Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Idea for Droid Engineer changes
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IdleThought
Sat Oct 09, 2004 7:19 am
#1
Apologies if this is an old idea, already burnt out and thrown away..
I'm just starting up the DE tree, and I'm aware of the somewhat lacklustre market.
I've got a fairly straight forward idea on how you could maybe revitalise the market and also improve the amount of fun to be had in DE.
Basically, Droids are durable consumer products - a player doesn't expect to buy one and then have to buy another in a week because the first 'wore out' - but if they never decay then the DE sells one droid and that's then end of that.
I want to add two features:
* Droid decay. (Nothing original here I know.. hopefully the next bit is the clever bit)
* The ability to 'deconstruct' a droid to recover the top-level parts plus a 'personality chip' that stores the droids configuration. (Game mechanic wise the ability -using a droid dismantling tool- turning a droid in the datapad into a pile of parts - not required to be identical to the 'original' parts in terms of serial numbers etc.)
Now a droid does 'wear out', but the player can take it along to a DE, get some parts replaced, others repaired, maybe by changing the parts he puts into the new droid he can turn that Medical Droid into a Crafting Station or even a Combat droid.
This creates interaction between the DE and the customer, and a continuing market for all droid parts.
For players and DE's that don't want the interaction there's the option to just sell the droid to the DE (who can dismantle it and reuse the parts) and buy a new one from a vendor - basically creating a 'used droid' market.
Maybe too complex or difficult to shoe-horn into the existing game.. but I think it would be an improvement.
I'm just starting up the DE tree, and I'm aware of the somewhat lacklustre market.
I've got a fairly straight forward idea on how you could maybe revitalise the market and also improve the amount of fun to be had in DE.
Basically, Droids are durable consumer products - a player doesn't expect to buy one and then have to buy another in a week because the first 'wore out' - but if they never decay then the DE sells one droid and that's then end of that.
I want to add two features:
* Droid decay. (Nothing original here I know.. hopefully the next bit is the clever bit)
* The ability to 'deconstruct' a droid to recover the top-level parts plus a 'personality chip' that stores the droids configuration. (Game mechanic wise the ability -using a droid dismantling tool- turning a droid in the datapad into a pile of parts - not required to be identical to the 'original' parts in terms of serial numbers etc.)
Now a droid does 'wear out', but the player can take it along to a DE, get some parts replaced, others repaired, maybe by changing the parts he puts into the new droid he can turn that Medical Droid into a Crafting Station or even a Combat droid.
This creates interaction between the DE and the customer, and a continuing market for all droid parts.
For players and DE's that don't want the interaction there's the option to just sell the droid to the DE (who can dismantle it and reuse the parts) and buy a new one from a vendor - basically creating a 'used droid' market.
Maybe too complex or difficult to shoe-horn into the existing game.. but I think it would be an improvement.
Jenden
Sat Oct 09, 2004 7:46 am
#2
While I do like this idea, we keep running into one main problem with it, currently the droid doesn't store which modules were installed. Some of them like the crafting stations are all pretty simple, its a one to one correspondence. Modules with ratings on the other hand cause problems, since it could have been one very good module or multiple bad modules, etc. There's no way to determine what quality/quantity of modules to give back.
Velneth
Sat Oct 09, 2004 8:29 am
#3
They'd just have to switch over to a system where this was possible... from what's been said about JTL, a simmilar style has been developed for the ships with interchangeable parts...
Jenden
Sat Oct 09, 2004 9:29 am
#4
Velneth wrote:
They'd just have to switch over to a system where this was possible... from what's been said about JTL, a simmilar style has been developed for the ships with interchangeable parts...
yea, just commenting that there's no way you could do it retroactively for all the old droids.
Drashk
Sat Oct 09, 2004 9:41 am
#5
Velneth wrote:
They'd just have to switch over to a system where this was possible...
The only change that I could see being done, to allow for modular switching, would be the removal of the module stacking system.
Another problem that I could see with this idea is 'Does the system detect whether or not a droid is a Basic or Advanced droid model?'
Velneth
Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:18 am
#6
Maybe yes, maybe no...
If they droped in a new system, they'd probably simply go with "any droids made after this point can be dissassembled, old ones, you can't".
Transfer over data to the new format (which probably could easily keep the stacking) but mark the old ones with a "cannot dissassemble" flag... give a nice message that says "This droid has seen a lot of use, it's been jury rigged so many times you can't find anything"
Not ideal from our point of view, however, it's the most practical from a programming standpoint. And in the case of most changes, this is the way things get done. Old ones stay as they are, new ones get the limitations or benifits.
If they droped in a new system, they'd probably simply go with "any droids made after this point can be dissassembled, old ones, you can't".
Transfer over data to the new format (which probably could easily keep the stacking) but mark the old ones with a "cannot dissassemble" flag... give a nice message that says "This droid has seen a lot of use, it's been jury rigged so many times you can't find anything"
Not ideal from our point of view, however, it's the most practical from a programming standpoint. And in the case of most changes, this is the way things get done. Old ones stay as they are, new ones get the limitations or benifits.
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