Droid Engineer Archive

How many of us have been involved in player run swoop races? They happen all the time on every server on nearly every planet and just about everyone has mocked "I wish there were some ingame tool to help us make it easier and more official". Some are lucky and get a member of the events team show up to help out but on the whole that doesn't happen, especialy not for the regular weekly/bi-weekly/monthly races.

Now we see on test center the "race droid" for 3 new race circuits and it makes me think... if the code is already in-game will it really be that hard to tie it to a new module that DE's can make?

So here it is.. probably the most useful and "coolest" of modules DE would make (ironic considering the amount of modules that were recently included ... I still tend to find myself only making the original modules):

Race Droid Module

The Race Droid Module allows the owner to turn his/her droid into a race circuit coordinator. By positioning the droid at the start of the race and then entering in the waypoints for the circuit, the droid will allow racers to take part in a race similarly to that of the static race courses currently on TC.

Additional Possibilities:

¬ If combined with a barker module, the droid could give the "on your marks" .. "get set" .. "go" broadcast to start the race

¬ The ability to set laps up for the overal race - Allowing a race to hold the standard 3 laps or more instead of 1

¬ The ability to record the race winner and generate some kind of trophy :-

When setting up the race the droid owner would be able to set the race name and pick a trophy from a list of objects (objects already in-game) then when the winner is decided, the droid would generate that object with the race name and winner as its name .... these objects would not be craftable by crafters therefore the only way you own one of these trophies with your name on it is to win an actual player-run race with a racing droid.

This could even open up the possibility of adding the pit droid into the game ... we've been saying for a year now we'd like to see them in, now is a good time to add them.

Abandon all hope

I think this is a great idea but i doubt it will ever be put in to the game

Hoshi,

This is an interesting idea but I'm not sure that it has enough 'juice' to really be something that would happen. We'd likely always have something more pressing to work on to get added.

Don't forget this idea, by any means....but I would say that the chances are low (unless we make it our number 1 priority and focus on nothing else).


/bow

Respectfully,

Can't hurt to ask and find out at the very least.

I think right now I for one am lacking any real "cool" factor about droids now. The majority of the modules just simply arnt used and the ones that are.. well nearly everyone already has a droid with it. So the market getting worse and worse. We need something players WANT and I think the key things players have shown an interest in with droids is to aide them with role play events. This would include:

Race droid module

Gambling modules:

¬ Roulette

¬ Betting (i.e. on races)

¬ Cards (i.e. Sabaac / Pazaak)

and the list goes on

Abandon all hope

how about a new vehicle that can be speed experminted on for races? Have the vehicle only useable <for the moment> nearest these race circuits and have some parts made by DE's that account for the expermintation of the sub-parts.

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Tarquinas

module idea is good for races if they come into it,being able to mod cars and bikes would be intresting and should kick off nice argument, think artisan would be one to make bits for cars and bikes as main, some sort navigation computer telling you how far in front or behind racers are could be droid engineer.

Having something display where a racer is in relation to you is pretty hard. If you've ever raced in a swoop race you'll know that everyone see's everyone elses positions differently. One person may see Bob in the lead as where another may well see Tim in the lead and a 3rd person may even see Mary. Which is why the best races have a race official that stands at the start finish line and has the overal say on who wins (i.e. whoever THEY see crossing hte line first).

This is why for races atleast we could really do with some hard coding like a droid module to give accurate lap times so we have some statistics for the race official to take into account when deciding the winner. It also means we can bring into play penalty time additions for people that miss waypoints or skip certain parts of the track.

This code clearly exists in-game for the 3 current tracks on test center ... I wouldn't have thought it would take an awful lot more work to tie it into a module.

This is effectively what the module would do:

Allow the owner to add a waypoint into the droid's memory - storing the coordinates and a name for the waypoint. Each waypoint added would be in numerical order when racing ... i.e. the first waypoint you add will be the first waypoint in the race. The second waypoint addedwould be the second in the race and so on.

Allow the owner to "activate race mode" - While in this state anyone would be able to "converse" with the droid and their name would be added the "racer" list in the droid's memory.

Broadcast all current racers upon request of anyone (an option in its "converse" list)

Start the timer for every racer upon a countdown - Once given the "start race" command by its owner, the droid would initiate a 3-2-1-GO! broadcast and start a timer for each racer listed

Each time a racer passes within the correct distance of a waypoint, destroy the waypoint and create the next waypoint of the race while broadcasting the racer's current time in seconds since the first waypoint. If its the last waypoint it would generate the overal lap time, send the lap time to the droid owner in an email with the racer's name and full list of times for each waypoint s/he passed through and then reset the lap time to zero and generate teh first waypoint again (effectively meaning the racer can play an infinate amount of laps while emailing the stats for each lap to the droid owner).

Once the droid owner gives the "end race" command the droid would stop functioning as a race droid and would stop generating emails and waypoints.

Abandon all hope

I seriously believe there WILL be "juice" in this. There are so many people on all these servers that want to race/do race/don't know how to race. When the new track circuits on TC go live the desire to race and to create races will be ten fold.

Browse the events forum and see how many races are advertised there already ... there are LOTS.

I think giving people the ability to set up their own race is basicaly adding in the "race" feature so many people have wanted. Making it a droid module just gives our droids an extra role. It may not be as useful to the average player as a droid crafting station, droid storage module or medical module ... but its certainly a hell of a lot more useful than a harvesting module, barker module, stimpack dispenser module, droid healing module etc etc etc

I understand the newly added modules were included to try and give droids some kind of "bonus" to nearly all current professions but in all honestly it was a failure. Instead, I think we as the Droid Engineers, should be looking to not make our products an addition to a profession but a utility to allow and aidegame play/role play.

The devs are trying to think "What can player B get out of a droid doing his day-to-day profession-based activities?" but the real answer to that isquite frankly for the most part droids simply arnt needed. What we need are things that only DROIDS can do. Things that require a DROID to take place. We are the only crafting profession in this game that don't have a single aspect to our product that something in one of the other professions don't do and I think its time to change that. This is just one small step to make our products more unique.

Ask yourself... What can your droid do that nothing or no one else in this game can do? The answer is currently nothing.

Ask yourslef... What else can allow you to set up and run a race? The answer is also currently nothing.

I say its time we jumped on the racing band wagon and make our addition as start to DE and our droids becoming a tool to allow extra game play and not just a tool to replace something someone/thing-else already does.

Abandon all hope

Hoshi,

I hope you understand....

I didn't mean to shoot down your idea. I DO like it (and can see how it would be useful).


I'm just sort of wondering if there's really 'juice' behind this idea...especially enough to try to push it enough to get done.

When we talk about what will/could be done for our future, there's always the matter of weighing the ROI (return on investment) for the Devs, the DEs and the non-DE droid users.


Do you see this getting used enough to really make it a "gotta have"? I will bring this up for sure, just to gauge interest...


/bow

Respectfully,

Three words: Need Pod Racers

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