Avian Gamers Network

Droid and Droid Engineer Guide by Yak the Avian
Ver 21 -- 15 August 2003 (updates can be found at: http://www.crossler.com/swg/ )
Thanks to Gorantoth (Bloodfin) and Kebin (Chilastra) for corrections!
Feel free to post anywhere you want, just link to and keep checking my site above for updates.

So you want to own a droid, huh? Me too. In fact, I want to make droids, but I spend more of my time online explaining how they're used then I do making them.... So I thought I'd put together this-here manual to explain ya a thing or three.

Droids are the coolest part of SWG for me, and with a little help from the developers, they could be the coolest part for everyone else, too. Currently, the Droid Engineer profession is not broken. It's only majorly sprained. But, the dev doctors have us in a bacta tank and are delivering major improvements. Spread the word, and they'll fix more!

This second version has a ton of changes and added factory and power information. I've also incorporated all the fixes and new bugs from the last Big Patch on 13 August.

I've broken this guide up by the top ten questions I've been asked in game...

"Where's the best place to get droids?" - 1. Purchasing
"I bought my first droid, now what?" - 2. Naming
"What kind of droids do you sell?" - 3. Chassis types
"What options does this sucker have?" - 4. Functions of Modules
"How do I make it work?" - 5. Commands and programming
"How do they fight?" - 6. Battlebots
"How much to they cost?" - 7. Resources and costs
"How do I get materials and stuff?" - 8. Factories and Harvesters
"Suggestions for new DEs? What are the best things to grind?" - 9. Notes and Hints
"My droid doesn't work! Is this a bug?" - 10. Current droid and Droid Engineer problems


Big Droid News
On July 31st, Q said that we'll be able to build many types of Episode I and Episode II combat droids and named 2 or 3 specific models. He mentioned that expanding our building abilities is their second priority after they fix all of the pending module and other issues. Listen tor recordings on www.unknownplayer.com


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"Where's the best place to get droids?"
1. Purchasing

First steps first. How to you buy a droid? There are a couple ways to do it. Before you do, make sure you have free inventory space, and always buy batteries. Also, untamed droids come in the form of "deeds", just like factories or houses. These deeds just mean the droids have never been used before -- they're untouched by human... er, wookie? hands. Deeds appear in inventory, droids (or more precisely, the droid control devices) appear in your datapad.

-Purchase from vendor: Using the vendors or bazaar should be pretty obvious by now (if it ever works, that is). You can usually find some pretty good deals here. Unfortunately, you can also find some really expensive lemons. After clicking "Bid on Item" make sure you look in the "Available Items" section, as your droid deed should be ready for pickup here. Sometimes, you've actually purchased from a vendor in someone's shop -- in this case, you'll receive a waypoint in your datapad. Run to the shop and pick up your new friend. When looking on the Bazaar, droids now appear in the Droids/Droid Deeds category.

-Purchase from seller: Many people prefer this method because you get to look the seller in the (virtual) eye. You can also sometimes ask for deals, and almost always get a free battery or two. After agreeing to a price, make sure you double click on the person, and type in the number of credits you owe. Click OK, and the droid should pop into your inventory or datapad. Always also ask if you may later upgrade the droid for a cheaper model -- it's good to have a trusted supplier. If all your credits are in the bank and you don't have enough with you, you can always /tip yak 4000 bank. Go ahead and type that now to see if it works. Heh heh. Watch out, though -- there is a 5% surcharge. You also are supposed to be able to sell pre-called droids in Secure Trade, but the buyer won't actually see them in the window.

-Transfer from someone: A friend or seller can transfer ownership of a trained droid to you. Trained droids (their control devices, actually) appear in your datapad, not your inventory. They need to call the droid out of their datapad, click on you, then say the "transfer" command. They won't get a popup confirmation, it'll just appear in your datapad (if it isn't already full), no questions asked.

-Make one yourself!: More on this later

You've just purchased your first metallic companion. It's hard, cold and has a stupid name. Let's fix that now.


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"I bought my first droid, now what?"
2. Naming

Once you have your droid, it'll either appear in your inventory as a droid deed or in your datapad. Once you tame the droid for the first time, it'll will no longer be a deed. Every time you store the droid (or wander away, or board a shuttle or get killed), it returns to your datapad.

If you have a droid deed, let's tame it. Go into your inventory, and click on the deed icon. Hold down the mouse button until a radial menu pops up and choose the "Tame" option. You can do this anyplace, you don't have to be in a safe zone. The droid will appear next to you.

If the droid is in your datapad you can only call it in a town, a camp, a public building or a building that you have admin rights to.

You can check a droids stats and see what modules it has be Examining the deed or item in the inventory or datapad.

