Droid Engineer Archive

So here are some answers, from my POV:

There needs to be more usefull things for droids to do for certain professions.

What things and which professions?

EVERY profession, Thunderheart. EVERY single profession should find they can gain some benefit in time, effort, cash or fun by using an appropriate droid. Give EVERY player a reason to purchase and constantly use their artificially intelligent companions



What items seem like the most important and which professions have interdependencies that are a lot of fun?

Most important to me, beyond the many obviously required bug fixes, is to be able to tell my customers: "Yes, I can build you a droid that will do that. The cost will be xxxxxx credits." You must understand that we spend an inordinate amount of time communicating to potential customers all of the many drawbacks and limitations of the expensive machine they are considering dropping hard-earned credits on.

What entertains you folks?

My children.. Oh, you mean in-game? I like to socialize and to build droids. I hang out with friends, I build droids and set them on patrol, I build up business as much as I can, and I spend significant amounts of time just teaching people about my wares.


And give us Droideka

I dont know what I can do, but there is a lot of talk about Combat Droids. There are a lot of dependencies here so its not an easy, cut and dry proposition...

Obviously there is a strong call for combat droid chassis, and I agree. Let's face it, this game IS about combat, and if we are to be truly viable, we must support combat in some fashion. Of course, I want to be capable of using virtually anything I make, and maybe, just maybe, I won't have to store my bodyguard robot everytime a devil gulginaw looks at it the wrong way.





When it says only DE will be able to use these combat modules do you mean that only DE will be able to asemble these modules or that only DE will be able to use combat droids of any form?


Which would you prefer and why?


I personally would prefer that DEs can use anything we craft, and that most or all skill trees involve granting certifications to access the higher features of droids. Look at the model of survey tools, where gaining additional skill lets you 'turn it up to eleven'.


One small step for droid functionality, one giant leap for DE - Dev relations.

Droid functionality or Droid Engineer Functionality? Which is more entertaining? How do you see each side?


They are BOTH entertaining, TH. We want to be able to craft interesting things, and my preference honestly would be to be able to customize droids the way we customize our characters at startup. I should be able to make factory crates of unique-looking droid heads, for instance, which I then use on all MY conversational droids, setting my wares apart from the market.


Only a DE will be able to craft them and insert them in droids is my guess.

Is that the way you want it?


Yes, that's the way EVERYTHING works for droids, and it's a good example of a way to facilitate repeat business, especially if (and this would be a first) we could upgrade/update droids after they are built.




help me out on this one. does this mean that only droid engineers will be able to command/use droids that have these modules isntalled, or will everyone

Only DE's would make them. Any Droid owner would gain the benefits of their Droids Abilities...

Any droid owner certified to make use of that particular module, please.




There's always more of course, and while these changes sound good, they didn't make me go "YAY!" like I was hoping they would.

(i saw all the stuff from your post )

What WOULD make you go "yay"?

For one thing, if I put a 'repair module' in a 'repair droid' and the darned thing WORKED. There is a perception among the developers that there is a perception among the players that repair droids do not work. Well, guess what? The 'LE Repair' droid chassis, THE ideal droid for holding repair modules, does NOT allow for functional repair modules. It's a waste of a droid.

Logging in one day to see massive updates to our skill trees and schematics. More blueprints, more modules of all sorts, and finding out that they all work when assembled. THAT would make me go 'yay'.




Will droid power rates be looked at?

I dont know, how does it work and what's the problem?

Here's the problem: Until a couple of weeks ago, noone ever used droid batteries, because all they had to do was store and recall the droid to charge it. That was 'fixed' and suddenly we find that one charge of a droid battery lasts a VERY VERY short time before your droid requires you to feed it another one. It's on the order of 10 to 20 minutes most times, I find, and that's way too often. Essentially, a bug-fix exposed a poorly selected battery lifetime value.



My only gripe is that we are so closely dependent on items from the Master Artisan box and there is no added benefit.


Thats a good point. I'll bring it up.

ADDED benefit is the key here. I don't MIND having to use MA components (I am one myself) but really, aside from making those items, why become a Master Artisan at all?


