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Im a DE and I enjoy your support, however a few things are wrong:

1) Smart Droid Engineers dont charge 1000+ for a seeker droid. Its quite frankly, a rip off to you guys. Idealy, I charge 300 per seeker. This is fair (any self sufficient DE can do the same)

2) We diddnt beg the devs to remove droids from droid NPC vendors, and frankly, if your on the right server, theres only a slight markup from your normal prices

3) Armor 6 modules on a probot suck. 2 lvl 4's do the same thing. Its not like we need the probot to have crafting stations on a combat droid! So ideally, we could fit plurally lvl 6 armor modules, yet its still capped at ac2 40% resists.

Thanks alot though, and yeah, they do kinda suck. Far inferior ham to many non CH pets, and only slightly better armor. (though I hear this is to be fixed), however our probots do little to no damage. Oh well, when they do get fixed, there will be few DE's, which I guess is a good thing for my competition! (lack thereof)

Yes, Han Solo and Chewbacca killed one with one shot, but they said it had a self-destruct on it. That was because the imperials didn't want the Rebels to know they were coming.

Back to the original post:

SOMETHING needs to be done, either greatly increase the payouts, make the droids last for numerous missions or lower the resource cost of the droids. We will most likely need them in factory crates the way we go through them.

And No, bounty hunters are not meant to use droids to fight, they can, but not really their strong suit. Darth Maul was dabbling in BH when he was after Amidala and used the seeker droids. But once he found them he fought alone. And Jango/Boba never used droids to fight either. Of course, I don't know about the books.

Wepps,

I really like the idea about permanent seeker type droids in the datapad similar to creature pets. I believe if they were going to make us rely on the DEs exclusively, then the seeker droids should have been implemented in that manner before they removed the droid vendors. At the very worst, they could have given each seeker droid a decent set number of uses before a new droid had to be purchased to replace it (Still, I personally don't think that would have been a good idea either, but better than the current).

Alternatively, take those same seeker droids and note their condition like any other weapon or droid. Then, depending on the difficulty of the bounty upon sending a droid out, subtract a set number from that overall condition so that eventually each droid will break, but still give great value to high quality droids. They could even take that further and set the droids so that better experimentation/resources yields inherent bonuses for tracking a mark (not sure if that's the current case or not, but I somehow doubt it). They can still incorporate a "critical failure" type system here where rarely (5% and down) a droid will get destroyed outright in the hunt.

Personally, I'm not sure I like the idea of limiting Pro-Bots to Bounty Hunters. I'm hoping that with the certifications for droids that are supposed to be talked about, that we do get some kind of droid out of it. Although, I'd bet they don't give specific professions specific droids, I'd imagine they instead decide to give professions specific types and you can have a droid built within that category. Like a medic can use baseline medical related droids and Brawlers/Marksmen can use basic combat styles, etc..... then give the elites and hybrids access to more advanced overall styles (A combat droid that can contain 4 modules instead of 2... etc). Actually issuing specific droid types to professions just doesn't see correct. Then again, all this is assuming that they do eventually decide to diversify their current droid lineup to actually reflect what's supposed to be in the galaxy.

Oh well..... just more of my bored-at-work ideas and opinions.

Rahl'Tyr

in the terminals Seekers were 300 credits and the imperial driods were 1k.

Original prices were

200 for seeker

and

1000 for Arakyd

So would coming in under or around 500 for seekers be a good and fair price? Many DE's are trying to make this relationship between professions work. I would also like to know on average how many do you buy at a time. I want to make sure my vendor is stocked enough and I keep up with the demand.

Hi BHs,

I am a DE and just want to clarify a few things. They have been discussed before in many other threads, especially after the Big Patch, but hopefully this will help.

There has been some confusion over the probe droid used to locate the mark's planet. The confusion has been caused by the fact that DE's have two droids, one called the Arakyd DZ70 Fugitive Tracker (very weak combat droid), and the Arakyd Probe droid. BH's need the latter one, the Probe droid. The similar names and the misleading "fugitive tracker' part of the DZ70 has caused this misunderstanding.

