Ok, it's a first draft, but I'd like to know what you, my fellow DEs think.
Droid Survey Droids and Modules. V1
Concept: Artisan, in search of rare mineral resources, pulls out his survey Master Droid, loads into it 10 planetary survey droids, assigns each of these droids a planet. Selects launch from the Master Droid and steps back. *Picture if you will, a beam of light shooting straight up into the sky, and you can see each survey droid blast off* The Artisan then sits down in camp and waits for his survey droids to send the data back to the master droid.
The data comes in to the master droid at different times, the Artisan is notified due to his Master Droid informing him *Picture, Droid responding “ Master [insert character name here], I wish to inform you that Droid XDF-143 has finished the initial survey of [Insert Planet Name]”* . The Artisan wait’s until all droids have reported back to the Master Droid.
He then walks over to his Master Droid, examines the database for each planet’s listed minerals, Ah ha, on Naboo, is the resource he is after, he then loads a Naboo survey droid, selects the resource he want’s surveyed, and launches the droid. *Master Droid launches the latest survey droid*. While waiting for a report from his latest droid, he scans the other planets for any resources that might be interesting to him. Not finding any he continues to wait, eventually Master droid reports back that Droid NAB-001 has finished it’s survey.
Opening up Master Droid’s planetary map, the Artisan selects Naboo, Excellent, there appears to be a 80% resource, South of Kaadara , no coordinates are given, but the Artisan knows where to start the search.
30 minutes of surveying the galaxy and it’s time for a shuttle run. He then stores his Master Droid and off our intrepid Artisan goes…..
So that’s the concept, what does it need…
A Master Droid which can hold up to 10 smaller droids, the ability to list resources like a survey kit and finally the ability to show a planetary map with resource concentrations.
- Can it use current code. Yes;
--- holding 10 droids = item storage lvl 6 anyone.
--- Listing resources – taken from the survey kits, just trimmed down for the information, ie the droids you send out are Mineral Survey Droids, hence they only return the Planet’s current list of Minerals.
--- Resource map, it’s the planetary map with a rough guide for percentages, no coordinates are given
Planetary survey droids.
- These are the droids I picture you assigning a planet to survey. They are expendable, single use wonders so to speak. They are created in different manners to create different types, hence you could have Mineral survey droids, or Flora survey droids or Chemical…. You get the idea. The only thing these droids do is access the planet’s survey database and deliver it to the Master droid.
- Can it use current code… Yes;
--- Arakyd flight plans to leave a planet, same movement, different chassis
Planet Specific Droids
- Now these droids are designed specifically for a certain planet’s climate and terrain, hence the reason they a specific planetary design. These are the grunt droids of this system, they are expendable, 1 use only. But they return the general location of that particular resource.
- For example, say it’s surveyed Naboo, it knows the exact location of the resources, it returns a circular pattern around the concentration of about 3km. Why so large, so you know which town to shuttle to, but then you have to break out the old survey device and find the stuff yourself, like you do now.
- Example 2, say you found the resource north of Moenia, 2km North, when the planetary map was viewed you would get the 50-60% and circular location, covering Moenia, 1k south of Moenia and the surrounding environment, this is a large area and can still take time to survey by hand. But that’s a good thing.
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- Can it use current code. Partially
--- I say partially due to the planetary map, but it would require new code to calculate the resource locations and expand the search radius.
Droid Engineers. What do they get?
- I envision that they can create 3 new types of Droids, the Master, Planetary Survey and Planet specific droids.
- - Like normal droids, the Master droid would be a build once and it lives forever, though the better experimented on the better it is at retrieving correct information.
- The smaller droids are expendable, like seekers and Arakyds. Hence an economy shift for DEs. I would bet money that a droid system like this would see a lot of return customers.
- Experimentation on the smaller droids produce better results. Eg, a poorly designed Planetary droid might not make it to the planet (Like BH’s Arkayds not finding out which planet their target is on due to space slugs). An amazing well built droid would return the data faster.
- On the Planet specific, I see them needing planet specific memory cores, a new component to be made(Well 10 actually, 1 for each planet). Once again, the better the experimentation the better the result, so your droid might only return a max range of resources between 30-50%, a 100% experimentation one would return a range of 88-100%.
Is this good for the game in general?
- I would have to say yes. The general crafting profession, base through to elites will all benefit from the increased speed in locating resources. Do a galaxy scan, no lidium ore on any planets. Ok, do something else that’s fun, run missions, finish off those orders…. As there is nothing more frustrating than spending 20,000cr on travelling the galaxy just to discover the resource you’re after isn’t on any of them.
- Droid engineers have another re-usable resource to offer, currently they have Araykds and seekers. Seekers are re-usable when you get investigation 3. So that’s a drop in the DE market.
Ok, if you’ve read this far, congrats. Now tell me what you think, would you think a droid system such as this would be viable in Star Wars galaxies?
Xandros Yalen / Fesoi Ihilkyk
3 Level 90 Elder Jedi / Elder Droid Engineer 4
3Talus [2167 -1419] - Loot & Droids4 3Rori [4571 5835] - Vehicles for You 4
3 Sunrunner.The Only server that Counts!4
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In fact Kaldeth, you and Overbyte are quite correct. There would have to be some sort of certification added to the types of droids you can utilize, so how about the following Cert ideas: