Droid Engineer Archive

Amen

I'm at 2.3.0.4 and planing on stoping at 3304. I thought I was the only one who realised there was no diff between that and master

Don't get me wrong I do want to become a Master Droid Engineer. If i get enough xp for customizaition 1 I will get it. Im just not going to waste good resouces grinding Adv. Droid Frames.

BTW as i re-read my post i made this could also be used as an advertisemt for the edit button....I have a few good typos and misspellings

Nostradamus Smyth

Hello I would like to give you a brief autobiography of my treck through the Droid Engineer to help try to explain what being a DE is like. Other DE's by all means please please feel free to add your comments.

Chapter 1 My Artisan Days

I came to this game on Day #3 after my friend Lukos told me leave Earth and Beyond because this game rocked.....And it does. So I left my guild leadership position in Earth and Beyond and came here.

I decided to choose the artisan profession becaue i liked the idea of trading,crafting, and selling things. My friend Lukos also started up the Artisan tree in hopes of becoming an architect one day.

As with most people I had no clue what to do. Through my treck up the Engineering branch of the Artisan tree Lukos asked me what Elite profession i was going to choose... I really haddn't put any thought into it. I went through all advanced artisan professions and finaly that came to a profesion that cought my eye, the one that was the most star warsy of all the artisan professions Droid Engineer.

So I excitedly told Lukos that i was going to be a Droid Engineer. I think he said something to the effect of "Are you nuts? check out the DE boards and see if still want to be a DE"

This was my first visit to the message boards I read through all the DE posts and dispite the gloomy outlook i still wanted to be a Droid Engineer. After all it seemed that the probot was popular. So after 1 billon muzzles later I had achived the second highest GCXP elite profession (next to Architect) and ran delivery missions to earn enough money for 5000 credits needed at the trainer.

Finally I had 5000 + credits needed to fly from Theed to Moneia to train...

Chapter 2 my Novice days.....

Whoot finally Novice Droid Engineer and my friend Lukos has made Novice Architect. Instantly after putting my NDE tag up above my name i was flooded with tells asking if i made probots. (as lukos had tells for requests for PA halls and Large houses) I had to keep telling everyone no as i searched for a good place to start The MSE Grind(tm).

I threw a harv down at a 80% steel spot and started harvining the steel and self sampled the checmical i needed to grind MSE's. Even when the servers were young it was hard to sell MSE's now its impossable. (Except for people who just want a cheap droid). I did manage to sell some though but due to my lack of combat xp I had to run delivery missions to pay the fees on my harv.

I met some other Droid Engineers who i chatted with along The MSE Grind Tinkerson McDroider and Gilla were some of the ones who stick out in my mind. After a few days of constant MSE grinding I finally got the 48000 of Droid crafting xp required for Prints 1.

Then came the day when all the Tells fell silent... July 21 2003. The probot nerf. Only being a 0-0-0-1 DE at the time i had no clue what the ramifications if the nerf was but i could tell the more advanced DE's that i knew such as Gilla were quite angary. (now that im a big shot DE i know how bad of a nerf it was).

Now with the exception of good medical droids (An r5 with a lvl1 med mod was sellable at the time but most people wanted surgical or an R2 unit) we had no really sellable droids anymore

Oneday I was bored and Lukos asked if he could try out the only comat droid i could make the DZ70. So i threw one together for him. It was the only new droid i could make since i just learned that i could not make any other prints 1 droids becasue i had no extrusive ore (Required for the Manipulator Arm package set) After crafting it I realized that it had the same HAM as my MSE's. We told it to attack a Gnort.... I have never seen anything die so fast.

Being only a 0-0-0-1 DE the only thing that is still good to grind was the MSE droid so i kept at it. Until one day I got a tell

UberDude "Can you make droids that store missions?"

Nostradamus "Not sure... since missions are stored in the datapad i would assume a data mod would do it"

UberDude "How much?

Nostradamus "Not sure if it will work so ill only charge you 500 credits"

After It was confirmed that it worked I made 10 others and put them up on the bazzar. The very next day it was nerfed..... So i spent 2000 credits (which was a lot to me) to put these droids on the bazzar and now they were worthless. Ohh well back to grinding mse's

Chapter 3: It says I need a GP mod.... I can't find it

After it was rumord that the Bounty Hunter droid vendors were going to be closed and I had gone through some DE levels (1-1-0-2) I decided to start making seeker droids. I opend the schmatic for the first time and looked at what parts i needed to assemble it. I realized that i needed those bloody Master Artisan componets.

I checked various fan sites to see what other droid schmatics needed these Master Artisan parts. There was a good number and i really didn't see it very cost effective to ask a master artisan to manufacture them for me. So it was back to grining muzzels to learn out run up the business tree and then to run up the Domestic arts tree, at least my protocol droids would have some wrinkled pants to wear. About a week later I was a master artisan.

Chapter 4The one good nerf for us

Prior to thier nerf the bounty hunter droid vendors sold Seeker droids for 200 credits and probe droids for 1000. Looking at the schmatics for a seeker and the probe i realized that I was not cost effective to sell them for that price.

