Droid Engineer Archive

Top 10 Reasons why:

First a look at a list of the other crafting professions: Artisan, Architect, Armorsmith, Chef, Droid Engineer, Shipwright, Tailor, Weaponsmith. (These are the primary crafting professions)

1)Customer Interaction: We have the greatest amount of customer interaction of all the crafting professions with the exception of maybe Tailor.

2)Star Wars and Droids go hand in hand: We are hands down the most Star Wars-like crafting profession in the game. Looking at that list above, the only one that comes close to having a Star Wars feel to it is Shipwright. However, it is really difficult to “show off” your Ship to other people. Or to display it in your house. Plus, ships are just inanimate objects.

3)Droids have a great amount of utility: We have a HUGE range of droids. We can customize almost any droid to fit their needs. They are not locked into one particular standard.

4)Droids are highly recognizable. People KNOW what a droid is. When they see one they say, “Hey, that’s a droids. That’s C3PO, or R2D2!”

5)Novice Droid Engineers: Within a couple days of getting Novice Droid Engineering, they can make decent money. Storage Droids, JTL Astromechs, Seeker Droids, Arakyd Droids and a couple flight computers can be made by low level Droid Engineers to make money. While this is not a lot of money, no other crafting profession (with maybe the exception of Tailor) in the game can boast that they can make money to support themselves while they grind their profession to Master. The low-level utility droids are just as good as a Master Droid Engineer’s droids.

6)Anybody can use them! Everyone can and should have a droid!

7)Droids are useful Pets: Droids are now viable pets now that we are limited to low level creatures. Heck, they are even available as a Tank!

8)Vendor Map: I recently became a new Master Droid Engineer. I believe that for the Vendor Map Locations (Control+V), the order is based on the person that registers their vendor first. So a person that registered a year ago will be near the top whereas a new vendor is at the bottom. This means that there is minimal visibility for new Vendors. However, for Droids, there was a very select, short list!!! This means that there is minimal amount of shopping for our customers. When they check our Vendor listings, they don’t get 50+ Waypoints that they have to sort through and spend hours to look through. This helps out a HUGE amount.

9)There is limited competition. To be honest, we are a small, tight-nit community. This means that we are for the most part exempt from price wars. Yes, there will be undercutting players that come and go for a couple weeks after they realize they are not making any money. However, they usually cannot handle our profession.

10)Experimentation: There are only a select amount of items that need to be experimented on. This allows a newly emerging Master Droid Engineer to immediately compete with other Master Droid Engineer as long as they have some of the right Materials available (See Number 5). However, at the same time... there are still some items that a long-time Master Droid Engineer can still have a market on. The highest quality droids are still able to be exclusive to Long-term Master Droid Engineer and a few things require a 12-point Master. We are a balanced profession ranging from Novice Droid Engineering to Intermediate Droid Engineering to Master Droid Engineering to 12-point Master Droid Engineering to Day 1 Master Droid Engineers. Every single level has something to sell!

La'varian Blisar
Sunrunner Galaxy
Master Droid Engineer Extraordinaire
Vendor: Lei'a Bounty Hunter Droids (1 km NNE of Coronet)
Look for me on the Planetary Map on Corellia

Yeah, Droids are the best in so many ways. I think we are only scratching at the surface of potential uses for them in SWG. Hopefully, each new publish can add something to our profession. It doesn't have to be big, just as long as it is fresh.........and not a nerf

Soooo many droids, sooooo much potential. /sigh

Rasal's Ye Ol' Droid Shoppe

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00000_0000000 Purveyor of fine and sophisticated droids and other Artisan needs.
0000/0\000000 Come see my shop in beautiful South Coronet!
000000000000 Shop Location: -140, -5500
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THAT is what I am talking about. You are out checking out your harvesters and see some random guy bust out a probot and you are like, "Thats my boy!" or you see those Doctors buffing with a Repair Droid or R2 or C3PO and a tear brings to your eye. People use our droids. They use them every day. Yes, those are probably not your droid. They may be somebody else's. BUT, we are a community. Probably the best community in the game I would like to think. We have each others back!

