Droid Engineer Archive

What'd I like to see is all the combat droid chassis available to everyone. That would allow people to pick the look of the combat droid that they think looks nicest. However, here's how I would see them working.

Replace the current ADV (Advanced) option on combat droids and instead have 4 options (Mark I, II, III, and IV). For example, a IG-88 Mark III instead of a IG-88 ADV. Here's what the Marks mean:

Mark I - Deed can be tamed and controled by any non-DE player.

Mark II - Deed requires Novice DE skill to tame and control.

Mark III - Deed requires mastery in one of the DE lines (i.e. Master Droid Builder, Blueprints 4).

Mark IV - Deed requires Master DE to tame and control.

So you could sell a Droideka Mark I to a newbie player that can afford to buy one. Looks cool but is scaled in power appropriate to their skill level. Or you can build a Droideka Mark IV for yourself that can stand toe-to-toe with an adult Rancor or Graul.

Maybe some chassis should stop at Mark I or Mark II. Would be kinda silly seeing the Roger Roger combat droid battling it out with a Graul or Rancor and holding its own. It's a pretty goofy looking droid. Maybe the IG-88 should stop at Mark III. Also, does anyone know what the other combat droid is from EP2? The ones that came out from behind Count Dookal on the balcony and forced all the Jedi to jump to the ground. Those are pretty cool looking droids too. Was something between the roger roger droid and an IG-88. And our old Probot should probably be only a Mark I and II droid.

Well, that's my thought. Have at it and flame away!

Not bad... I'd open up Mark 2's and maybe Mark 3's to Elite professions, depending on how they're balanced.

I really think we should be able to sell all the CHASSIS we can make. Tho' maybe some should start at Mark 2. Novice artisan with droideka doesn't seem quite right either. =)

Agreed. Perhaps Droidekas and IG-88's should start at Mark II or Mark III. But I could see a newbie artisan with a roger roger droid. Someone please tell me what the name for that goofy droid from EP1 and EP2 is.

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Grimjakk wrote:

Not bad... I'd open up Mark 2's and maybe Mark 3's to Elite professions, depending on how they're balanced.

I really think we should be able to sell all the CHASSIS we can make. Tho' maybe some should start at Mark 2. Novice artisan with droideka doesn't seem quite right either. =)

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Well, how about this then:

Mark II - Requires Novice DE OR mastery in one line of another elite profession.

Mark III - Requires mastery in one line of DE OR complete master of another elite profession.

Mark IV - Master DE only.

An excellent plan.

Its name is now and forever.... (drumroll)

The Roger-Roger droid! (tadaa!)

Glad to help.

Arden-

Great idea. I was thinking we should plan a DE meeting on Eclipse. /tell me sometime we're both on.

Here's a chart of which combat droids could be available at what mark levels:

Combat Droid Mark I Mark II Mark III Mark IV
DZ-70 X
Probot X X
Roger-Roger Soldier X X
Unknow EP2 Solider Droid X X X
IG-88 Assasin Droid X X
Droideka X X

Bah! It took liberties with my spacing on my chart. Let's try this.

Combat Droid..............Mark I Mark II Mark III Mark IV
DZ-70........................X
Probot.......................X.......X
Roger-Roger Soldier..........X.......X
Unknow EP2 Solider Droid.....X.......X.......X
IG-88 Assasin Droid..................X.......X
Droideka.....................................X.......X

okie. the chart thing just isnt going to work.

Ummm, the one-star coward has struck again. Someone please do the rating thing to cancel out the joker.

I'm sorry, but I just think combat droids are a really bad idea. All you guys are going to do is set yourself up to be the new CH profession, which will mean nerfs, complaints, and general dislike in the community of your particular profession. I know you want to have combat abilities, but if that's the case, I'd have to say you should just pick up some fighting skills.

I posted a rather in-depth thread about how you could revamp the existing chassis to be more functional and interesting to use, without resorting to introducing combat droids. Fundamentally, I'm just against any further implementation of surrogate fighting devices, unless you could only command the combat droid while not wielding a weapon yourself. If you needed a combat droid command device equipped as your weapon to use the droid in combat, that'd be fine, but the independent weapons platform madness has got to stop somewhere.

You don't really NEED combat droids to make this profession viable, either. You just need more interesting ways to use the existing droids. Droids are cool. I bought one myself, even though I'm not a DE and am only just getting into crafting. I love having a droid. I think they could be MUCH cooler, and much more useful for folks, too. But the combat droid thing just seems like kind of a knee-jerk response to fixing this profession. I don't see how it will improve the game as a whole, and I think it'll only end up hurting the game overall.

Folks will use combat droids the same way they misuse faction pets and use CH pets currently: to tank or to provide an extra damage over time device. This will only serve to unbalance the game further and will make it like in the days before the probot nerf, when EVERYONE had a freakin' probot. It'll homogenize the game even further and that'sa problem to me. Just make the droids more crafter-friendly, give them more abilities, let them help out in the GCW, etc. There's a lot of ways you can make droids useful without resorting to the combat path.