Droid Engineer Archive

The Seven DEadly Sins of Droid Engineering --
Executive Summary

/bow to Khaldun

Those of you who read the SWG Seven Deadly Sins series know what
to expect, so read on, read on.

For those of you that have not read the Seven Deadly Sins of SWG,
it's a serialized collection of articles, written in a constructive
and philosophical tone, about the qualities that make ye olde droids
great, the weaknesses in the profession, and how to improve droids as
a whole from small fun to fantastic fun.

A quick “About the Author” first. My name's neshura,
I'm a master DE/MA/MMedic/NMarksman on Flurry. I've been playing
since the end of July, and decided I wanted to be DE early on. Two
great guys, Ghola and Apollodorus, helped me master the profession
without losing my basic joy in the game. I love droids and I love
getting other people into them. I don't have a shop of my own but I
make a good living and I fill four or five custom orders a week. I
play SWG because I think Star Wars is an imaginative and artistic
place to hang out, but I also work for a living. I'm not a casual
gamer, because I do care about the evolution of the game, but I don't
play very many hours. These are the sources of any bias I bring to
the table, for your consideration.

This past weekend, I've spent my hours reading through hundreds if
not thousands of posts, forming and revising opinions, and running
many of your brainstorms through my internal scenario-builder. Some
of these ideas rapidly escalate towards game imbalances, while other
ideas, with some tweaking, make the game substantially better.

The following are Neshura's Rules for
Droids. Unshakeable, unbreakable, unyielding...

1. A droid must displace drudgery

   
   

2. A droid must not displace a player character

   
   

3. A droid may defy logic, precedent, or analogy, but it must
   not defy good design principles

   
   

4. A sufficiently innovative droid may exist outside this
   ruleset

   
   

Numbers one and two are a restatement of the give-and-take between
the usefulness of technology and the relevance of humanity. Number
three is an admonition and reminder that this is a designed world we
are trying to improve. Excellent design at the outset removes the
need for patching with overly complicated systems or large rulesets
later. Number four is an expression of hope and faith in great ideas.
Our post-Industrial Revolution world has a common pattern of great
ideas that languish for decades because they solve no existing
problem in the time of their birth. Some of the best innovators are
the ones who foresee a desire that is not yet felt as a need. So the
last rule is just a reminder – just because an idea doesn't
solve a problem (rule number one) doesn't mean it has to be shelved.
There, I've already broken the rules. On to my list of False Rules.

The following are the rules that I won't be paying attention to,
because they are derivative or overly constrictive, and I have a
unique chance here to throw out as many rules as possible in order to
explore the widest range of ideas. Here's a sample of the things I
will not be taking for granted:

A droid must benefit the DE profession

A DE must be able to use a droid

A DE must not be able to use a droid

A droid must not be too complicated for the average DE to
understand

A droid must be complicated, simple, 8000HAM,
chocolate-frosted, or male in order to be saleable

A droid must be saleable

Cowboyneal or Thunderheart?

A droid must not unbalance the game

The Droid Engineering Profession needs extra love because it's
gotten so little

I will pick one of these and show you why it won't enter into the
equation in my articles. To quote, “A droid must be saleable”,
--courtesy of neshura, 4 lines ago. Why doesn't this matter? Because
it is derivative. If a droid displaces drudgery, it can be sold. The
price of Lidium Extrusive Ore in China doesn't matter for the
purposes of this discussion.

I plan to post one article per day for the rest of the week. Look
for the first one right after I post this overview.

Before I close this post, I want to mention that there's an eighth
Sin, who probably isn't terribly deadly, and who has abundant
virtues. Shouts out to her.