Droid Traitware

[Ninjaxenomorph]

My jawa engineer player is trying to build himself a HEAVILY modified ASP droid. Here is the stuff he wants to do with it:

1: Override the Life Preservation Programming (LPP). Cost = None. Caveat: I
want to make sure the LPP is in FULL effect for myself. Need to ensure my
own droid never tries to cap me.

2: Traitware Strength 10D. Cost: 1,500

3: Traitware Dex 3D. Cost: 750

4: Traitware Technical 4D. Cost 800

5: Traitware Perception 3D. Cost 1,050

6: Traitware Mechanical 3D. Cost 750

7: Traitware Knowledge 3D. Cost: 1,200

8: Locomotion: Legs. Speed 10. Cost: 1,000

9: Sensors. 2 types of targets (heat & power sources). Rating +5D. Cost:
1,500

10: Internal comlink. Cost: 100

11: Complex personality Matrix. Cost: 900. Note: He will be programmed to
still only respond Affirmative or Negative when others can witness.

Total Cost: 9,550.

Even though it is in the rules, I think 10D Strength on ANY droid that isn't the size of a walker is ridiculous. I don't object to the lifting capacity, but as a damage soak roll... and for so low a cost, even though it's within the rules! Any advice? I don't want to say 'No', and if I allow this, I'm sure it will be fun. It will be even more fun deploying stuff to deal with this. But it has potential to throw the entire party off balance. Any advice?

[Dromdarr_Alark]

I would say that if it tries to deal damage with that high strength, and it hasn't been reinforced with durasteel plating, then it should take damage as well (due to the components crumpling under their own force).
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"I still wouldn't have a roll for it - but that's just how I roll."

[shootingwomprats]

Daniel here.

How is it no cost to remove the droid's LPP? I'm also wondering how you will handle any botches to the installation process(each one needs a Droid Programming/Repair roll, I think).
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Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
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@swd6podcast, Twitter

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I don't believe there is a cost listed, it's just going in and fiddling with the droids brain. I am going to make him roll droid engineering or droid programming for each one, though.

[shootingwomprats]

What difficulties are you going with?

I'd recommend Difficult at least to remove the LPP as I think's pretty ingrained into a droid, then Very Hard to make it selective.
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[lurker]

[garhkal]

What book are you using to come up with these costs from?
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[shootingwomprats]

Well if he is modifying an existing droid I would say that first he would need to make some SERIOUS Engineer: Droid rolls. I would also tell him no on the 10D STR, that is just plain stupid. This sounds very familiar and I am betting I might know who the player is.

Okay now for advice.

To remove the LPP I would say it requires at least a Heroic [30+] Droid Programming roll. To make the changes he wants to the matrix (making it smarter, etc) I would have him make yet another Droid Programming roll and spend some additional credits.

Just as a suggestion, I would think a Very Hard [25] Droid Programming roll and if a 1 comes up on the Wild Die the matrix is destroyed. Cost of materials would be say ... 1,000 credits and requires at least 2 weeks of programming before he makes his roll.

Programming it to only respond "yes" or "no" when other people around should be easy enough, say Easy [10] Droid Programming.

I would say that an existing droid could have its STR modified by no more than +2D Strength. This could be considered reinforcement of the skeletal structure, heavy pistons, etc. Anything beyond that would be too cumbersome. You could use a rule that for every partial D above 2D there is a -1D Dexterity penalty and a further Movement -1 penalty to represent encumbrance and a bulked frame not originally designed for that much additional "stuff."

Why are all the Traits 3D or higher? I count 23D. You could tell him to make the droid based on 18D in traits since its essentially going to be an NPC companion.

If I am reading this correctly, he wants a droid that is above average in all traits except for Technical which would be pretty good as well with 4D and a Strength of 10D. Has he explained why the droid would have 10D in Strength?

Not sure but you may want to explain to your player that in the SWU droids are not really liked, especially in the Outer Rim areas and that droids are banned from having weapons. There could be serious legal and societal issues if the droid is caught with weapons, acting with the same rights as other sentients or attacked a sentient.