Once your droid is next to you, let's name it. We name a droid by programming it with four different commands that each start with its name. Let's program our droid to Follow, Guard, Group, Pivot and Patrol.

1. Click on your droid. Hold down the left button and select the "Program" option.
2. Choose the "Follow Me" command from the submenu.
3. The droid will respond with a query to let you know it's ready to be programmed. If the droid has no personality chip it will say "?"
4. The next chat message you say will be the command memorized. Type "Sandra come". Watch out - commands and names are case sensitive.
5. Do steps 1-4 for Guard, Group, Pivot Point and Patrol.
"Sandra guard"
"Sandra group"
"Sandra point"
"Sandra patrol"
- Usually, after the fourth command, the name about your droids head will change to read "Sandra"
Note - Don't program transfer or release unless you read the section below. Don't click Dismiss, either! These commands are dangerous..... read on to know why
Note - The same name filter as SWG uses is in effect -- you can't use numbers or spaces.
Note - You can only have one droid called out at one time, and only five in your datapad.
Note - Droids with Personality Modules that you can converse with currently cannot be named.

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"What kind of droids do you sell?"
3. Chassis types

There are currently thirteen main droid body types. For the most part, a basic body type can hold one module while an advanced body type can hold two general purpose and one defense module. There are no huge functional differences between the droid body-types. They primarily look cool. Some of the advanced modules are functional and pretty useful, though the modules covered in the next section give real meaning to the DE profession. Remember that you can only have one droid called out at a time, and five three in your datapad (or five if you're a Droid Engineer).

R-series Astromechs currently allow you to put in a Personality chip, though the devs have said they're going to be removing these during the upcoming Big Patch. So, don't even stick one in, as your droid will still only say "?" and "!"

MSE Droid (Requires Novice Droid Engineer, 68 resources)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module
- Repair module does not work on this droid
MSE Droid, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 1, 111 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip
- Repair module does not work on this droid

DZ70 Droid (Requires Blueprints 1, 193 resources)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module
- Weakest Combat droid. Does approx. 20-30 damage/sec, has 45 health and action points
DZ70 Droid, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 2, 165 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip
- Weakest Combat droid. Does approx. 20-30 damage/sec, has 45 health and action pools, armor greatly improves effectiveness

R5 Droid (Requires Blueprints 1, 376 resources)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module
R5 Droid, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 2, 373 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip

WED Treadwell Droid (Requires Blueprints 1, 131 resources)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module
WED Treadwell, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 2, 208 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip

Power Droid (Requires Blueprints 2, 2647 resources)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module
- Requires a Power Core (built by an Architect with Buildings I)
- It is unverified whether aA Repair module on a power droid does NOT work (or needs to be used with a default command setting)
Power Droid, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 3, 2684 resources)
- Requires a Power Core (built by an Architect with Buildings I)
- It is unverified whether a Repair module on a power droid does NOT work (or needs to be used with a default command setting)
- A Repair module on a power droid does NOT work

R4 Droid (Requires Blueprints 2, 393 resources)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module
R4 Droid, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 3, 432 resources)
- Can be built with 3 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip

LE Repair Droid (Requires Blueprints 3, 400 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip
- Can not be built with any modules
- This droid DOES NOT aAutomatically Ffunction as though built with a Droid Repair Module
- To use, call the droid, click on a friend's damaged droid (that has Health or Action black-bar wounds) and hold down your mouse to click the "Repair" option
- This droid cannot be named due to a bug
LE Repair Droid, Adv. Model (Requires Blueprints 4, 719 resources)
- This droid DOES NOT automatically function as though built with a Droid Repair Module
- Automatically Function as though built with a Droid Repair Module
- To use, call the droid, click on a friend's damaged droid (that has Health or Action black-bar wounds) and hold down your mouse to click the "Repair" option
- An additional repair module put on the droid causes it to not work
- This droid cannot be named due to a bug
- The advanced frame for this droid can be colorized, but that customization wears off in 20 uses
- Item Storage modules do not seem to work in these (untested)

Surgical Droid (Requires Blueprints 3, 660 resources and can take a Personality Chip)
- Can be built with 1 General Use Module and a Personality Chip
- Automatically Functions as though built with a Level VI Medical Healing Module
- Surgical droids are supposed to slowly heal everyone close by after the next Big Patch
- They currently DO NOT function as though they have a medical module, it must be added.
Surgical Droid, Adv Model (Requires Blueprints 4, and can take a Personality Chipunknown resources)
- Automatically Functions as though built with a Level VI Medical Healing Module
- Surgical droids are supposed to slowly heal everyone close by after the next Big Patch
- They currently DO NOT function as though they have a medical module, it must be added.
- Surgical droids can take a socket module, which allows three additional modules to be installed
- The advanced frame for this droid can be colorized, but that customization wears off in 20 uses
- Item Storage modules do not seem to work in these (untested)

