Droid Engineer Archive

Fellow "sub-optimal" DEs,


I'm beginning to become concerned that droids will not everbe able to be as immersive to SWG as everyone would like.

The reason? They simply will not have the semi-autonomous nature of the droids we all know from the movies and EU.


If you think about it, there are various examples of:

- droids being openly communicative and opinionated. This doesn't really happen in SWG to any degree. In-game they are simplyeye-candy covered 'tools' much the same as our crafting stations or backpacks.

- droids exhibit something of a 'personality' or quirks in the movies. Our personality chips pale in comparison to what's possible. I don't portend to say that the Devs will build in some next generation AI or anything but surely something can be done tomake droids feel more like they behave from the films.

- droids in the movies interact, converse with and relate to other droids (and have their own squabbles and arguments). This is ALL over the place in the films. I have never seen any my droids attempt to communicateor 'fake it' with any otherplayer or NPC droids.

Suggestion along those lines: Other droids can 'feed' your droid information, which might basically lead to another style or method for presenting NPC missions or quests.


- droids in the movies are able to take action of their own volition (and often save their masters as they do it). One specific example: R2-D2talks toCloud City's city computer to find out that the hyperdrive on the Falcon has been intentionallydisengaged.

- droids in the movies communicate with vehicles (Han has Chewie plug "the professor" into the Falcon's hyperdrive while parked inside the asteroid during Ep. 5, ESB).




My concern here is that making droids behave in-game in a way that would truly add to the feel of living in the Star Wars universe is simply not possible on the scale that's requiredor, in fact, anywhere near it.


I'd be interested to know if there are easily implementable ideas on how to best address this and get droids that will both enrage our frustrations (through their rantings and personalities) or save our skins (as we saw so many times in the films).


We spend a lot of time talking about the mechanics of the droids themselves as 'robots' but don't really try to make them the droids that we all very likely really want.


Thoughts? Comments? Interpretive Negative Power Coupling?


/bow

Respectfully,

If you think there's an AI difference between droids and robots, I have one word for you:

Asimov

Eutock,


Let's not get into that particular issue. I used it merely to make a basic point, nothing more.

It's the content of the post that I really wanted to put out there.


I feel like the current droids are...stupid. In the films/EU, they were 'parsecs' more independent, interactive and autonomous than our current versions.


Asimov...Asimov (/tappinghisforehead)... What server is he on?


/bow

Respectfully,

/boing




/bow

Respectfully,

TK, again you put forth a good point. To me, it would be leaps and bounds more immersive if only to hear my protocol droid babbling non-stop until I had to shut him down. Or even to hear NPC droids doing the same types of things. Droids have personality in the movies, here we put in personality chips that do nothing of the sort.

I don't know how to fix it, but droids need to be more immersive like you've described.

/agreed

Of course not even the movie characters have a personality in the game...so it might take a while, hehe.

It would be pretty nice though, instead of droids that get confused by large rocks in their path, watch as creatures DB you, and have to be taught their name, lol.

This would be very nice to see in game. Would give meaning to droid brain quality also.
Even just using them as delivery workers would be nice. Tell them to take something to someone or somewhere. Have them deliver power to harvesters. Even have them pick up resources from harvesters.

Imagine sending them out to gather some resources and the jawa hijaak them. Notice them missing after a while and go looking for them. Hire a BH or Ranger to investigate and track them down. Negotiate for getting them back or torch the whole carrier full of them.

Even adding some idle conversation actions that get updated periodically. "Are we ready to leave yet? Where are we going? A trip! Ah I love a trip! To where???!! I shouldn't be going there sir! Are you sure we have to go?"

Or using improved electronics to your advantage. "Sir, there appears to be some creatures approaching from the south!"


I don't know how many played the old infocom game with Floyd.... but for the technology at the time and the limitations of what they could do... he sure was lovable. The image they portrayed for him came across on many different levels. You laughed, smirked, got frustrated, even felt a pang of loss when he was gone. He didn't really do too much in game... it was how he reacted to you and events that mattered.

While we'll never have droids that act quite like they do in the movies, I think some decent fakery is possible within the limitations of the technology of the game. It basically comes down to creating the game's content in such a way that we're never quite sure what our droids will do if we keep them out as we go about our business.

For instance, tying droids to quests as mentioned above would be a natural way for them to surprise us with new tricks once in a while as R2D2 is famous for doing. Whenever things looked bleak, he'd always whip out some feature nobody knew he had and fix whatever was wrong. With a little extra work on the authoring side, droids might be able to provide alternate solutions to quests: a protocol droid buttering up a hostile NPC to make him cooperate, an R2 hacking some piece of machinery that otherwise would require a semi-rare drop to use, a repair droid fixing a broken something-or-other, etc. None of this would require any intelligence within the droid; it would just be a trigger authored into the quest by the content people. This would help give droids a lot of the mystique that they're currently missing without making them necessarily more useful in terms of conventional game mechanics -- they're just handy to have around, and you'd hesitate to do anything important without them for fear of missing something cool.

