Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: First views of New Modules descriptions
Let me see what i can do for you here, anything i miss i hope others will be able to mention it too:
This is a pre-TheRealTK421's officialpost - he is working on one right now.
NEW MODULES:
Entertainer Modules
There are a new set of 6 modules that will allow a novice musician or novice dancer (not entertainer) to enable a new partical effect around the droid's position. These include:
Avian (white birds fly away from the droid)
Confetti (wads of confetti are thrown into the air and sprinkle everywhere)
Dancing Jawa (Laser show with images of a dancing jawa floating in the air)
Electric Frog (a slow burst of sparkles surrounds the droid)
Foam (sort of like a cloud effect around the ground spreading about 4-5m)
Mind Bloom (a really nice looking slow moving plasma effect in the air around the droid)
As far as i can tell - experimentation does nothing on the droid and it does not assist in healing - just looks rather cool. The droid can move about (patrol) and take these effects to all over the stage and multiple droids can make an even nicer more intense effect. It also works outside.Not being a dancer or musician, i cannot tell you what the interface looks like yet. These require just a few resources - nothing heavy and no extra components.
Planetary Survey Module
Right now - this schematic is missing (hopefully will be fixed when the server comes back up)
Maintenance Module
(I havnet given it much of a test just yet because it is a bit bugged)
This module will allow a droid to perform monitary transactions with buildings for you. There is 3 different grades of quality with this module, from which i can guess effects how many structures you can assign to it and the time it takes to complete the tasks. For the purpose of testing - i used a level 2 module.
In order to assign a structure to the droid - you have to use either the structure terminal - or wherever its radial menu can be found.A new option is given (when you owna maintenance droid) to add it to a droid's list. A class 2 maintenance module can hold 6 structures (or at least mine could at its level of experimentation). Once you have all the structures you want listed in the droid - you can then set the droid to perform a maintenance run.
When you open the maintenance run menu - it gives you a list of all its assigned structures. For each one - you have to highlight it and hit the add button - which gives you the structures current maintenance numbers - and allows you to use the slider to choose how much money to add to that structure.
Once all the structures have been chosen - it will then disapear from in front of you - unable to be called as long as the message it leaves behind says it will (in my test case - 15 minutes 7 seconds for 1 house standing right next to me phisically, and 24 minutes for 4 harvesters quite a ways off right next to eachother). you have to pay attention because it will not warn you when its done and you can call the droid again.
Power maintenance cannot be done by this module.
Creature Harvest Module
This module allows a novice scout to be able to set it to harvest a particular resource type from creatures that the scout kills without having to go through the radial menu or /harvest. It works by voice command programmable like the others (similar to repair droid interaction). It still gives you scouting experience and a slight bonus to the harvesting (according to the experimentation of the module - which is buggy at this time)
Trap Module
This allows a scout to be able to load a droid with traps to throw at creatures (and not take up HAM or room in your combat queue) and gives a bonus to traps according to experimentation. not been tested by myself yet.
Playback Module
This allows a musician to record a particular instruments default playback music. It requires a component that is craftable by a Musician (i have heard novice, but i recieved mine through a master).
The musician sets up the droid to start listening while the musician grabs an instrument to play. after playing for a short while - it will have recorded the new data (flourishes do not get recorded). Then the musician is free to grab a second instrument and play along with the droid's playback for a better single person experience - or smaller groups having a wider range of instruments playing at once.
These modules can be stacked to allow for more then 1 instrument recording at a time (1 per module however).
Merchant Barker Module
This module allows for a 128 character message to be played once every 30 seconds via spatial chat and is usuable only by a merchant. It also allows for a waypoint to be stored and people can use the radial menu from the droid to retrieve the waypoint you store in it.
To set the message - you set the droid to record the next thing you say. Then you verbally speak and it will take the message if its under 128 characters and keep it stored. You can then set the droid to begin barking which it will do every 30 seconds thereafter. Timing is not adjustable.
You can then set the droid to take a waypoint from your datapad and store it for others to retrieve it. it keeps the original name of the waypoint intact (as if you were sending it via e-mail)
This droid will only continue to bark IF you are in the same server zone. it will go quiet if you go too far away from it.
Stimpack Dispenser Module
This module allows a medic with pharmacology 4 to add Stim A's to its hopper and allow group members to request a stim to be used on them.
Depending on experimentation - you will have a good sized hopper in which to add stim's to it and have the droid deliver the medication to any group member in sight. Experimentation determines the size of the hopper and the skill of medical use the droid has - enhancing its effect.
When a group member is in need of damage healing - they just need to type /requestStimpack and the droid will walk up to them and heal them. I have not tested this on incapped players yet nor have i heard if it works for them.
Auto-Repair Module
I have not tested this yet - its supposed to ping for droids needing healing - and the droid will automatically heal any droid in its 15m range - repairing any it see's.
Detonation Module
Not working just yet - and requires a specific type of reactive gas to build.
I hope that helps at least a little bit
Are you sure about this? My impression was that it will auto-store if you go too far away from it.
Morturr wrote:
This droid will only continue to bark IF you are in the same server zone. it will go quiet if you go too far away from it.
I don't think we know for sure if it Auto-stores or just stops working. You do have to be on the same server cluster/zone for it to operate though...that much is certain.
SirVimes wrote:
Are you sure about this? My impression was that it will auto-store if you go too far away from it.
Morturr wrote:
This droid will only continue to bark IF you are in the same server zone. it will go quiet if you go too far away from it.