R2 Droid (Requires Blueprints 3, 927 resources)
- Can only be built with 1 General UseSocket Module (not a general module), 1 Armor Module
R2 Droid, Advanced Model (Requires Blueprints 4, 1246 resources)
- Adv R2s can take a socket module, which allows three additional modules to be installed
- The advanced frame for this droid can be colorized, but that customization wears off in 20 uses

Probot (Requires Blueprints 3, 450 resources)
- Can be built with 1 Armor Module
- Has a base 24% resistance to all
- Combat droid. Has 1.5 attack speed, at 50 - 55 damage. Has 810 HAM
- Some pre-nerf Probots exist from before 22 July - these have 3150 HAM pools
Probot, Adv. Model (Requires Blueprints 4, 808 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 2 Armor Module and a Personality Chip
- Has a base 24% resistance to all
- Combat droid. Has 1.5 attack speed, at 50 - 55 damage. Has 810 HAM
- The advanced frame for this droid can be colorized, but that customization wears off in 20 uses
- Some pre-nerf Adv Probots exist from before 22 July and have 3150 HAM pools and 120-130 damage
- Armor is maxed at Medium Armor with 40% resistance (can be achieved with 2 level 4 plates)

R3 Droid (Requires Blueprints 4, 1218 resources)
- R3s can take a socket module, which allows three additional modules to be installed
R3 Droid, adv. Model (Requires Master Droid Engineer, 1537 resources)
- R3s can take a socket module, which allows three additional modules to be installed
- The advanced frame for this droid can be colorized, but that customization wears off in 20 uses

Protocol Droid (Requires Blueprints 4, 719 resources)
- Can only be built with a Personality Chip
Protocol Droid, Adv Model (Requires Blueprints 4, 1038 resources)
- Can be built with 2 General Use Modules, 1 Armor Module and a Personality Chip
- The advanced frame for this droid can be colorized, but that customization wears off in 20 uses

Binary Load Lifter Droid (Requires Blueprints 4, 3117 resources)
- Can take 1 armor slot
Binary Load Lifter Droid, Adv. Model (Requires Master Droid Engineer, 3397 resources)
- Can be built with 3 Armor Modules(!) and a Personality Chip

Bounty Hunter Probe Droid (Requires Blueprints 2, 172 resources)
- Used by Bounty Hunters to improve their bounty payoffs
- Were temporarily sold for 200 credits at the beginning of SWG until DEs could provide
Bounty Hunter Seeker Droid (Requires Blueprints 3, 173 resources)
- Used by Bounty Hunters to improve their bounty payoffs
- Were temporarily sold for 1000 credits at the beginning of SWG until DEs could provide


Note: When building droids (or anything, for that matter), you can use different resources to drastically increase the quality of your products. If you open your datapad, and look at the schematic for what you want to make, it lists the subcomponents, and which attributes of resources it looks for. So, if a Droid Brain asks for 100% Resist Decay, then a chemical with a 999 1000 Decay Resistance would be the very best thing you could put in that slot. So many people overlook this...Currently, it does not seem to make any real difference using experimentation or resource qualities, especially in subcomponents. When this is fixed it will become very important.


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"What options does this sucker have?"
4. Functions of Modules

Modules add functionality to droids. These pieces are the most important (and most commonly overlooked) parts a droid can have. Modules must be used when droids are created -- they can't be added later. You can't upgrade modules after a droid was built. Come buy a new one!

There are three categories of modules:
Armor (Droid Defensive) Modules:
These add protective armor plating onto droids. Some advanced droids (the Adv. Probot) can hold two separate armor modules. These make a huge difference in combat, and can really extend the life of your droid.
- Level I (Requires Droid Engineer Novice, 43 resources): Light Armor, 15% resistance
- Level II (Requires Droid Construction 1, 58 resources): Light Armor, 40% resistance
- Level III (Requires Droid Construction 2, 72 resources): Medium Armor, 15% resistance
- Level IV (Requires Droid Construction 3, 92 resources): Medium Armor, 40% resistance
- Level V (Requires Droid Construction 4, 100 resources): Requires 1 Composite Armor Segment from an Armorsmith with Personal Armor IV. Heavy Armor, 15% resistance
- Level VI (Requires Master Droid Engineer, 125 resources): Requires 1 Composite Armor Segment from an Armorsmith with Personal Armor IV. Heavy Armor, 40% resistance
Note: Armor makes all the difference in extending a droid during combat. Advanced Probots are maxed at a Medium 40% rating.