This is because we have a great looking product to sell! Our droids look awesome. Droids are easily in the top 5 recognizable icons from Star Wars:

1) Jedis

2) X-wings/Tie-Fighters (Including other starships and the Death Star)

3) Droids

4) Bounty Hunters (and only because of Boba Fett)

5) The aliens

You can even argue that 2 and 3 could be switched! Jedis are difficult to obtain. Starships have only recently been introduced. Bounty Hunters are not that distinguisable between everyone else (other than their tag above their head). The aliens are abundant and very diversified (which I think is great!). So we have the best product on the market visually. PLUS, the DO have some use. There are several Droids that are useful:

- Seekers/Arakyds (Not a lot of sales, but they are a necessity for BHs)

- Flight Computers

- Astromechs

- Combat Droids (3 DIFFERENT types to choose from, each with their strengths/weaknesses)

- Detonation Droids (tehee, a lot of fun to watch a BH use well on a Jedi I must admit... perhaps a morbid fascination. I personally do not like seeing Jedis. Kinda kills the mood. Call me a purist)

- Barker Droids (limited, yes but can be helpful to have a couple to sell)

- Harvesting Droids

- Crafting Droids

- Storage Droids

- Repair kits for droids

- Interplanetary Survey Droids

The list goes on. We HAVE great utility droids all around. This is an awesome profession. We just have to remember that the people coming in every day have no idea whata droid can do. They just see a droid out there. Those Master Droid Engineers that just sit back in their vendors and wait for people to come to them are just being lazy. It takes hard work to keep a customer basis and to keep it growing. There will be people that leave the game on a constant basis, yes. Just have fun with it. Interact with players and talk to them. TALK to other Droid Engineers. We don't bite. Do you? We are in the greatest crafting profession in the game. Yes, we have some bugs. Yes, we can't make Nuke Droid Dekas. Yes, we do not make money like some other crafting professions. If I wanted to make money, I would do the Hot Profession of the Month (which seems to be Doctor right now).

Do not be disheartened by what Devs throw at us. We will always have our droids!

La'varian Blisar
Sunrunner Galaxy
Master Droid Engineer Extraordinaire
Vendor: Lei'a Bounty Hunter Droids (1 km NNE of Coronet)
Look for me on the Planetary Map on Corellia

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! Talmor1!

Although I fear (like the Combat Droid demands of past grumblings) that this new "Mandatory Decay" push will permanently change our profession for the worse, ruining it.Making it just like all the other crafting professions.... And there isnt a single other crafting profession I would rather be than DE, just BECAUSE it is the way it is.

I am currently working on some threads about Decay and Repeat Sales to post tonite, then I will come back here and list off for you my favorite things about DE. You have touched on many of them. and it heartens me.

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The biggest problem we have is most of the community has no idea how useful our droids can be. I mean Stimpack droids take some pressure off the Docs, Harvest Droids allow you to get that extra little bit of organics per harvest. Survey Droids will let you know when resouces have shifted, and even the bugged Maint. Paying droids combined with self-powered Harvest Vet-Reward means you can plant it and forget it, until your survey droid tells you something has shifted.

TKM's can get the benefit of a Probot when they need another form of damage besides Kinetic. A group of Adv. R3's loaded out with repair modules can help with the tough missions on the Corvette or DWB. Heck having an Aryk Hunter/Seeker floating by your head just looks cool, and menacing.

I just think if we had a way to get the word out a little better, things would imporve dramaticly

/agrees with Hatovich

Some of my guildies seem quite surprised when I explain what the particular droid Im using can do.

I avoided stim droids for the longest time because they were only "A"'s but when you have *NO* healing abilities, A's are better than nothing.

List is sorted by vendor creation, not registration. So feel free to take it off the list while you're on a 3 week holiday. You won't drop to the bottom. Wanted to check out my fellow DE's prices so did a run around theed and coronet to look at their vendors. Of the 2 short lists only 1 vendor had more then 30 items listed without 29 being seekers Not good for business.

The problem is that most Droids are tailored specifically to the users needs. It is nearly impossible to keep a stock of droids that will not be just collecting dust. Especially the crafting droids. They just take so much out of a person to make.

La'varian Blisar
Sunrunner Galaxy
Master Droid Engineer Extraordinaire
Vendor: Lei'a Bounty Hunter Droids (1 km NNE of Coronet)
Look for me on the Planetary Map on Corellia