/bow
Respectfully,
-The entertainment modules sound cool. Can't wait to see them.
-Letting group members request stims is pretty cool. Heh, be sure to hit that request macro right before you incap!
-I don't like the fact the barker module stops if you leave the area. I realize spam is an issue but I think it can be handled another way. The point, at least for me, for the barker module is to be able to set up the droid, then go about my business(placing harvesters, etc) while the droid does my advertising for me. Perhaps a time limit would be appropriate? (And the max time limit would be affected by experimentation.)
-Question about the structure module. If you log off before the 24 minutes(or whatever) is up, will it cancel the update or will it continue to process while you're offline?
Raleran0 wrote:
-Question about the structure module. If you log off before the 24 minutes(or whatever) is up, will it cancel the update or will it continue to process while you're offline?
I would sure hope it continues!!
The level 1 module i tested with 3 locations was going to take over a day to complete. no way i am going to be online that long
As I understood, /bandflourish are not recorded.
But if you group with him and do a /bandflourish, he'll do it like any member of the band.
Not sure this is a good idea, expet to use droid as bass line.
(R2 bass bosster?)
Gavvot wrote:
On the flourish issue for playback,
As I understood, /bandflourish are not recorded.
But if you group with him and do a /bandflourish, he'll do it like any member of the band.
Not sure this is a good idea, expet to use droid as bass line.
(R2 bass bosster?)
Okay, I might have misunderstood it then. I still think it's a bug though.. there's little point in making a recording if it's just the main song loop for 30 seconds...
Recording 30 seconds with flourish isn't as fun as it sound.
You'll have the same flourish every 30 seconds.
It'll be like a small bad macro, really really bad.
With that system, droid flourish follow the band flourish and can use all the flourish available (no way to do that in an audible way in 30 seconds) so it's IMHO better.
I'm currently both musician and DE, and presonally, I prefer the droid not to record the flourish but only the song/instrument.
If those droids were ment to be used instead of real musicians, that would be ok, but here the purpose is to play with the musicians, not instead of them.
Gavvot wrote:
Well it doesn't really matters if you can make /bandflourish
Recording 30 seconds with flourish isn't as fun as it sound.
You'll have the same flourish every 30 seconds.
It'll be like a small bad macro, really really bad.
With that system, droid flourish follow the band flourish and can use all the flourish available (no way to do that in an audible way in 30 seconds) so it's IMHO better.
I'm currently both musician and DE, and presonally, I prefer the droid not to record the flourish but only the song/instrument.
If those droids were ment to be used instead of real musicians, that would be ok, but here the purpose is to play with the musicians, not instead of them.
I initially thought you'd be able to record a particular sequence of flourishes. This would allow me to compose multi-part harmonies and let the droid play one of them if another musician wasn't available. I suppose I could still do it this way, and I'm not married to a particular sequence if I don't want to be.
I'm wondering though, how this is all going to work. I'm itching to test it out.
For instance, right now, if you have a two-member band, and one is playing a Chidinkaloo and one is playing a Bandfill, you can do /bandflourish 1 bandfill and only the bandfill will perform the flourish. Similiarly, you could do /bandflourish 1 bandfill;/bandflourish 2 chidinkaloo and they'd each do separate flourishes.
I wonder if this will still work with the droids... if I record a bandfill on to the droid, will it respond to /bandflourish x instrument commands? If I do a /changeband command, will it switch music or stop? So many questions... 
SirVimes wrote:
Are you sure about this? My impression was that it will auto-store if you go too far away from it.
Morturr wrote:
This droid will only continue to bark IF you are in the same server zone. it will go quiet if you go too far away from it.
Well, they seem to have done a little better with the merchant barking droid than they might have.
They have done a couple of things right. Real waypoints (with name) are a big one. It does seem to require some merchant skill, tho it isn't clear what yet(it should be Ad 4 from the claims at release).
Only one thing from my horror story at
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=76484#M76484
seems to have come true as written:
- The presence of the module will insure that the droid auto-stores instantly if you disconnect, take a shuttle or cross a server boundry.
However, SOE didn't fully implement the original description of :"This would give droids the ability to bark advertisements, give waypoints to shops, have additional information available so players could list prices, services, etc through a radial menu command."
The only info available from the droid is its bark of up to 128 characters. There is no place to put a couple of paragraphs describing in any detail the products or service you are offering, and barely enough room to show prices on a few items. This should be pretty useless for player events that need some solid space for describing rules etc. Where is the "additional information"?
They didn't do anything really great like actually display a vendor's contents.
Overall, it looks close to useless thanks to the store (or at least quit barking) on leaving the zone. If that got fixed, it would at least let a merchant do somthing else while it kept barking. This way it looks like it is mostly a supplement to AFK barking that allows a second location in the city (starport and cantina?) since you have to hang around anyway.
Not quite the game changing feature I had hoped for. Adding, at least,persistance up to battery life (despite logoff) and an email sized info page available from the radial that could be constructed via a macro would have made a world of difference.
Actually I think this will greatly help with events, as it allows for something other than a player to give out a location. So for example, one could leave a droid at a shuttleport, name the droid (ReallyCoolEventStartingNowAskForWaypoint), and have a waypoint to your event -- or to a house that contains an armor segment with a really long name describing the rules or whatnot.
An event might also be "find a droid named (something) and ask them for the next waypoint in the treasure hunt, good luck".
I think that these merchant barking droids are the best thing for events since, like, ever!