We are still trying to figure out exactly how it works, but it seems:
For every 100 points of damage, a droid receives: 100 * .5^ArmLevel * (100-resistance)/100
- Light 15% = 100 *.5^1 * (100-15)/100 = 42.5
- Light 40% = 100 *.5^1 * (100-40)/100 = 30
- Medium 15% = 100 * .5^2 * (100-15)/100 = 21.25
- Medium 40% = 100 * .5^2 * (100-40)/100 = 15
- Heavy 15% = 100 * .5^3 * (100-15)/100 = 10.625
- Heavy 40% = 100 * .5^3 * (100-40)/100 = 7.5

So, an Advanced Probot with 2 level 4 armors would only take 600 damage out of 4000 delivered. Of course, this gets much more complicated when other resistances are factored in...

Personality Modules:
These allow speaking droids to respond to commands with comments. Sometimes, your droid will spout of interesting quips, especially in the middle of combat. Without a personality module, droids respond with the default "?" and "!" prompts. You can always look at your droids statistics in your datapad to see what personality module it has installed. You cannot upgrade personality modules (or any other modules). Because they require GP Electronics chips and Memory modules that can only be made by Master Artisans, they can be expensive. If you are going to make these and are not a Master Artisan, I strongly recommend buying crates of GP and EMM modules from a MA with a factory. If you have a factory, a MA can also make you a schematic for them (though they have to put schematics on a vendor to sell, as a bug prevents them from being traded between players). Do not use the DISMISS option with conversing droids -- they'll be permanently dismissed and disappear!

- Stupid Base Droid Personality Module: (Requires Novice Droid Engineer, 43 resources)
- Sarcastic Base Droid Personality Module: (Requires Droid Production 1, 82 resources)
- Prissy Base Droid Personality Module: (Requires Droid Production 2, 65 resources)
- Worshipful Base Droid Personality Module: (Requires Droid Production 3, 91 resources)
- Slang Base Droid Personality Module: (Requires Droid Production 4, 111 resources)
- Geeky Base Droid Personality Module: (Requires Master Droid Engineer, 131 resources)

General Modules:
There are nine types of general modules. These can all fit in the Optional Droid Service Module Harness slots found on most droid chassis.

-Crafting Modules function just like a private crafting station found in a home -- they allow people to craft items of any complexity from any location. They also allow crafters to experiment on their items to improve their qualities.
-- Weapons/Droid/General Item Crafting Module: (Requires Droid Production 1, 100 resources)
-- Food/Medicine Crafting Module: (Requires Droid Construction 2, 100 resources)
-- Clothing/Armor Crafting Module: (Requires Droid Construction 3, 85 resources)
-- Structural Crafting Module: (Requires Droid Production 4, 85 resources)

-Assistance Modules allow three different types of special functionality. Each can be between Level I and Level VI, with higher levels improving quality of use:
-- Item Storage Modules: Holds additional items. Will keep storing inventory when droid disappears, wanders away, or is stored. Droids cannot store very much, and seem to be maxed out at holding 10 items each. Level I storage will allow a droid to store 1 item. Level 4 allows 6 items. They can be stacked, so two Level 3s hold 10 items. All pre-August 13 made storage modules don't seem to work anymore. There's also another bug that prevents anyone from crafting level II storage modules.
-- Data Storage Modules: Holds additional schematics, droids or pets. Can no longer hold extra missions (that was nice while it lasted!) or waypoints. Doesn't seem to work on Surgical, Protocol or LE Repair droids.
-- Medical Modules: These do not heal! They allow medics to tend wounds and heal as though they were in a Medical center. It appears that the quality rating of the module is the % of what is achieved in a medical center. So, a Level III module (around quality 50%) will let medics tend wounds half the amount as in a medical center. Level VI modules allow 110% of normal healing rates. These modules are now bugged so that ALL healing receives the modifier when these droids are around, so even stimpacks will be reduced to half effectiveness. Store the droid when you use stimpacks until this is fixed.

-Miscellaneous modules:
-- General Droid Module Socket Cluster: (Requires Droid Production 3, 66 resources): This module allows you to place three modules into a special slot on an R2 or R3, allowing a total of up to 5 modules. the slot normally taken by one. This way, droids that normally had two module slots can potentially have six. It currently is bugged, and will fit in EVERY module slot (including another socket module), allowing any droid that can hold modules to hold every possible module. Modules used in socket droids seem to only intermittently work.

