Droid Equipment Concepts

[CRMcNeill]

I've had some ideas bouncing around for equipment options for droids. Even though I haven't statted them yet, I want to get them out here for discussion. One of them plays a part in the X-Wing novel Isard's Revenge, but is a useful modification for a droid PC, so I'll just put it out there:

Restraining Bolt Bypass
This modification subtly reconfigures the hardware and software of a droid's restraining bolt port, allowing the droid to override commands issued by an attached bolt. The droid will still receive commands, and generally mimics the given command to present a semblance of function, but can otherwise act without limitation. This is best used carefully, as a droid ignoring its restraint bolt will quickly rouse suspicion, but can be very useful under the right circumstances. This feature is illegal for public use, but some military or security service droids (as well, as some Fringe-owned units) still make use of it.

Default Personality Module
This module replaces the droid's CPU with a more advanced unit with greater capacity, but contained in hardware physically identical to a stock CPU. The extra space is used to create two separate personalities, one of a stock, freshly mindwiped droid, with the other, more sophisticated personality concealed behind a data partition. Any data probe of the droid will reveal the basic, stock personality, allowing the droid's primary, concealed personality to avoid regular mindwiping.

Omni-Trans Enhanced Translation Module
This chest-mounted module drastically increases a protocol droid's ability to detect, interpret and respond to non-verbal forms of communication. It includes (among other things):
-A hologram projector that is used to project images for species that rely heavily on body language.
-A chemical analysis sniffer for detecting pheromone-based communication subtext.
-A Dedicated Energy Transceiver, for communicating with species that utilize energy-based communications, such as Gotals and Verpine.
The various systems built into the module provide a combined +2D bonus to Languages. Many of these systems also have other practical applications...

Just me rambling, but I'd like to see these fleshed out a little. Thoughts?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Whill]

I like all these ideas and am looking forward to what you come up with.
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[garhkal]

I could have sworn those first 2 already existed in one of the books, but looking i can't seem to find them.
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[Whill]

[garhkal]

That was the first book i looked in.. Then i looked in crackens field guide, then gundarks and galadiniums.. None have a mention of them..
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[Zarn]

The third one reminds me of the droid within a droid - Bollux and Blue Max. I suspect it would be useful for being a protocol droid for Lorrdians or Bothans.

I'm unsure about the Dedicated Energy Transceiver - Gotals tend to be overloaded when close to (poorly shielded) droids, and Verpine comms can be taken in through a specially tuned comlink. You do need some sort of enhanced sensors, though, in order to properly "read" the natives - for instance, if they have color-based subtext (or language!) that are flashed in something other than the Human visual spectrum.

How about ablative body panels, or perhaps a "decoy" shell of sorts? I.e. remove the autonomy of the "host" droid, wiring everything through a secondary droid of some kind - perhaps similar to Blue Max, or similar to the arachnid assassin droid swarm shown in Clone Wars?

Or, you could get a "species adaption" option, that re-shapes the chassis of the droid to be more pleasing towards a specific species. Adding controllable fur to a protocol droid for Bothans, or perhaps shielding it more and putting prosthetic "horns" on a Gotal-adapted droid, or re-tuning a comlink to work in the Verpine area. Sort of the opposite of the J9 Worker Drone design, essentially.

The droid prosthetic arm of Bao-Dur also opens up some interesting avenues of design. Can one have a (semi)autonomous design where modules hook up to each other using a similar design, making all sorts of shenanigans possible? (Guardians of the Galaxy had the Nova Corps interlocking fighters, for instance.)

Which in a roundabout way suggests droid leprosy. In MGS V: TPP, there's the "metallic archaea", which are archaea (the third domain of life) that eat and refine metals (and can do strange and wonderful things with that). If something like that started eating on a droid's chassis and internal components, you could have body parts of a droid just sort of ... drop off. And with the damage to the sensor network from the droid, it wouldn't necessarily notice.

In an extension to that, if you had a particularly nasty form of that, it might go after the droid's brain specifically, making it act in an uncharacteristic way, get seizures, or even become paranoid.

[Whill]

In the RAS, wasn't there an espionage protocol droid that had something similar to the Default Personality Module?
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[CRMcNeill]

[MrNexx]

I like 'em.
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