Droid Engineer Archive

I know I know, yet another "programming stuff" thread ... however, before you blank me out take a read .. this is DIFFERENT to other threads and more pheasable in terms of gameplay.

At present, droids have a very limited amount of animations and sounds ... and they tend to just constantly role these out. An example is that R-series droids just constantly bleep which eventualy gets annoying .. however, droids arnt like this in Star Wars. That R2 isn't just bleeping for the fun of it, its talking .. and 9 times out of ten is talking directly to its master. This idea will play on that...

In this idea, each droid has a default set of sounds and animations. For the purpose ofthis example, I will just use an R2 droid.

Its sounds would be:

• affirmative bleep


• negative bleep


• warning bleep


• happy bleep


• sad bleep


• "dieing" bleep

Its animations would be:

• turning its head around


• changing to two feet (and remaining that way until another command is issued)


• changing to three feet (and remaining that way until another command is issued)


• wiggling about (like R2 at the end of ANH just before 3PO put his hand on his head to calm him down)


• spinning around 360 degrees (with 3 feet)


• doing a little "R2" dance

When constructing a droid, a DE will have the option of placing in a default personality chip, or a custom personality chip. The differences between the two are listed below:

Default Personality Chips

The default chips can only be used in "speach-capable" (conversational) droids. They decide the way the droid talks, basicaly. These can't be edited by a DE, simply because allowing someone to program an object to say something is inviting trouble...

These chips basicaly work as they used too ... definingdifferent speach strings the"speach-capable" droid randomly says when called and when given a command.

Custom Personality Chips

Custom chips can be placed in ANY droid. However, each droid will require the right chip for the right model (but some models will use the same chip).. i.e. a Probotunit can ONLY use a ProbotCustom Personality Chip. However, a surgical droid, LE repair and Protocol droid can all use a Protocol Droid chip. Similarly to all R-series droids being able to use an R-series chip.

When crafted, each chip displays a list of sounds and animations for that specific droid type (much in the same way that a droid displays a list of commands). The DE can then program in "hot words" to each sound and animation. They will be able to add 10 words max to each sound and animation.

When installed into the droid, it will filter EVERYTHING it's owner says .. if it finds a matching word, it will play the corresponding animation/sound. This, effectively, means your droid will be RESPONDING to what the owner is saying. This also means that the DE can help to create an individual "personality" to every droid s/he crafts by making the droid react to certain words.

Please note: A Custom Chip would be an "optional" module to place into a droid since creating the chip can take time and not every DE would want to waste that time on every droid they create.

Also: The commands listed with the chip CAN NOT be changed after the droid has been created ... this isn't something the owner can change!

Maybe there could also be a few "default" custom chips that, when built, already have a few words added to each sound and animation.

So, using the example of an R2 unit, this is how it would work in practice:

1) Build the Custom Chip [in this case, an R-Series chip]
2) Program the chip by selecting it in your radial menu ... then select the "program" option. It will then bring up a window that will allow you to select a sound/animation and select 10 different words to each. There are also a few "commands" that can be used. These are: $name and $type ... this means by using "$name" this command would replaced with whatever the droid's name is dynamicaly (so you haven't got to set an exact name in the commands for it to respond to its own name). In this case, I add the following words to each animation (in the style of sound/animation - word/command):
Sounds

• affirmative bleep - $name


• negative bleep - work


• warning bleep- die


• happy bleep - hello


• sad bleep - goodbye


• "dieing" bleep - die

Its animations would be:

• turning its head around - $name


• changing to two feet (and remaining that way until another command is issued) - attention


• changing to three feet (and remaining that way until another command is issued) - sit


• wiggling about (like R2 at the end of ANH just before 3PO put his hand on his head to calm him down) hello


• spinning around 360 degrees (with 3 feet) - look


• doing a little "R2" dance - dance

3) Add the chip into the droid while constructing it (like any other module)

So... If the droid's name was "whistler" and i said "hello whistler, I have to get to work!" The droid would respond by giving a happy bleep followed by an affirmativebleep and end with a negative bleep while perfoming the "wiggling about" animation followed by the "turning head" animation. This, basicaly, brings the droid to life.

you dont expect much from SOE do you..

I know I dont

1 you must pay $14.99

2 if pay = $14.99then alllow play go sub line 5, if pay < $14.99 then go to line 3

3 suspend account

4 end

5 if days > = 30then go to line 1

6 go to line 5

cant be that hard

Gveedo .. Rymes with speedo... rodians in a speedo .. ewwwwwww

I LIKE THIS IDEA!!

It would also be nifty if your mood slightly affected the droid's mannerisms. The animations would be the similar, but would occur a little differently based on how friendly your "mood" is at the time.

Cheers,

to tell the truth its a dang good idea!!!

I dont think it will happen but sintrosi should send it to the devs any how maby for a in the futuer thingits well thought out and ez to add in. You could even add it to the end of the new moduls sticky post

one idea for it ....

Exp can alow you to change the # of commands it can store. Maby 2 to start 8 or 10 at max. Based on conductiveity of whats used it should also take a control unit and some mem units?