Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: My thoughts, flame as desired.
Ok here goes my thoughts on a few current issues, you can flame me if it was already said somewhere else or what ever. Just want to get it out there.
On the comabt droid additions: I figure the devs are probably reluctant to give DEs combat pets that equal the CH pets becuase then that would make the CHs usless. So it wouldnt be so bad if mabye our most powerfull attack droid isnt up to par with the best CH pet, obviously. Since we would have both utility and attack options available to us, it also seems like a good idea to seperate these into different skill trees, WITHIN DE. Making a whole new elite elite class solves nothing, at least in my opinion. Simply condensing the other skills would be simple, say put armor with the attack droid tree and the rest in its own seperate tree. Oh and as a side note, attack pets that fit the time would be good, nothing wrong with the droids from the first movie...you just dont see many of them in the last three.
On droid controling limits: I agree with alot of people that the limit for the number of controlable droids should be raised. But instead of just making it an all encompasing total mabye it could be one attack droid and one utility droid. Makes sense, that way we dont get overpowered and our repair/power droids still have something to do. Lets face it you probably wouldnt use them to repair non combat droids that often anyway.
On droid sockets (or lack there of): I think making the medical, repair, and power droids actually funtion as named, without the need of a socket would be nice. Or you could just seperate the different modules into diferent categories with sockets to match. That way you dont get silly stuff like med droids that craft and R2s that can help treat your wounds. As it is I dont see the point in using an r unit over an mse, its just more credits/resources for the same thing.Oh and having the attack droids not have utility sockets is, of course, the obviouse way to go. And for gods sake give the protocol/heavy lifters something to do! Im sure my wookie really cant understand Hutt, or carry that huge sackof items by himself.
CHs, i think, are not done right in the first place. How in the heck are they able to tame and control 3 rancors, the most ferocious animal in the star wars universe, at one time? Honestly, i dont think DEs getting good combat droids would make them useless. The way i see it, the people that want to fight and have pets go CH, because it requires some scout, and the people that want to craft and get pets go DE, because it requires some artisan. While maybe our pets shouldnt be QUITE as strong, they should be more viable than they are right now.
I think that there should be different pluses and minuses to DE and CH pets, mainly in that CH pets are stronger, but once they die they are GONE (i.e. permadeath), and while droids are a wee bit weaker, they can be repaired. Plus, doesnt that kinda make sense? Or, perhaps, CH pets CAN come back, but it takes a master healer and a lot longer than droids.
I actually did a post a week ago that suggested splitting service droids and combat droids into two different skill lines and getting rid of the constrution line altogether (isnt it a waste of a skill line just to get 7 schematics?), but no one read it :-( Of course, to do this, they would have to add6-10new combat droids. Im thinking that they could just change the name of construction to Combat droids, add some combat droid schematics to it, and keep the armor modules with the combat droids (would service droids really need armor anyways?) and change the name of blueprints to Service droids.
They would also have to make service droids actually provide a service that people would WANT, not just some stupid portable crafting station. I like thecomments in the big post of suggestions for DE. (like C-3P0 being a FAQ droid, and load lifter going around and getting resources from harvesters, etc) I think that mouse droids should be able to reduce maintenance costs on houses, and they should add a droid that can go survey resources for you.R2 units should be able to slice, and other things. I like how they did the modules, but i think that in addition to modules each individual droid should have some function that NO OTHER DROID can do, that way there would be a need for each droid.
The limit on droids should be 2 combat/service droids (and creature limit should be one, but dont get me started on that). 2 combat droids (at least) just because CHs can have three out.
On service droids, you should be able to have a couple out on your person, but i think that structures should be given a droid limit, that way you could "assign" droids to a house/structure, and have it count toward yourdroidlimit of that structure. ( harvesters have limit of 1, small houses 3, etc.) Or it could just count toward your max item limit.
Any thoughts?
oh yea, droid modules should be more useful as well.
I read somewhere that in the beginning that there were orignially two droid professions. I think that somewhere along the line they (obviously) decided to make it one profession, but it got pushed to the back of the list for some reason, and never got fixed. I mean, come on, does anyone here really think that the devs expected the BLL to be a combat droid?
Yes I agree, making combat droids too powerful will make theCHs useless. But now that they fixed CHs into not being useless, its time to fix DE in to being useful 
There is only one combat droid (dont count DZ70s, they cannot in anyway be a combat droid) and it is weaker than any level 10 creature given out by creature handlers. With that in mind about only 1 combat droid, think about all our other models of droids.
Medical model, Item storage, and data storage are not fixed. There are big issues with them still (Ex: Level 2 item storage doesnt work, pet stored in data, ect...)