-- Droid Repair Module: (Requires Droid Construction 2, 81 resources): This module allows your droid to repair Health and Action wounds in other droids. These wounds show up as black bars in the droids status area. Click on the damaged droid, hold down the mouse and select the "Repair" option. This command usually does not work the first time given.... But it usually seems to kicks in the second or third time. These do not seem to work in Socket Module slots.


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"How do I make it work?"
5. Commands and programming

Beware of the Release and Transfer commands! These are dangerous, and have accidentally lost many droids!

To program a command into your droid, you need to select the Program option and choose each command and program it individually. To later give the command, just type it into the chat box. Your commands are not saved until the droid is stored into your datapad, so do that after you change every command.

1. Click on your droid. Hold down the left button and select the "Program" option.
2. Choose the "Follow Me" command from the submenu.
3. The droid will respond with a query to let you know it's ready to be programmed. If the droid has no personality chip it will say "?"
4. The next chat message you say will be the command memorized. Type "Sandra come". Watch out - commands and names are case sensitive.
5. Do steps 1-4 for Guard, Group, Get Patrol Point and Patrol.
"Sandra guard"
"Sandra group"
"Sandra point"
"Sandra patrol"
- Usually, after the fourth command, the name about your droids head will change to read "Sandra"

If your droid has a name that you don't like, just reprogram all the commands that it has stored with ones using the new name.

Command notes: Most of the commands are pretty obvious. These ones aren't:
- Release - This removes the droids restraining bolt and sets it free. The droids will "poof" and disappear when released. There is no way to undo this command. Many suggest programming this to be "Sandra ReLeAsE" or something difficult, so you won't accidently type it.
- Transfer - This transfers ownership of your droid to whomever you have targeted. As soon as you do this, the droid will appear in their datapad. There is no way to get this back. You can only have 35 droids in your datapad at once (Droid Engineers can hold 5), so if their pad is full, they can't receive it. Many suggest programming this to be "Sandra TrAnSfEr" or something difficult, so you won't accidently type it.
- Dismiss - (only shows with droids having personality modules) - This is the same as the release command. Don't use it!
- Guard - This command will tell the droid to guard the person it is currently following. If you just give the command, it will not guard you. You must give it the "follow me" command first.
- Get Patrol Point - This tells the droid to store a pivot point in it's memory -- it can hold up to 10 patrol points. When you give it the patrol command, it will continuously walk between all the of these points.
- Patrol - Repeatedly walk between the above points until you tell it to stop or it dies. I'm had it keep patrolling, even when 2 kilometers away.
- Stay - This tells a droid to sit and wait for your return. If you cross server boundaries and don't return for some time, the droid will become attackable and no longer respond to your commands. This is called "going red"

-Notes on patrolling: After you set your droid to patrol, it will continuously walk between all of the patrol points even if you are not in the area. I've tried it up to 2000m away and being in a different city, and the droid keeps on going... and going... If you set patrol points inside buildings, the droid will sometimes warp between the points if it can't find the route to go, so you can sometimes have droids appearing in your living room then upstairs bedroom. It can even go into buildings that you've been later banned from -- there is nothing the owner can do to make it leave until the server reboots. When placing patrol points, the queue will continually accept points until you make the droid move by following someone. Thus, if you tell it to follow you, then give it a point, then move 100m and give it a new point, it will only remember the last point. You can, however, give it new points once it's patrolling. You can give it points from up to 50 m away, so you can theoretically set your droid to patrol for 500m. This combined with a creative name can result in some great advertising.

-Shuttles: If you get on a shuttle with your droid out, the droid will stay behind, and sometimes turn red as though you had released him. Don't do this unless you want to buy a new droid.
- Naming: Four different commands with the droids name as the first word in the command will teach the droid its name. Immediately store and re-call your droid after it learns its name.
- Case sensitive: Names and commands are case sensitive. Names can be up to 25 characters long, and cannot contain numbers or special characters. "BuyAvianHighQualityWares" is valid, while "Buy_Avian-It's_the_best!" is not.


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"How do they fight?"
6. Battlebots

First thing to know - there is a high chance that droids will be permanently destroyed when incapacitated. There is a chance that they'll only be wounded, and incur black-bar damage that must be fixed with a repair tool.

Dead droids leave corpses that have a Loot option, though no items can be looted from these droids, even if you were grouped with it.

Droids now immediately disappear when released or dismissed, so watch out!

Droids currently regenerate at the same rate as creatures -- so 5 HAM point ever 20 seconds. This means it'll take 50 minutes to completely heal itself.

Probot blaster firing now works, and looks cool.

Combat droids can now attack lairs and POI structures, so are now more useful during missions.

An advanced Probot with 2 level IV armor modules is now about as strong as a Peko Peko.