Thanks for listening TH, I know you're not familiar with our problems, and it's a bit like translating a foriegn language.

To get most of his answers he just needs to read the stickies on this page.

In particular Gorantoth's issues post.

Well, it's quite apparent that the job of reading those stickies is seen as too daunting, or the terminology we use there is too arcane for him as a non-crafter.

If, after the past couple of weeks, these questions needed to be asked, I felt I needed to answer them directly. Besides, I had ten free minutes before leaving for work.

I like this idea of starting a new thread. Posting it in the other leaves a chance for TH not to find it, on the other hand, he may not look at new threads. Bumping it with additional answers may increase the chance unless we can magically sticky this.

Here's my answers:

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There needs to be more usefull things for droids to do for certain professions.

What things and which professions?

Yep, every profession. A good thread sticked regarding new modules, etc. But to break it down simply: Slicing modules to enhance a smuggler's slicing abilities, Entertainer modules to enhance an entertainers skills, Accuracy modules to increase a combatants accuracy... etc, etc, etc....

What items seem like the most important and which professions have interdependencies that are a lot of fun?

Bug fixes first, customization of droid functionality next, new content last... those are the most important (unless I'm missing the point of the question, but those issues still stand)

What entertains you folks?

I enjoy crafting something that a customer finds absolutely wonderful, that they wonder how they could ever have made it this far without it.... unfortunately, I have not been able to do that yet.

And give us Droideka

I dont know what I can do, but there is a lot of talk about Combat Droids. There are a lot of dependencies here so its not an easy, cut and dry proposition...

Combat Droids are going to have to become a reality, Droideka or not. The issue is who gets to use them, which involves some form of certiofication system. There have been several posts regarding cert systems:

Constructive Ideas to the DE Plan- http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=33049

DE Droid Cert Ideas - http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=30875

When it says only DE will be able to use these combat modules do you mean that only DE will be able to asemble these modules or that only DE will be able to use combat droids of any form?

Which would you prefer and why?

The way it is now is that only a DE can craft a module and use it in a schematic to create a droid. Any module that becomes DE only after it is put into a droid should only be something to help a DE craft, as long as it does not give an unfair advantage over the other crafting classes. I personally, dont want to see a DE Only combat droid.

One small step for droid functionality, one giant leap for DE - Dev relations.

Droid functionality or Droid Engineer Functionality? Which is more entertaining? How do you see each side?

They are one in the same. Without Droid functionality there is NO Droid Engineer funcionality.

Only a DE will be able to craft them and insert them in droids is my guess.

Is that the way you want it?

That's the way it already is. What else are you talking about?

help me out on this one. does this mean that only droid engineers will be able to command/use droids that have these modules isntalled, or will everyone

Only DE's would make them. Any Droid owner would gain the benefits of their Droids Abilities...

I agree with DE Rho on this, module usage should be certified, which would be an easy way to implement combat droid certs as well, as you can certify the level of module by skill level of player. This introduces combat modules, but only if they can be used only in NEW combat droid chassis.

There's always more of course, and while these changes sound good, they didn't make me go "YAY!" like I was hoping they would.

(i saw all the stuff from your post )

What WOULD make you go "yay"?

If bugs were fixed. Exploits taken care of. An overhaul of the profession that increased functionality and individualization of different droid types as well as introducing more droid type choices.

Will droid power rates be looked at?

I dont know, how does it work and what's the problem?

Battery usage is insane. People are less likely to use their droid if they also have to stock up on batteries, in turn making it less likely they would buy one in the first place. Ideally, a battery charge should last a minimum of 1-2 hours, certainly not 10-20 minutes.

My only gripe is that we are so closely dependent on items from the Master Artisan box and there is no added benefit.

Thats a good point. I'll bring it up.

The only real reason to obtain Master Artisan is to make Electronic components, which, if I understand correctly, are only used by DEs. Whether or not that is true, the main point is that about 90% of our product REQUIRES those components. In my opinion that is TOO dependant. Unfortunately, at this point I cannot offer any suggestions. Moving those components to the DE tree would leave a blank for MAs.

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I hope TH can see this, and moreover I hope it helps.