Droid Engineer Archive

I got an email form a customer in regards to one of my Probot TankBots.
This is an Adv Probot with 5 auto-repair mods and no combat, so should be shooting for 1 point of damage (as I advertise). Full HAM of 3200, so 0.75 speed and 0.42 To-Hit.

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...All are performing up to specs, except for the TankBot...

Sometimes he shoots for 1 damage. Sometimes he shoots for 170 ish damage. I have been unable to determine a common factor as to which he will shoot at. Seems random to me.

So this problem defeats the purpose of a tank bot I know it's not your fault.

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TankBot Stats...
Level 19
h/a/m 3200
speed .75
tohit 0.41
auto repair 104
customization lifespan 1985 (No idea what this is)

It seems to be one damage type or the other per combat.

When it is hitting for 1 hp, it sounds like a normal probot ("Blaster type sound"). When it is hitting for high damage, it sounds like a snake attacking in EverQuest... A distinctly different sound than the 1 hp shots.

It doesn;'t seem to matter if he is grouped with me or not, whether I tell it to attack, or jsut guard me.

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I just pulled out the "Tank" bot again, and it is still doing it.

Forst critter I attacked, was for 1 damage.

Second critter I told it to attack was blocked, 100, miss, 151.

Same sound issue.

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I haven't encountered this before and was wondering if anyone else had? I've heard the creature attack noises myself, but that was on a full combat Probot.

Yep, its a known bug. Here's the entry in the centralized bug list:

# Probot Basic/Advanced

* Attack speed is dependent on distance from target. *Found Present*
* Damage output has become sparadic. Under certain circumstances, the damage output of a Probot will be equal to a Probot with a maximum Combat rating, reguardless what the actual combat rating of the droid is. *Found Present*

The sound you heard is the ranged attack sound from most creatures in galexy. Not sure anyone had noticed a tie in between the sound and the damage though, so go ahead and post it in the bug list thread.

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Jenden wrote:
Yep, its a known bug. Here's the entry in the centralized bug list:

# Probot Basic/Advanced

* Attack speed is dependent on distance from target. *Found Present*
* Damage output has become sparadic. Under certain circumstances, the damage output of a Probot will be equal to a Probot with a maximum Combat rating, reguardless what the actual combat rating of the droid is. *Found Present*

The sound you heard is the ranged attack sound from most creatures in galexy. Not sure anyone had noticed a tie in between the sound and the damage though, so go ahead and post it in the bug list thread.

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I always thought this was a lag/latency issue since I notice it with my rifleman charachter too. I know better now.

Just curious, but I never use my tank bots on critters, only on lairs. I sit back at 40-50m with a rifle and use /headshots on each critter. The lair keeps getting "tapped" by the droid and more pop out. If the spawn rate becomes too high, or the droid gets into trouble, I either spam a high powered AE (/strafeshot2) to clear the area or call the droid back for a stim or two. These tactics seem to work great on everything, except maybe kinad baznitches and rancors.

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Jenden wrote:
* Attack speed is dependent on distance from target. *Found Present*

Doh...I forgot to update this one when they fixed the attack speed on Probots, a few patches back. Probots now attack at the listed Speed rating, like they are supposed to.

The sound you heard is the ranged attack sound from most creatures in galexy. Not sure anyone had noticed a tie in between the sound and the damage though, so go ahead and post it in the bug list thread.

This is reported in the Thread. Its listed at #14 in the General Issues section..

Probot Combat Sounds and Animations have gone wonky. Probots make a 'spitting' noise as if they were a creature pet, under certain conditions. *Found Present*

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Yea, was thinking they got the speed thing fixed. I know the sound thing was bugged, but from obo's report it seems the sound may be connected to the damage. I'll have to do some tests to check on this.

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Jenden wrote:
Yea, was thinking they got the speed thing fixed. I know the sound thing was bugged, but from obo's report it seems the sound may be connected to the damage. I'll have to do some tests to check on this.

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There is a correlation between the sound/animation and attack damage, but it is not 100% consistent.

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JavelinCatcher wrote:

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Drashk wrote:

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Jenden wrote:
Yea, was thinking they got the speed thing fixed. I know the sound thing was bugged, but from obo's report it seems the sound may be connected to the damage. I'll have to do some tests to check on this.

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There is a correlation between the sound/animation and attack damage, but it is not 100% consistent.

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One of the things I've noticed is that using the droid against a lair will usually trigger the "spitting" sound as well as the damage bonus. Would it be possible that the lair damage multiplier would be causing this?

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Could be. I never use my tank droid on lairs and do not think I have ever seen this bug.

*sigh* More testing.

I went after another lair of fynocks and it didn't happen once. Attacked 6-7 mobs, and the liar itself about 5 times (took all of an hour).
The only real difference this time was that the droid was initially incapped and had to be repaired.
Maybe putting it back together again made it realise it was a droid again .

It was a pain to watch the droid move in and out or range of the lair for no reason.

Just doing a bit of testing on this.

Three times I sent the droid out to attack a creature (fearful flynoc youths).
On all three attacks, the droid used blaster sounds and 1 point of damage throughout the attack, except on the first few (three or so) hits.

Of those firs few hits...
On the first attack, the droid either missed or did 1 point of damage, but it used the spitting sound once (not sure on a hit or miss).
On the second attack it made no sound at all on the first few attacks but hit once for high damage.
On the thrid attack the droid make no sound but missed on all of those initial shots.

I set the droid to attack the lair.
It started hitting the lair with high damage straight away and was producing spitting sounds. It hit the lair for 100-189 damage.

During the attack, two creatures came out and attacked. When the lair was finished, the droid continued to attack the creatures using the high damage and creature sounds. Damage ranged from 114-197.

I'll keep testing to see if I can determine the behaviour.

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Drashk wrote:

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Jenden wrote:
Yea, was thinking they got the speed thing fixed. I know the sound thing was bugged, but from obo's report it seems the sound may be connected to the damage. I'll have to do some tests to check on this.

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There is a correlation between the sound/animation and attack damage, but it is not 100% consistent.

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One of the things I've noticed is that using the droid against a lair will usually trigger the "spitting" sound as well as the damage bonus. Would it be possible that the lair damage multiplier would be causing this?

I've gone running around Coronet killing everything in sight, and as far as I can tell every time it spits it does high damage (in the 100 to 200 range) and every time it's a blaster it's one point of damage. Except for those two or three initial hits, where there could be no sound, spitting, shooting, high or low damage, with no correlation.

But I can't see what triggers the spitting. Be it NPC's, lairs, or creatures, it will spit or shoot.
Although while I was within the Coronet city limits (but outside the wall) killing Rag Tag Loons, it was spitting every time.

Incidentally, I pulled out my R3, which is rated 160-170, and it was regularly attacking below its 160 minimum damage (as low as 89), with no armour rating or resistances on the mobs. Am I missing something obvious there?

Does anyone know when this spitting first showed up? I was thinking of trawling through the files to see if there was anything client-side to partly explain it.