Probots are excellent long-range combat support. They should no longer "tank" a monster all by themselves. Instead, they are perfect when you also have a strong pet to attack along with, while you're shooting the monster yourself.

Remember that all damage your droid or creature does is less combat XP you get. You also get group combat XP when you're grouped with your droid.


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"How much do they cost?"
7. Resources and costs

It's very difficult to set a pricing scheme, as economies differ greatly between servers. The rule of thumb is to charge whatever people will pay. I would recommend something like below. Whatever you charge, have a set amount and put it in your Character's bio. When people ask for droids, just tell them to examine your bio to see your prices. Put in a quick blurb about how to use them (or where to find this guide) and you'll save yourself hours of explaining.

I'd base a formula you use on something like this. Of course, find your own price and adjust to the market you're in:

ResourceBase on Chilastra seems to be about 5.
LevelModifier is up to you, but between 1 and 6, based on difficulty.

Price per piece = (#Resources * (ResourceBase + Level Modufier))

Remember that you really wont be making any good money until you hit Blue Prints 4, so you have to increases your prices to help pay for the hundreds of thousands of resources you will need. Also remember that medical droids can sometimes sell for more than combat droids...

Do not get sucked into the trap of selling too low just because you need cash!! Of course you want to make sure you have the deal, but most customers are willing to pay more for a droid than you think. If they don't have the money, ask them to pay half now and owe you half... or ask for resources as payment. If you sell too low, you are screwing every future sale you make and every other Droid Engineer on the market. Probots selling for 3k is just outrageous and completely unbalances the economy. We are one of the key professions needed to build quality goods. If you are only selling to defray the costs of grinding, you're making a big mistake. /endRant

For a one-page printable resource guide, I've put together a Microsoft Excel list at:
http://www.crossler.com/swg/droid_resources.xls

For screenshots for those who don't have MS Excel, they're at:
http://www.crossler.com/swg/droids.gif


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"How do I get materials and stuff?" - 8. Factories and Harvesters

-For a full list of buildings and furniture, as well as upkeep requirements, look at:
http://www.swgarchitect.com/pages/5/index.htm

- Factories:
To find advanced components (Electronic Memory Modules, GP Modules, Control Modules and Sensor Suites), you need the services of a Master Artisan. If you are not a Master Artisan yourself (what, you want to do something in SWG other than crafting?!), you can hire one to make you components.
You also have the option to hire a Master Artisan, provided you have a factory you can use...Ask the Master Artisan to make you a Schematic of each chip, using the materials you provide. Then you can run the chips in your factory.

If you are going to operate your own factory (which I highly recommend), be aware that it will be time consuming and slightly troublesome to operate. Factories give you 10% of the XP you would normally get from producing items, but they can return up to 25 identical items in a crate that only takes up 1 volume (all crates made before August 15 take up 5 volume). Having a crate of manipulator arms and advanced motivators is MUCH nicer than making them from scratch each time. Droids pop out in crates of 5 each.

The biggest reason Droid Engineers need a factory is for making the factory-crated identical Advanced Droid Brains for R3 and Advanced R3 units. These Advanced Brains take 4 identical Memory Modules and 4 identical GP modules from other crates.

Notes on factories:
- After making an item, you can choose to make a factory schematic rather that Experimenting or Creating a prototype. When you do this, a schematic immediately pops into your datapad (if you have room). You can look at the schematic to see what resources are needed to use with it, but You will always need the EXACT same resources when you use the schematic in a factory. If you used Nawe Copper for a Metal requirement, you still must use Nawe copper from then on with that schematic.
- Factories need money and energy upkeep paid, just like harvesters. You need to deposit 1200 credits and 1200 energy units in every day
- A factory input hopper has a volume of 100, just like a bank. You can store any item in here, not just the ones you use for your schematics. This is a great place to store all those extra resources you're carrying around, just don't forget to pay the maintenance!!
- Items created are dropped in the factory output hopper. Once you take crates out of the output hopper, you cannot put them back in.
- You can stop a factory at any time to see it's progress, but this wastes all the time spent on the current item. You can also watch how many resources were put in the input hopper and how many are left. If you stop a run, you can look in the hopper and count the items in the crates, and then restart the hopper to have it keep adding to the crate. A crate can only have 25 of each item in it.
- It appears that factories take (complexity of item) * (number of components) seconds to complete each item. Thus, an advanced brain takes (25) * (8) = 400 seconds to complete
- You will receive an in-game email when crafting is completed or is halted from inadequate resources
- Sometimes it seems a factory gets stuck if you are using crates as subcomponents to make larger items (like Adv Brains). Just stop the factory, take all crates out, and drop in only the ones needed that have a high enough quantity to supply the schematic
- A crate of 25 advanced droid brains is a beautiful thing, indeed

- Harvesters:
You should be pretty familiar with harvesters if you are already a Droid Engineer. If not, you're doing something wrong. Because of the costs to re-deed a personal harvester, it's usually cheaper to just make a new one and destroy the current one when a resource runs out. Always try to get a few medium harvesters and solar generators if you can, and watch the minerals to make sure they don't shift. Keep them well stocked with credits and power in case you can't log in for a day. Power and maintenance only reduce when the servers are actually running, so if a server is down for 2 hours, you have two hours grace time to replenish them.