When the BH droid vendor was nerfed our message board had a few Bounty Hunter visitors. Most of them wanted to work with us and achive a common ground. It was determined that our pricing was fair based on the cost of the materials (Probe droids require that annoying extrusive ore) but made missons in the invistigation line almost unprofitable for Bounty Hunters.

The devs did fix this... (this has been the last and possably only thing the devs did to help us make money) They added 10 charges to seekers and 5 charges to probe droids. Not much of a help financialy for us but it made the BH's happy and we profited from it.

Chapter 5.... "A Rancor has as much chance of fitting into a MSE droid as a rich man has getting getting into my kingdom" --- Jesus.

One day after a patch ALL of our droid mods stopped working. Medical droids could not heal, Crafting mods could not craft, storage and data mods.... well those were bugged so they never really worked anyway. I assume some programer made a mistake when they were trying to prevent our droids from working in cantinas.

I can't recall how long this lasted but I know it was over a week. One of the MDE's I had meet on eclipse, Gilla, made a post saying if this were any other profession this would have been fixed in a day or two. Having some computer progamming experience I know how hard it can be to find that pesky bug but I had to agree with Gilla. If a pistoleer could not shoot, if a Creature Handler could not tame, or if a smuggler could not slice there would be a huge outcry and probalby fixed much sooner.

Sooner or later this was fixed. Then came a big monthly patch were some of our main bugs were taken care of. Storage mods could now store items. Medical mods now had ratings and Datapads were fixed so they could store some data.

I had picked up on a rumor that Data mods could store some pets so i crafted an MSE droid named TEST and tossed my first MSE into it and retreived it. I asked a player if i could transfer TEST to him to see if he could retreive the droid out of the data pad. Then i approached a Master Creature Handler to see if it could be done witha pet.Behold a new sellable droid.

I tossed these mods into some R4s and went around Coronet to try to sell them for 15k. They sold like hotcakes. I made a ton of money and for the first time I was feeling like a sucessful Droid Engineer. However I did get into a few arguments with players who wanted the data mods in MSE's for only 3k (almost had a riot in the Coronet Starport). For the first time I did not have to run delivery missions to pay for my harvs and I had some cash to spend on some luxuries like furnature for my house.

This is also how I got my first creature pet.. a Nagarloatch (sp) named TheCheat. A MCH was so happy with my droid he gave me one for free. Normaly I would not be caught dead with a creature pet but He was nice for those harvestor runs on Dantooine.

One month later this was nerfed..... *sigh* back to selling med droids and cheap probots. And after testing my MSE named TEST TheCheat fell victim to its datapad and was lost for ever.

Chapter 6 Where i am now

Today I stand here as a 4-3-0-4 droid engineer. I am a leader of a guild and am forming a nice player city on Dantooine. After grinding 1000's of MSE's then to only grind Advanced Droid Frames (thank yoda for those) I now make a decent living as a Droid Engineer. I have 4 vendors all who sell out atleast once a week. I have been sending out coupons to people who buy my higher end droids for free customizations. It was fun to color my R2 unit Blue and Red when the Chicago Cubs were in the playoffs.

Other than than that nothing really has changed since that fateful day 21-7-03.There were afew other bugs that poped up now and then that prevendted us from making droids (none as devistating as when droid mods didn't work)

Now you maybe asking your self,How come Nostradamus isn't a Master Droid engineer? Well the answer is quite simple. Aside from crafting an Advanced Protocol droid and a BLL i can do anything a MDE can do. Waisting Steel and Fiberplasrgrinding so i can make hot pink R3's in my house just doesn't seem worth it

As for some of the other people I have left along the way. Lukos eventualy retired all his Architect skills and then eventualy left the game. Tinkerson McDroider, the DE who i would always pass on my way to my harvs has left the game. Gilla, All though many of his structures are still hanging around I don't see him around any more.

I do chat with other MDE's on my server on the future and what keeps us going. A shout out to Amia, Kal-El (i know thats spelled wrong its 230 AM sorry) and of corse Reechani who give me training ever now and then.

I know most DE's have gone through some of the same experiences I have and im sure some of them have thier own stories they would like to add.. I hope this helps you understand us DE's better.

Nostradamus Smyth

My only reply is to say I wished I had started the game that long ago. I started in late August and became a Master DE in October. Droids just don't sell much. I would probally die from a heart attack if I logged on and swa that more then one droid has sold of of either of my two vendors. I make enough to keep my head barely above water. I hope for a change as I love the profession, but will not be able to survive forever. Running Artisan missions as a Master is just BS, I think.

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JontheBear wrote:

I would probally die from a heart attack if I logged on and saw that more then one droid has sold of of either of my two vendors.

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I'd hate to post off topic on my own thread but Advertisment 3 helps a ton. But only when i wake up early after the server reset and add all my vendors to the map.

Boy, I feel for you guys.

And as an Architect, I don't feel so bad about my profession now either. I thought we usually got the shaft or ignored, but apparently not.

Welcome brothers and sisters.

Also, just so you know:

I bought 3 probots today. Plunked down close to 100k for them. I wanted one with a med crafting station and repair function and I also bought one for my friend. I was pleasantly surprised to see other functions in the bot as well. I also own two other droids with different stations and functions in them.

It comes to mind that a lot of people may just not know how useful the bots can be. Otherwise I'm sure everyone would own at least one of them.