Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: So has anybody actually tested the auto-repair droid army idea?

Malitevv
Thu Jun 03, 2004 1:04 pm
#1
I know it has been discussed but I haven't seen any posts from people indicating they have actually tried it yet. I am asking because I am about to try it. Probably this weekend. I've acquired to materials to make auto-repair modules with a 21 auto-repair rating, and have made 10 combat droids with max armor, max ham, and 105 auto-repair power.


My initial tests indicate that if the droids get together, their cumulative healing pulse should be 1050 HAM every 10 seconds if it really stacks with no limit.


My biggest concern is the battery issue. My tests also seem to indicate that when the auto-repair feature is on, the battery power drains at 2X the normal rate, but I'm not sure about that yet. Either way, I'm thinking that if this technique is really going to be viable, the group is going to need a couple of power droids. You aren't allowed to "recharge" a droid with a battery while the droid is in combat, but a power droid is able to recharge another droid while that droid is in combat. Some quality droid stims will also be needed because the auto-repair pulse does not function on an incapped droid. You have to revive it with a repair kit before the healing pulses from other droids will start working again.


So what do people think? Have others actually tried this yet? What were the results?



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In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot
WarHero1016
Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:07 pm
#2

I also plan on testing this out this weekend in the Death Watch Bunker, stay tuned for results after the weekend!


I have crafted 20 R3s (1 combat mod, 5 auto-repair 100 rating) and 40 Probots (5 auto-repair) I put a combat module in the R3 because it was mentioned before that the R3 has to have at least one combat module to have combat capabilities but the probot doesnt need one. There is a large group going to the bunker this weekend so I am going to make a bunch of discounted sales (since they are for testing) and see how it works out!






Diesel-Droid Engineer (Retired)/Master Rifleman
Proud PA member and citizen of Riverlands
Malitevv
Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:10 pm
#3
I don't think it will work unless all owners of the droids are well coordinated and work together to keep the droids up and running. They are quickly going to run out of battery power and become useless if there isn't some kind of coordinated effort to keep the things charged.



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In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot
MachineZed
Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:48 pm
#4
I use one with my alt, but solo. It seems I need a battery every 1.5 lairs. Which gets kinda pricey. I am interested in your test with the power droid(s). 



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X Machine'Zed X
Obsidian Dagger Squadron

Malitevv
Thu Jun 03, 2004 2:52 pm
#5
my alt uses one to solo as well, and at the master marksman level and below it is an amazing help. beyond that, I'm not sure cause the alt hasn't gotten that far.


the batteries aren't pricey if you give your alt engineering 2. the alt will surrender engineering 2 when needed, but for now, she crafts her own batteries. :-)



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In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot
Gron_DM
Thu Jun 03, 2004 3:33 pm
#6
my guild is doing the DW bunker also this weekend and i will be ensuring we have an army of r3's with 100 autorepair kicking along with donating some crates of drd rpr b's for those without. hopefully we will rock those black sun and other aggros a new one.



Vilance -Retired from SWG
MDE for most of it, Guildleader as well
EGC Founding leader August 03
Corbantis
Founding Mayor Of Rhuidean, Tatooine
placed Nov 03.
Eaca
Fri Jun 04, 2004 1:22 am
#7
you could actually get 19 doids in a group if you got 19 friends to friend thier droids to one person. Figure one combat droid to do the actual work, with 1 gonk to keep all the droids operational, and 17 healing droids that are R3's with only healing modules then you're looking at heals of 120ish per droid for a heal of about 2100 every 10 seconds, or 210 per second. Since 17 of the droids just sit there and heal, the one person in the group only needs to operate the gonk and attack droid, easily a one person job. I'd recommend a probot for the attack droid for max damage.
Malitevv
Fri Jun 04, 2004 8:55 am
#8
No matter how much damage the droid does it will be inconsequential in comparison to the amount of damage that the players themselves are doing. The purpose of the idea I think is to draw aggro with the droids, not to actually kill anything with them. For that, you want all the droids attacking to increase the probability that the mobs will attack the droids and not the players. You don't need to friend all the droids to one player. It would be nice, but I think there is a cap on how manypet "friends" a player can have. Either way, you'll be fine if you just make sure each droid is set to "guard" one of the other droids so that it will begin attacking when that droid is attacked by the mob in case its owner forgets to give it orders to attack.


The other point is that 1 player with one power droid having the sole responsibility of powering all of the droids (the power droid will need batteries too), may not be doable in practice. That is part of what needs to be tested. What ratio of power droids to combat droids can reasonably be managed? 1:19 seems like too much to handle for me. The player responsible for managing the power on the droids will likely become overwhelmed and the whole setup will collapse. 1:10 may be too much for a single player to handle because the power droid is going to need a new battery itself every 5 recharges (unless they changed that).


But now that I think of it... can a power droid recharge a power droid? if so, 2 power droids, coordinated appropriately, could keep the entire droid army charged indefinitely without ever requiring batteries if the power droids remember to keep charging each other once every 5 charges. would that work??





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In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot
Squidbush
Fri Jun 04, 2004 9:00 am
#9

The biggest problem I've seen with droids is pathing. I tested a group of combat droids on kryats (all R3s with 5 combat and 1 autorepair modules each.)with my guild 2 weeks a ago and the one thing I noticed is the frequency that the droids would just randomly run away and never come back into the range of the autorepair.


They did make a difference in how fast we took them down, by the way.


Message Edited by Squidbush on 06-04-2004 12:00 PM



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Melik Areh - Retired Imperial Colonel -
We are told that a million monkeys pounding on a million typewriters will eventually create the collected works of Shakespeare.. Thanks to the Internet, we know this to be wrong.
Malitevv
Fri Jun 04, 2004 9:05 am
#10
that is an interesting point. hopefully in a dungeon there won't be anywhere for them to run away too. But then again, if the respawn rate is high, the droid might just run backwards and end up drawing the newly spawned baddies in the room you just cleared down on you from behind.


That could be very bad.


It may be a reason to go with probots actually over R3's. Are the probots more or less likely to run away when their HAM goes low?? I've seen R3's and LE's run away many times, but I don't think I've ever seen a Probot flee.



---------------------------------------------------------------------
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

T.S. Eliot
GrafvonSoden
Fri Jun 04, 2004 1:09 pm
#11
Boy, wouldnt the servers sh1t if angroup of DEs with droids kicked arse on the DWB LOL
Buzz1096
Fri Jun 04, 2004 2:25 pm
#12

Done and tested.


We had:


5 adv. R3s with 1 combat, 5 auto-repair


4 adv. LE with 1 combat, 2 auto-repair


8 adv. Probots with 1 combat, 4 auto repair


1 adv. Power droid with 2 stim dispenser 116/12


The owner of the power droid keeps the stock of batteries and sends a recharge to any droid in a fight showing **low power** thus freeing him and everyone else up to fight rather than constantly spending your own combat time to recharge droids.


The mix of melee and ranged with the high HAM droids up front works nice.





Drege Duece
Master Smuggler
Master Doc
Generally Stoopid for Speccing this way...
Squidbush
Thu Jun 10, 2004 1:21 am
#13
That works the best since you can't recharge a droid while you're fighting. You have to stop attacking to feed them their candy..er batteries.



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Melik Areh - Retired Imperial Colonel -
We are told that a million monkeys pounding on a million typewriters will eventually create the collected works of Shakespeare.. Thanks to the Internet, we know this to be wrong.
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