I don't know buddy. Just because the rules say you can do something doesn't mean you have to allow it. I think your player is an a-hole for even trying to float a turd of a droid with 10D Strength. Basically making it an indestructible killing machine that only follows his orders.
_________________
Don Diestler
Host, Shooting Womp Rats
The D6 Podcast
http://d6holocron.com/shootingwomprats
@swd6podcast, Twitter

[Raven Redstar]

There are rules for overriding life preservation programming on page 10, or maybe it's 11 of Cynabar's Fantastic Technology: Droids. I don't have my physical copy so I'm looking at an e-copy right now.

Depending on the degree type of droid, it has varying difficulties for the removal of a droid's LPP.

If the character is upgrading traitware on an existing droid, like the ASP which he is currently thinking, then installations are soft installs, which means they don't change the physical attributes of a droid. Hence, the 10D would be applicable only to skill checks, but not to attribute rolls (Like Soak or Damage output) Look on page 22/23 for Upgrading Traitware. Also, this means that if the droid starts getting out of hand, the Empire might be able to deploy some sort of remote wipe device which will delete all trait upgrades. The only way to get hard wired attributes is to build the chassis from scratch, or order from a manufacturer, and I can guarantee that no manufacturer is going to ship the little vermin an ASP chassis with 10D strength.

One way that you can balance out the costs of various traitware is to apply some of the skillware degree multipliers from the tables below. Also, each pip of traitware increase requires a separate roll, and failed rolls indicate the traitware is lost. In addition, there might be mark-ups because you need selective parts & programming after a certain level which are very hard to come by, and if they do manage to get found, they will be at immense mark-up.

If your player has issues or if you don't feel comfortable with the rules as they're presented, direct him to page 69 of the Revised and Expanded rulebook which states that any rule which doesn't fit with the GM's vision of the universe can be thrown out. You don't have to use the prices they give, these are just meant to be quick and dirty guidelines if a player wants to build a droid that is similar to another droid from scratch. Any blatant abuse of the rules shouldn't be allowed. Giving a player who has already double crossed other members of the group a droid that only answers to him and has a 10D damage output and soak is not going to end well. I would have the player arrested for trying to build a terror machine before it's finished, but that's just me.
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RR
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[Esoomian]

Honestly if someone tried to make a droid like this I'd go one of two ways.

1) limit all traitware improvements to 1D+2 max (which is the most you can modify hardware by default in the RAW) and then after that you essentially have to redesign the droid to go beyond it's maximum potential and go with droid engineering which is an advanced skill. In which case you wouldn't be modifying a droid at all you'd be creating a brand new type of droid with the asp droid as inspiration. Given you want the droid to have 23D of attributes I'd probably set the difficulty at 1 point for every dice up to 18D (PC level, difficulty 18 so far) then at three points for every dice above 18 so to get to 23 the difficulty becomes 41. Because he wants to create an entirely new droid with specially modified live preservation programming I'd probably add 3 points to the difficulty for every dice he is putting into the droid's knowledge stat because the 'smarter' a droid is and the more potential willpower it is the harder it will be to make it behave the way he wants. That adds another 12 to the difficulty so the difficulty is sitting at 53 now. I'd probably also add 2x 5 (for the two types of new perception that the droid has to process) to the difficulty for a total difficulty of 63. There are probably a few more things that I could think of before I'd come up with a final difficulty number but once I had I'd tell the player that number and note down that they wouldn't get to actually roll the dice until they had spent all the money and gone through the one month per point of difficulty build process (you're creating an entirely new droid here) that would require a fully equipped droid factory for at least half of the time. If they tried and failed then they'd get a prototype which would not be what they wanted but might be able to do some of what they wanted, unless of course they failed badly.

2) Let them try with the droid the way they want. Set a very high difficulty but don't tell them what it is. Regardless of what they roll on their rolls just tell the player "You're pretty sure you've succeeded but given the custom programming you're doing all the standard tools for testing droid programming aren't going to be able to tell you if it has worked. Then create a character sheet that they players will never see.
Some of the best memories I have from previous games have been when a plan I have had as a player has gone horribly right. Especially when it comes to things like creating robotic NPCs.
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[garhkal]

[Raven Redstar]

[garhkal]

Thanks.

As to the Traitware (hardwired), iirc you can only increase 1d+2 above base level. Its skill ware that can go much higher.
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Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[DougRed4]

[Ninjaxenomorph]

So I allowed it, and the problems did occur. What WILL happen is that the first time he rolls a 1 with it, servos are gonna be stripped and its gonna go down.