Surgical Droids have no other purpose than a high level medical droid.
LE repair Droids have no other purpose but looking stupid
Power droids require a part which uses a lot of resources and all for nothing.
BLL require a lot of resources yet have no purpose yet in the game.
3PO droids have no other purpose but using a converse chip and holding a few models.
Crafting station models can not function with others in different slots within the droid.
So many bugs... yet so many promises from the Devs. We are suppose to be getting new combat droids later down the road. By the sounds of how long it takes them, the time they come out vehicals will be put into the game.
Once all of the above bugs are fixed, I (and many others) will relax more on our profession.
So by customizing the name of the finished module, you get what you want. It sure LOOKS like you're making data modules all along, though.
Olmi, are you a Creature Handler at all?
Because, if you were, you'd know that NOBODY ever can have 3 rancors out anymore. A Master Creature Handler has a total of 70 CL to spend on calling pets, and sure, they can have 3 creatures out at master, but those 3 creatures would have to be **edit**ty creatures. You can have 1 rancor, and another low level creature out at master.
So you are definatley mistaken about Creature Handler, they can have 3 decent creatures out, but nowhere near 3 rancors (can't even have one and a half rancors out). Not only that, but you have to work your ass off to get master jsut to have 3 creeatures out. Other than that, you need to get to Management 3 just to get a second creature out.
Creature Handlers are not over powered right now, at least not in that aspect.
Ok so I'm only new to the DE profession, and am currently working up the DE tree. I am doing so in the belief that the profession will be fixed, and that the profession and the droids will play a role in the game beyond what it currently is.
Having said that there are a lof of threads insisting that the droid engineer should be like the Creature Handler profession.
Why ?
To my mind the DE profession has more in common with the Bio-Engineer then Creature Handler. Most BE's have doubled in CH so they can call and control the creatures they create - creating a bioengineered creature does not bestow the ability to control the creature, and does not make the BE a terror on the battlefield.
Why should a DE be able to handle themselves in a battle ? Your a Merchant and an Engineer, not a warrior class profession. What is missingis the warrior/battle class that specialises in droids, and which would serve as a customer base for battle class droids.
My 2c.
Get upset and flame if it makes you happy.
Cheers
Etic
Personally (and this wont be popular with CH's) I dont think all creature pets should be able to attack at all - just those that would be naturally agressive (i.e. agro) in the wild (but perhaps BE pets should be able to attack since they have no natural instincts?......)
This is then comparable to the fact that most droids cant attack, although I'll be the first to admit that, until mounts are added, this does make most creature pets pretty usless (and I suspect there are alot that are not suitable as mounts anyway) - having said that I dont feel to bad about this because its no less useful than a non-combat droid without any modules installed.......
Once you do this you radically reduce the number of attack pets available to non-CH's. Put some value back into the attack droid market (because its possible that might leave the Probot quite competative stat-wise with the attack creatures a non-CH can use) and overall reduce the 'Pokemon factor' the game currently seems to have
Etic.... I dunno man, I have enough skill points to master Artisan, Droid Engineering, and Carbineer, with 4 left over for pistol 1 and rifle 1.
That allows me to be one butt kicking, droid selling, single vending merchant!
lol.
Droid Engineers and Creature Handlers are two seperate proffesions, dealing with Pets.
A creature handler trains in controlling powerfull and nasty creatures, usually for combat purposes. To controll a powerfull creature, you need to gain XP. In my eyes, its a combat proffesion, you gain pistol XP by slaying things with your pistol, you gain CH xp by handling your creature. A Master CH can controll very powerfull creatures - thus beeing able to beat tougher enemies.
A Droid Engineer builds a droid, which is programmed to obey his master. If a DE sells/transfers a Droid to another person, the droid obeys that person. Even the best combatdroid should not be super-powerfull as a rancor is now, but they should be alot more accessible for people. So I think it should be possible to give somehting like a droideka to anyone, even a newbie. But, a droideka should be so expensive that nobody would ever give one away for free, or any better combat droid for that matter. Making sure that you'd have to make alot of money to be able to use a droid ensures that not all newbies get one right away. Yeah, the newbies could run missions all week long and then buy one,sure. But they could've spent that week gainingsome weapon XP and be as powerfull as with the droid. After all its alot more star-warsy to see people walkingwith a droid then withsome creatureI've never seen in astar wars movie.
Further DE ideas would be that a droidshould not regenerate its HAM. If its health would get damaged, it should get repaired by a DE or repair droid(maybee with limeted uses?). It should usea bit from theaction pool eachtime it attacks, or heals, or whatever. Using a couple of batteries or a power droid should recharge the droid's action pool. Droids should not have a mindpool.