Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Droid Terminal Sockets
Boy I really like this idea. I think they'd have to be a bit limited... like bazaar terminals would be "read only" or something... you could browse and buy but couldn't sell items.
I like the idea of a hookup on a bazaar terminal that would let you browse player vendors. So your droid hooks up to the bazaar terminal (in a static city) and you can look for any specific item you want, using the same filters currently available on the bazaar. This would REALLY get merchants some business, and wouldn't require them to be in a high-traffic area.
Hmm.. I'm going to have to think more on this but I really like the potential for this concept...
Vampiric_Hoshi wrote:
Maybe certain quest missions would require you to have a droid with a data module and the droid has to "hack" something to get you onto the next step.
I like this idea too. 
Just as long as my R3 doesn't fill his datapad with Treadwell pr0n....
Seriously, I could write a big huge list of ideas for droids and data terminals, including the ever popular "remote harvester status check"....
I think what I like the most about the way this was presented is the fact that the droid needs to be near a terminal in order for it to function. It takes away some of the "checkers..."
For example, being able to check harvester status by remote at any given time is a bit much, but the ability to pull out a droid, find a data terminal, and use that combo to check harvester status would be a bit more realistic. Maybe in that case (harvesters) you'd have to use your house terminal, since it's unlikely that a public terminal would have any information about your personal harvester.
If we really wanted to go for broke, then lower quality data modules (or lesser experimented ones) would not provide as much information as a high quality one would.
This makes me smile...
I really like the idea of giving any droid the ability to interact with terminals and such, however there are quite a few suggestions that have been made that I don't think can be accomplished due to technology and the way the game is programmed.
I'm not 100% certain on this one, but I don't think that a droid with any kind of bazaar function is possible due to the way that the commerce market is handled. For instance, when ever a PC owned vendor is created, the ower must initialize the vendor before it can be used. I think the reason behind this is that the vendor is adding itself to a specific coordinate on the game server that allows it to keep track of items placed on the vendor. This could be part of the vendor bought item issue that effected many when they would cross server bounders many months back.
The Mission terminal idea might fall under this same example. 9 times out of 10 when ever there is a problem with the market there is usually also a problem with mission terminals, though this may only effect TC.
Remote veiwing the status of structures many not be possible as well, since it appears that the status information for a sturcture is directly linked to the structure and not the location of the structure.
There are many great ideas that I have seen, that would greatly benefit droid usage, but we all need to keep in mind the limitations on programing time, technology, and ease of implimentation.
Personally, I'm still hoping that the Data Terminal entry idea could pan out some day. E-mail is great an all, but having the ability to create an in game journal through the use of a Data Terminal, where you can store the files or transfer them to either a droid or disk has always appealed to me. This would be one of those 'low hanging fruit' items that would emerse the PC a little more in the game and would open up terrific RP doors.Imagine if RPers could create data disks, or store the data on a droid. Imagine if the data disks were a lootable item that could be removed from a PC corpse or extracted from a disabled droid, using your own droid.
Thanks for starting up this thread.I'll see if TH will take a look at it when he gets back. New content in the form of a Droid / Data terminal relationship would benefit both DEs and Architects and would go a long way in the route of making Droids more immersive, not to mention it would finally give Data Terminals an actual use. 
Well, giving the data module in a droid a better purpose would be very good and I like the idea of accessing ports in a city. Now, another option would be that a droid with a data module can access a port and actually offer services. Meaning that the droid could maybe offer player mission waypoints, player event waypoints or just a shop add.
If the droid must be plugged to a port to do that, it may be possible to limit the amount of droids standing around doing this and maybe a timelimit would help here as well.
To my mind that woudl add to SWG, as droids certainly could have more different uses (even after the upcomming update) and I miss some sort of a in game message / mission board for players as well. So combining it and maybe even restricting access to the droid data (as you would do for your house/shop) may be a neat thing.
Now a Droid that could plug into a travel terminal and buy a series of travel tickets (Lok to Yavin for example) would be a seller.
I dont suggest a single flight..I think thats beyound current technology and bypasses the 'Dev desired' waiting times, but to avoid that frantic run to a terminal on each of the stopover planets would be a great benefit.
2c