Another thing I'd personally love to see would be custom personality chips. I'm sure the database people would cringe at hearing this suggestion, but it could be limited to one per master droid engineer. This would work basically like vendor ad-barking (which I have a disproportionate amount of fun with) works now. I'd define my custom personality chip, build it into a few droids, sell them, and in a few days change the strings around a little and when people call their droids out they'll say different things. This would go a long way towards making droids feel less "robotic" without making them any smarter -- there's just a human puppeteer somewhere that's holding all of the real intelligence.

Well how about this then:


Someone mentioned that droids could be used to collect resources and managed harvesters. I say take it a step up. Have droids be almost required for harvesters, buildings, and vehicles automatically. Automated Droid require personality chips and you can only have a certain number of them active. They cannot work in computer cities. Here is how I think it could work:

Standard Questions:
With a certain level chip, players can speak with the droid and ask it questions customizable by the owner. For example:
1. Who do you work for?
2. What is their profession?
3. Where can I find him/her?


Astrometric Droids (RD)- RD droids would be required to maintain different things. Let’s say R2 for vehicles, R3 for harvesters and R5 for buildings. You could manually bring a droid with out a PCF to the area and it would fix the object. Or you can automate the RD droid. The R3 and R5 droids would stay in a set area and maintain what ever structures are near it. R2 droids would stay in a the vehicle garage and repair any vehicles you own for no credits and repair any other players vehicles for a player set number of credits. RD droids would need either resources or one use repair kits to fix an object. There storage capacity would determine how much they can hold. Cannot leave the radius of the designated areas.
APCF:
1. R2 can you repair my vehicle? (Owner must have merchant)
2. I have some resources I would like to donate.

Repair Droids (RPD) and Surgical Droids (SD) - Could be automated to stay in a set building (hospitals for SD and Garages for RPD). RPD would repair any weapon or armor as long as it has the resources or kits. SD can heal health and action wounds (none of the secondary ones) and heal damage with different meds. SD take longer to heal than regular doctors. Both the RPD and SD would have a player set credit cost. Cannot leave the radius of the designated area.
APCF:
1. RPD can you fix this object for me? (Owner must have merchant)
2. SD can you heal my wound? (Owner must have merchant)
3. I have some resources (or equipment) to donate.

Mouse Droids (MD) - Can be used to reduce the maintenance costs of buildings. Can be used to reduce the lot costs on higher level buildings. (Only buildings that take up 4 plus lots) Limit of 2 lot reduction. Cannot leave buildings
APCF: None

Power Droids (PD) - Can supply vehicles and other droids with power. Power and batteries must be input into the droid.

Binary Load Lifters (BLL) - Could be used to collect resources from different harvesters. By inputting a waypoint list into the droid with a max of 4 waypoints, you droid will automatically travel to the point and collect resources from any nearby harvester that you own. (Only ones that take up your lots) These droids can be killed by players and creatures, but will avoid enemies and have a low level masked scent on to account for errors. Can be equipped with defensive weaponry, shields, and armor. Droids will deposit resources at a designated warehouse.
Additional Personality Chip Functions (APCF):
1. Can I buy some of the resources you are carrying? (Owner must have merchant and must consent to the purchase)

Probots - Can do a low level survey for resources. And be killed by players and creatures and can has defenses similar to the BLL


Protocol Droids (PTD) = PTDs are already required for building shuttle ports. I do not really know what else they could be used for. Perhaps if they made languages harder to learn the PTD would have more use.

I think it is a neat way to make droids, Droid Engineers, and the game more interesting without putting the game balancing out of wack. It may get expensive, but it’s a better money sink than the item decay, which is just lame in my opinion. In case you are wondering, I am a holocron DE. However, I hope your profession gets what it deserves. The proposed combat droid fixes are not enough to fix a profession that has as little content as yours does. Oh and sorry for the spelling and grammar errors.

---

TheRealTK421 wrote:
Eutock,


Let's not get into that particular issue. I used it merely to make a basic point, nothing more.

---

I think there is a moderm misconception that 'robots' are simple mechanical tinker toys, or even factory drones, which is why I pointed this out. Asimov laid down the contemporary foundational ideas in his 1950's fiction. A quarter century later George Lucas extended those ideas into his Star Wars films with droids. Robotics, from this original vein, is really about artificial intelligence given form through mechanics. In other words, there is a very strong link between AI and the mechnical components that house the AI.

Eutock,


Yes, yes...that's all true.

However, it's the spirit of the post that's important.


/bow

Respectfully,