Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: What does it REALLY take to be a DE?
My original character in the game was a human that I was convinced should become an architect. On the day I finished the grind to novice architect, not 5 minutes after I spent all the general crafting experience, and opened the novice box, I realized that I did not really want to do that. Since then I have played a variety of other characters, but the original one just sat there. Now, I have decided to go ahead and turn him in to a DE.
I was reading a post, here, the other day, talking about what it really costs to be a DE. The guy mentioned that you NEED master artisan. Ok I can understand this. There are items that you will need for your droids, that only a master artisan can make, and since I already have most of that any way, (except for the apprentice ponts) that is no big deal. Although I imagine getting apprentice points from artisan and DE, could take a while.
He went on to say that you NEED armor 4. I understand that you need armor components for some of the droids. My question is, even if you go all the way up one tree of armorsmith, can you make these good enough to be of real use to you, or are you better off buying them from a master armorsmith?
He went on to say that you NEED buildings 1 from architect. This one has me baffled. Is there really something that an architect makes that is used in a droid, or did he just want to make his own harvesters? If it was the latter, I would think you could just as easily use the personal harvesters that you got in the engineering line, and save the skill points for something else.
I forget if he mentioned a need for higher business skills or not, but to me that would be an optional frill.
So, what does it really take to be a successful DE? Besides a lack of sense, and a love of pain. :>
Thanks all.
Untrue. Armorsmith will sell you composite segments cheapely. Power cores are useless as Power Droids are useless.
Master Artisan is the only Pre-Req.
You don't need any of those thing, of course, because other people are willing to sell the items from those classes. You do need components from those professions though. It will make your life easier having those skills if you plan to dedicate your character to droid craft.
I personally chose to be a master artisan like many of us did. I rely on guildmembers for those other components I need.
I've sold 4 power droids ever, so being an arch is pointless. I buy my composite segments from an AS at 100 creds each... which is cheap for them.
Yes, you need Master Artisan. All droids above the first box require the parts, many of them require factory identical parts. Every master artisan I've contacted was unwilling to throw in a couple schematics for me, claiming it to be either a waste of their time, or their factories were always in use from their own stuff. I did have Master Art, but I lacked the factory. So, I had to get one of my own, sacrificing one of my extractors soI could make about 5 factory runs...Elec Mem Mods, GP Mods, Advanced Droid Brains (2 identical needed for the R3 I really want), Control Units (so I don't waste my time later doing it by hand), and 4-charge batteries to capitalize on the current power usage.
I bought 5 power cores from a master architect at 2 cred/unit gross, which still came out to be 25k for the lot of them. It sickened me to see the amount of resources went into that thing. And yes,I looked the item up on swgcraft.com to make sure I was getting a good deal.
I haven't had the chance to make Armor 4 yet, but I'm sure I'll have to buy the parts I need. I'm not willing to grind up armorsmith or architect to get those few and rare parts I need.
In short, I believe we are the most dependant on other professions out of them all. We need the armor 4's to make our probots decent, which is frequently our only selling piece. We need the power cores at least once to make one for ourselves, to heal the white and charge up pets when people come complaining. We need the Master Art pieces or we can't make a living. How about some ability to be self-sufficient please?
Graeme wrote:
I guess part of what I wanted to know was, if you don't mater armorsmith, and architect, which you can't do at the same time anyway, are the armor and power cores you can make yourself going to be good enough to use, or are you gimping your droids by trying to do it all yourself?
My take: On many droids, such as the advanced probot, which has two defensive sockets, Droid Armor 4 is all you need, as two of them stack to provide the maximum capped benefit. Droid Armor 4 DOES NOT require any components from armorsmith. Armor 5 and 6 DO require composite armor segments, which is a BIT of a pain, but you only need to find a friendly and/or smart armorsmith to run you some crates. Since even the worst-made composite segment made by a real novice will provide the same benefit, there is just no reason to consider mastering armorsmith. In fact, I consider there to be little reason for a DE to train it either at this point.
With architect, as mentioned before, all you gain is power cores for the very-low-demand power droids. If some of the proposed changes go in, then there might be a good reason for a DE to take that up, but once again, mastery is hardly a prerequisite, as a poorly-made core seems to work as well as a really great one.
I have poured most of my skill points outside of Artisan and Droid Engineer into Merchant skills, with a bit also put into pistol. So far, so good.