Droid Engineer Archive

Ok I will make this really easy for you.

1. Put in a slot in the probot schematic to take a pistol. A basic Droid Engineer can build their own CDEF pistol so there will be no basic change to the probot's combat power. DEs with money will be able to buy better pistols and equip their droids appropriately.

2. The probot inherits the CERT requirement of the weaponsmith made pistol. That is you need to have a scout blaster CERT to use a scout blaster equiped probot.

Personally I can't see what the problem is with putting carbines and rifles (e.g spray sticks)on the probot but I am told by those who like Star Wars that they can only take pistols. So I guess you will have to decide how Star Warsy you want to be.

Obviously this leaves people without ranged weapon CERTS without a combat droid for them, but I doubt there are many people who are pure melee. If there are, they are seriously delusional to think that in a highly advanced technological society that waving an axe at a person with a carbine/pistol/rifle is going to help them. They are not Jedi. I suggest you give them a beefed up DZ70 wielding an axe if you must.

Guess this suggestion will take all of a week to program, after that you can start on the real combat droids. Thanks.

Spanners Ranaki

Expert Droid Engineer

Eclipse

PS have you ever heard of Extreme Programming? I believe 2 programmers sit together and check each others coding to prevent bugs. Also they do regression testing. You might want to give it a try.

So since I took carbine instead of pistol, I'd be SOL until when? When combat droids come out?

Hrm.. no thanks. At this rate I anticipate combat droids will be designed and fabricated by rancor monsters in about 10 years. LOL

Cheers,

Mirius Barakiel -ZAM Enterprises- Kaadara,Naboo,Sunrunner

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wyzzord wrote:
That would cause more problems than we already have!! i can see where you are going with this but it just wouldn't work! I advanced 2 levels in pistol my first day!! It would not be worth me to buy a droid knowing that in a lil' bit longer, i will be certed for better ones!!

Sorry man...good try though!!

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DUDE... currently we're stuck with a probot that with L6 armor outlives most non-ch pets, but isarmed with a cdef pistol.How can a probot get worse offensively? This will only solve a huge amount of problems and if you need to wait to move up to some elite marksman profession or whatever, so be it. Can't be worse than now as far as droid offense goes. This thread is pure simple genius, and there no reason it can't be adjusted to make the droid carry 1 or 2 weapons of any type... for example off the cuff, give dz70 1 slot, probot 1, adv prbot 2 wpn. Then you could have melee and/or ranged weaponry.

This is easily the best idea I've read to date on how to handle droid weaponry. Keep it player crafted, and keep it so to have cool droids we need alliances with good weaponsmiths. WOW KILLER IDEA . How are some of you missing the simple beauty of it all?

As am Master Weaponsmith and Master DE, im all for this plan But as others have pointed out, then you force anyone who wants a droid to take pistol.

A better thought on this would be, all our probots are unarmed. The buyer adds and removes weapons as he needs them. And to make it so droids do not become overpowering, the owner of a droid can only add a weapon that they are certified to use, say up to level 16 weapons. But , the droid only does 1/2 to 3/4s damage with the weapon that a player would. If the player has no weapon skills of any type, or chooses not to add a weapon, then the droid would tank, A DZ70 would have a damage output of 20-30, and a Probot, 50-75.

This would require a total revamping of the droids that now exist however. The DZ70 should be beefed up with higher HAM, and give it a max weapon skill of 8. And the armor on a Probot will have to be changed, 1 of the armor slots can be armor or weapon. If someone wants a tank droid, they would get a droid with 2 pieces of armor, granting say 50% resists. But If someone wants to put a weapon in it, the armor drops to 25% resist, but depending on the weapon, the damage output would be greatly increased.

Nice simple solutions, Droids are only as powerful as thier owner, and new players could not buy droids that could help them take out level 23 missions since the best tank droid does 50-75 damage, even if it can last a long time in battle, with new lair changes owner could not take out lair before droid dies.

What I don't like about the original poster'sidea is the certification system primarily. You cannot just say that someone who wants to play as a melee character is delusional. Do not presume to dictate to other players how to have fun. This is a roleplaying game, and furthermore, a flexible system that should allow for any variety of play styles.

What is wrong with having the certification system being tied to total skill points spent? You spend 250 skill points, you get the best droid. Now THAT is simple. Is it really a problem that someone who worked hard becoming a superior craftsman, and spent all thier points, be able to finally explore a bit without being deathblowed by every aggro creature they encounter? Is ita game-breaking exploit if your droid does more damage than your player character? Did you work less hard as a droid engineer than your friend who is a bounty hunter? But I bet if you are a master artisan and master droid engineer and master merchant, you can't see the sights on Endor. A good protective droid would let us venture out into the galaxy.

Since everything in this game seems to be balanced for PvP, cut the droid's damage in PvP, and I don't see it hurting anyone. If they have the same 75% reduction that players do for damage, but still take the same amount, then I don't know how this could cause an issue.