There are three ways to power your harvesters or factories (The following paragraphs are taken from Arkalius's post at http://dynamic6.gamespy.com/~swgcraft/f ... php?t=2514 )

There are 3 types of power generators, and hence, 3 types of power. There is wind power (found with the wind current surveying tool), solar power (found with the ambient solar energy tool) and radioactive power (found with the mineral survey tool). First, some Q&A

Q) Which kind of power is the best?
A) Each power type is created equal. They all work the same and their stats have no effect on how "powerful" they are

Q) Can I use petrochem fuel/reactive gas/other resource that sounds like a power source as power?
A) No. If it's not wind energy, solar energy, or radioactives, then it can't be used as power.

Q) Do I have to use the same kind of power all the time in my harvesters?
A) No, you can mix and match power types. Harvesters don't remember the kind of power you put in them, only the amount

Q) Can I sample power?
A) You can sample radioactives (it's a mineral), but you can't sample wind or solar energy.

Here are some stats on power generator buildings.

--Wind Power Generator**
Maintanance rate: 30cr/30mins, 1440cr/day
Power consumption: 0
Lots: 1
Footprint: 3x3
Spec rate: 5kg/hr (5units/min)
# of personal harvesters powered: 12
Days before hopper fills up: 2.89 (2 days, 21 hours)
Skill required to make: Engineering 3 (Artisan)
Total resources required to make: 260
Approximate cost to buy: 500 - 2,000 credits

--Solar Power Generator**
Maintanance rate: 30cr/30mins, 1440cr/day
Power consumption: 0
Lots: 1
Footprint: 3x3
Spec rate: 8kg/hr (8units/min)
# of personal harvesters powered: 19.2
Days before hopper fills up: 4.34 (4 days, 8 hours)
Skill required to make: Installations 2 (Architect)
Total resources required to make: 4,430
Approximate cost to buy: 10,000 - 25,000 credits

--Fusion Power Generator**
Maintanance rate: 30cr/30mins, 1440cr/day
Power consumption: 0
Lots: 1
Footprint: 3x5 (I think)
Spec rate: 13kg/hr (13units/min)
# of personal harvesters powered: 31.2
Days before hopper fills up: 5.34 (5 days, 8 hours)
Skill required to make: Installations 4 (Architect)
Total resources required to make: 26,065 (requires factory-


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"Suggestions for new DEs? What are the best things to grind?"
978. Notes and Hints

- This profession needs a TON of resources! You'll need about 610,000 resources to make Master Droid Engineer. Get at least two energy harvesters (start with wind and move to solar as soon as you can) and eight mineral harvesters (start with personal, and move up to mediums as you can afford it). Try to harvest steel if possible, but you can grind with almost any metal. Also find a good cache of fiberplast.

- If you choose to make Master Artisan, it will help in building the more advanced products. I chose to just buy crates of memory modules and GP modules from a MA friend. Always get resources in crates when possible -- your inventory will soon start swelling.

- Make 700 MSE droids, and always use the practice command. This is the profession of grinding. If you can knock out 200 a day, you'll level every few days. Remember that it's a slow climb! If you have the resources, move up to manipulator arms and Adv Droid frames. There are macro guides on www.swgcraft.com that will save you hours of time by automatically loading schematics into crafting tools for you.

- Don't experiment when grinding! It's not worth the time. Drink beer (if you're legal). It helps.

- Read the www.swgcraft.com bulletin board on Droid Engineering. This seems to be the central place where intelligent crafters gather.

- Don't forget about modules!! They are what give droids functionality. Without them, your droids are just pretty.

- If you can't make the higher-level modules, find a Droid Engineer who can and buy them from her. You can use these to sell more droids to get some cash. You'll spend a LOT more time traveling and picking up pieces, but that's also good, as it will help you find new markets and establish customers.

- Skill modules are special pieces of cloth made by Bio Engineers or skill attachments dropped by mobs (many on Tantooine, I've noticed). They give bonuses between -1 and +4 to a skill. A skilled tailor can sometimes make clothing or armor that is socketed and can hold up to four skill modifiers. Thus, each piece of clothing (I think there are 9) can potentially give you 16 bonus skill points. Droid Engineers only have 4 droid skills: Droid Assembly, Droid Experimentation, Droid Complexity and Droid Customization. All the other ones are Bounty Hunter skills. Skill attachments are commonly sold on the bazaar.