About prices: An earlier poster said that any "self-sufficient" DE can make seekers for 300 credits. If resources were the only cost, this would be true, but since other costs include factories (with all their bugginess), and the TIME it takes to make these droids, 300/seeker is too low, at least for me to make them. My time is more valuable than that, and these take time to make.

Here is an example. I have taken two orders in the past week for BH droids, from two different BH's. The most recent order was for 25 seekers, 10 probes. I agreed to do it, and she agreed to my prices: 700/seeker, 1000/probe. It will take me approximately 3 hours of game time to complete this order. Why? First I have to get the resources from my harvesters. Then I have to go to my factory and do a run of Memory modules (1 per seeker). When that finishes in an hour or so (depending on how many I do), I then must do a run of GP modules (2 per seeker). When that finishes in an hour or two, I can finally do the run of seekers. So this should be pretty easy, because I have crates of 25 memory modules and 25 GP modules, _except the stupid factories don't work with crates correctly_, so I have to DRAG n drop 25 memory modules and 50 GP modules from the inventory window to the factory window. Finally I put in the other resources needed and start cranking. An hour or two later the seekers are done! Now I can do the run of probe droids. They take 3 GP modules, so hopefully I made enough of them, and 1 memory module...

You can understand now why these are a pain to make. That is why I charge more than 300/seeker to make them. If I charged 300/seeker x 25 seekers, I would make 7500 credits (gross). I can gross that with one probot that takes me 5 minutes to make, and the net profit margin on the probot is much greater.

I have enjoyed interacting with the two BH's who have contracted with me. I like making things for them, even though it is time-consuming, but I'm not getting rich off the deal by any means.

Hopefully, SOE will make this process easier/more workable for both of our professions. As it is now, it's a pain for both of us.

Peace,

Im not getting rich selling 300cr per droid, however,

At least if I see a BH on Bria complaining about DE droid costs, I know its a newbie not worth my time. Bria BH's are spoiled, (if they know where to look)and now I have the advanced probe droids for sale on my vendor, (selling rather nicely) for only 1k credits, just as from the NPC droid terminal. Of course, its also incentive that of my in game friends, most are BH's, so its good to help a class that needs helping.

Loukee,

So you are saying my independant tests of probots against BH marks is invalid? I have an armor 4 droid and an armor 6 droid. There is quite a difference between the armor 6 droid and the armor 4 droid. How many marks have you tanked with one? I've done about 25 for each droid, I figure thats enough to speak of thier abilities.

I just wish they'd fix the **edit** bug with armor 6 droids so you don't have to examine him everytime you call him.

If you read the books, a decent probot designed for combat ate a full blast off the Falcon's turrets to kill it, Solo couldn't, well, solo it.

The one in the Empire Strikes Back self-destructed to prevent the technology falling into the hands of the rebels. It sent a final transmission then went to meet its maker.

Yes, DE business is not my concern. My concern is the realism and the cost. Neither of which are appropriate at this time.

Since in the feedback we got, such as it is, nothing was mentioned about mission payouts...it can only be assumed that this is a tweak, not a fix. Adding charges to the droids certainly helps, but doesn't solve the basic issue. Essentially, we are back at square one. It still costs us more to complete buggy missions.

We will see I guess, not a heck of a lot to look forward too considering the problems that were brought upon us in the last 2 months.

Are probots working now? I bought one pre patch and it would not attack after the patch. Is it worth it to buy and armor III probot? If I could get a probot worth a darn I may could take my targets.

Popatus

what is the best overall combat droid you can buy? if possible mention the level modules and specifics and etc. . .

The advanced probot is the best you can buy. Ask for as many armor modules you can get and then tailor whatever else you want in it. . . The devs are working on a fix to allow healing of droids so you might want to save your money until then.