I love the idea of the weaponsmith building the guns that go onto a droid. I also like the idea of weapon hardpoints. Hardpoints, in the form of modules, can be crafted into the chassis. Give the weaponsmith more weapon types to build (do you really have enough?), and these weapons will be droid-specific. The quality of the hardpoints would affect the speed of the weapon (swivel, target aquisition, call it something to this effect), and the quality of the weaponsmith's weapons will determine damage and damage type. Including no-damage or melee weapons like a prod or a tazer for melee. For instance, R2-D2 having a shocking device come out of the chassis (does little to no damage, but sends something similar to warning shot, that sends the attacker away - perfect for low-level artisans samplingin the wild). Or higher level melee weapons being rotary blades (like a chainsaw). These hardpoints could have levels, and the weapons have levels too.

If you insist, you can always have the certification tied only to the weaponsmith's droid weapons that they make. So if you aren't qualified to use said droid cannon, you can still buy the droid for crafting with a tazer built into it. But I am totally against any certification that requires specific weapon knowledge to use a droid. That weapon knowledge should be programmed into the droid and for the droid to use.

In summary, I am saying the following:

• Droid certifications tied to skill spent. 0-30 = mouse droid, 230-250 = Droideka (or whatever) - certifications in between for everything else


• Weapon hardpoints made by droid engineers (take up anoffensive module slot - "combat" droids have two, Advanced versions of droids have one, basic models have none: Just for instance, though)


• Droid weapons made by Weaponsmiths - a master can make serious droid cannons - for the big combat droids. Something like 100-400 damage every 3 seconds. But no specials. Low level droid weapons can be like warning shots, which only keep creatures at a safe distance away. And melee weapons like rotary blades (little chainsaws)


• Go a little further with this - shields (in addition to droid armor) made by armorsmiths that give shield protection to combat droids.

I was trying to inject humour into this. Personally i think melee types shouldn't be in a sci-fi game, then again why are we getting mounts first and not hover bikes. LoL.

Increasing the f'ing damage of a probot, which you all say is not a combat droid is not difficult. Put a weapon slot in and take the damage from the inserted weapon (carbine/pistol/rifle/melee). Take the CERT from the weapon. This means newbies get CDEF type damage probots and those with more combat skills get a better droid and they need to trade up to them. Repeat custom as well!

My idea makes sure that you only get a droid that is at best comparable to you. This means you only get a 2xattack advantageon the creature - not overly unbalancing imho. It also means that as you are doing comparable damage to your droid you get a fair share of the attackers attacks.

The reason I use the example of a pistol is that I keep reading that pistols are given to probots to defend themselves and thought you all wanted this to be Star Warsy. Personally I don't care if you could put vibro knuckles on the probot and make it a melee probot.

Simple fix until real combat droids come out. Roger Roger droid should be equiped with carbines if I had my way, and throwing a bone to the Squad Leaders, give them the option toown asmall squad of them.

Not a flame, but I do not think this is a good idea. Currently mission payouts are based on your combat skills. A crafter is really bad off because of this. My friends can get just normal 5-10k destroy missions where the best I can get is 1100 and its only going to go down as i sunder my combat skills to move up the DE tree. To base the battle droid off the same system, would mean, people that are already powerful due to their combat skills, would increase in power 2 fold, where a crafter would basically have a current DZ70 from the best battle droid.. This system makes the strong, stronger and the weakstill weak.

Honestly, I don't completely disagree with the idea. Just the sentiment. At first I thought it rediculous that there be a melee combat class in this game, until every single monster I encountered in the wild ran towards me at top speed and did more damage to me as a rifleman than if I threw my weapon on the ground. Seriously. The 2.5x damage modifier I recieved fromenemies when they closed into melee range, which happened 80% of the time, with 80% of the mobs, made me wonder why they put ranged weapons in the game. So I gave up rifle and took up the sword.

And I am apparently level 18 in combat. Which was no small feat, I might add, but how many creatures do you know of in the game that are level 18 or less? Which means that without some serious backup from creatures, droids, or a group of people who are better at combat than I am, I am far inferior to most creatures in the galaxy. I don't compare myself to other players, I compare myself to the wildlife I have to contest for space around my harvesters. So no, double the damage output of what I usually do is not unbalanced. I would say that it is still vastly underpowered, considering the amount of time I spend sitting in the hospital, cantina, or running back from the cloning center. And keep in mind I own 7 boxes of two-handed sword.

I actually like your idea fine, if we are doing a quick fix to make the junk we have a little easier to stomach. I just think that we need more love than a pistol stuck to a droid using the Dev band-aid. I will always start negotiations for way more than I think I will end up with. Not with far less than what I want. And I want useful, fun to build, fun to have, fun to sell, appreciated, customizable droids in a wide selection. I want some of them to actually DO something *cough* *surgical droid* *cough*, and some of them to KILL something. And I want them to inspire a bit of pride in ownership. I don't want to get any more questions per day asking me what good a droid is, and why they shouldn't go get a creature pet. Because all I can tell them is that unless they are a crafter or a medic AND have fat sacks of cash money, they might as well.

But okay, I will concede your point. It shouldn't be that difficult. On the other hand, about the only thing they have fixed since I have been a droid engineer (in beta) was item storage. And look what we got. Oh, I guess I can't forget color customization on Droid Chassis, since I sell more of those than anything else. I can forget droid armor, since nobody can confirm that it really works, and has a maximum of medium 40% resists.

Sorry, but I am bitter. Spending time grinding and working in this virtual dead-end job instead of doing funthings is starting to embarass me.