I don't know how to use them. Maybe you can use them to give you waypoints to opossing faction bases. I really don't see any usefullness for probe droids with the way the game currently works.
Droids in SWG should be used as robots are used in the real world. For jobs that are either too dangerous or too dull for humans to do. Above, is just some things I think would like to use droids for in this game.
Thoughts?
As a BUYER here are some of my views, most probably agree with what DE's say
-Gotta have different/more droid chassis, especially for combat. Not necisarily Droidikas(if it's a story issue) but something more that floaty little droids. IG-88 type models or anything "humanoid" is better- strap a gun to a Protocol Droid for all I care. This is ESPECIALLY important being a Rebel, as Probe Droids are associated with the Empire(and now in-game with Bounty Hunters).
-The short/medium/long range blasters sound *great* to me. Even add more(melee droids anyone!?!). Any kind of customization I can give to my droid to make it better suit my needs and make it feel more like mine is great.
-Armor, same as above. Might possibly make it so there are trade-off's between armor and weapons for balance reasons. Also, as above, giving droids melee weapons & armor gives us another option for a "tank" like character- might balance well with a ranged profession etc.
-Droid names, GOTTA fix that. Some people like giving their droids regular names, some want model names. Even possibly have it so when a droid is made it comes with a "default" model name assigned to it ("R4-K7", "C-93D") based on chassis perhaps, and later they could teach it a more 'human' name if they want.
-Damage. Obviously droids must take some kind of damage. Perma-death is defiately out. I dont even particularly like the idea of needing droid batteries. Droids should just have a condition(like armor and weapons) that wears out over time/use/damage that only DE's can repair, but with each repair the max condition goes down until they cannot be repaired anymore. Also, just like armor, effectiveness goes down as condition drops.
-Medical droids. Might wanna ask the Medical professions and not the DE's. If droids can heal, maybe they have a limit of Master Medic and can't go into the Doctor skills any. Maybe they should be even better "crafting stations", like automatically foraging medical supplies or automatically produce stims and such after given resources -like a "mini-moblile factory".
Maybe the Medical droids would just serve as "an extra set of hands", where the droids medical skills would reflect the owner's medical skills. Kind of like the medic having to "teach" the droid how to do the things he does. This is another way that droids wouldn't replace healers as the only "good" droid healers would only be the the presence of good REAL healers- any non-healer owning a medical droid might just have a Novice Medic Droid that would be there only for downtime or whathave you
-Harvester Droids, go ask the surveyors. They probably want droids to help them survey more, again- an extra set of hands. Probably to transport more material(though resources aren't weight based now).
Madrox wrote:
Copied from another post of mine:
As a BUYER here are some of my views, most probably agree with what DE's say
-Gotta have different/more droid chassis, especially for combat. Not necisarily Droidikas(if it's a story issue) but something more that floaty little droids. IG-88 type models or anything "humanoid" is better- strap a gun to a Protocol Droid for all I care. This is ESPECIALLY important being a Rebel, as Probe Droids are associated with the Empire(and now in-game with Bounty Hunters).
IG-88 was created as an assination droid, but, went all self-aware and wreaked havoc. Destroying his masters and "brothers". He was the only one in existence. If IG-88 like robots are used I'd like them to be rare. RIS armor rare. Combat droids should be rare. I only remember seeing a droid partcipate in active combat once in the OT, and that was the probe droid in ESB. But, combat isn't its primary function. Recon is.
Any different types of combat droids would make me happy, as a Rebel I hate to own a Probe Droid.
And just because a droid "looks" like IG-88, doesn't mean it has to perform like him. I too wouldn't want super assassin droids running everywhere