- Check the value of your crafting stations - they range from -15% to +15%, which affects the chances of having a critical failure when crafting. Come buy +14% crafting stations from us if you need them.

- Always load crafting tools in your toolbars slots. It makes crafting much faster. You can also make a macro to preload your crafting tools with a schematic (see www.swgcraft.com for more info), which saves even more time -- you should be able to get 6 stations working at the same time this way.

- If you ever start getting an error saying that you can't craft, check your hopper or type /stopcrafting. This way, you don't have to relog.


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"My droid doesn't work! Is this a bug?"
10. Current droid and Droid Engineer problems

Here are the current ones top bug fix requests copied from the Official SWG Site's Official DE Correspondent's (Sintrosi) 's threads: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/boar ... d_engineer http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/boar ... ge.id=7560

Some of these have been repaired. The DE community is still determining which ones need further work (a lot of them still do...)

Droid Engineering Report July 27,2003
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/boar ... ge.id=7121
1.) Droid uniqueness and usefullness.
2.) Working Modules.
3.)UXP and Experience to Master DE should be looked at.
4.) More viable (combat) droids at different levels.
5.) Droid repairing/ Repair module/ Droid permadeath.
Experimentation and Material quality are broken.

Droid Engineer Report August 4th, 2003
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/boar ... ge.id=9662
1.) More than one droid out at a time.
2.) Redo the skill tree, adding new blueprints .. modules..etc.
3.) Droid decay and more reasons to have a customer return to us.
4.) Remove Bounty Hunter droids from vendors.
5.) Droids only a DE can use.
Deeds.

OFFICIAL picklist for week ending August 8th, 2003
These have not yet been prioritized to request fixes for:
- World persistence of droids.
- Power level indicator on droids (Displayed on screen)
- Droid selling at the bazaar.
- Droid user manual in the holycron so we can curb the questions.
- Droid names.
- DE specs need better descriptions
- Recharging Droids:
- Warning message for "Dismiss" command.
- Droid pathing and following. The droid stops at server boundaries.
- Information in datapad about droids displays wrong until you store droid.
- No graphics for Probot attacks.
- Item Storage module 2's come out as Data storage 2's when hopper finished.
- Storing the droid causes all loss of items on an Item storage droid.
- Droids dragged from the datapad to the secure trade window are invisible.
- Droid repair kits do not work properly.
- Multiple crafting stations in some droids breaks the modules.
- Droid does not travel with you when you take the shuttle.
- More than one crafting module in a droid seems to break all modules. Also related, modules in Socket clusters working is hit and miss. The Advanced Protocol droid takes 2 Socket module clusters (And is supposed to) but no modules then work.


- Droid Uniqueness and usefulness.
- Working modules and additional modules.
- UXP and a scrutinized look at XP in general.
- More viable combat droids at different levels.
- Repairing a droid is not possible (white bar).
- Expirimentation is broken.
- Droid decay and more reasons to have a customer return to us
- World persistence of droids instead of "pokemon" droids.
- More than one droid out at a time.
- Power level indicator on droids (Displayed on screen)
- Remove Bounty Hunter droids from vendors.
- Droid pathing and following. They stop sometimes for no reason.
- Droids only a DE can use
- Droid selling at the bazaar (increase limit and give us our own header)
- Redo the skill tree, adding new blueprints, modules.. etc.
- Droid user manual in the holycron so we can curb the questions.
- Languages so protocol droids will be more useful.
- Droid names use standard naming filter. We want numbers in the name.
- Information in datapad about droids displays wrong until you store droid.
- No graphics for Probot attacks.
- Item Storage module 2's come out as Data storage 2's when hopper finished.
- Storing the droid causes all loss of items on an Item storage droid.
- Droids dragged from the datapad to the secure trade window are invisible.
- Droid repair kits do not work properly.
- Multiple crafting stations in some droids breaks the modules.
- Droid does not travel with you when you take the shuttle. It stays behind and -sometimes goes red.
- Datapad and deed should show which modules and options are installed.
- Allow us to drop batteries into droid storage and have it recharge itself.


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OK, that's it for the Yak. If you're interested in buying a droid, Look up Avain Technology and Trade on the Chilastra server... we have over 50 shops in Avian City, located at 1000x1500 -- south of Keren on Naboo. Or, visit our website at http://www.swg-avian.net/ for updates to this guide and many other crafting tips and tricks.

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--The Hermit