Looking through Special Modifications at the Droid crafting rules, I was struck that there seems to be very limited variation in terms of what a droid can be created to do in terms of programming (and to a lesser degree, construction):

The current list of directives (and their respective droid degree) are:

Labor (5th degree)

Combat (4th degree)

Translation (3rd degree)

Repair (2nd degree)

Navigation (2nd degree)

Healing (1st degree)

Elimination (4th degree)

Unfortunately with these directives and their associated skills, a PC Technician couldn't build a custom Astromech droid that has all the same skills as a stock Astromech droid, never mind having those skills at the same level. The same applies to other types of 2nd degree droids.

Similarly, while a variant of a 3rd degree Protocol droid could be created, the directive doesn't really lend itself creating other types of 3rd degree droids.

The Healing directive does a decent job of covering the Medical portfolio of 1st degree droids, but doesn't really lend itself to building science or analysis droids.

With that in mind, I'm considering what other types of programming directives would be applicable and also balanced. Does anyone have similar thoughts or ideas?

With that in mind, I'm considering what other types of programming directives would be applicable and also balanced. Does anyone have similar thoughts or ideas?

A couple come to mind:

Instruction (1)

Service (2)

Looking at page 46 of the Core Rulebook, here are some other options for the various classes.

Class one: Research assistants, odds calculators

Clas two: You got pretty much everything

Class three: Teacher, greeter

Class four: Security, drill sergeant

Class five: Sanitation, guide (mouse droid), load lifter

The crafting directives wouldn't be too difficult to make up for yourself.

These directives really only add skill ranks to certain skills.

Figure out what types of skills you think a directive should have, pick one, maybe two talents, and then assign a difficulty for the schematic.

If you're building an astromech, a specialist chassis with the navigational directives might work. If you're putting a lot of work into it, you might consider somehow adding the repair directives, and simply combine the skill ranks.

Doing so would net you a droid with 1/1/2/2/2/2 and computers 2, mechanics 2, and piloting space 1.

That's pretty excellent for a homemade astromech.

Edit: This is a narrative game, so I'm semi-lenient with the rules as a GM. If it follows the rule of cool, then I'll allow it if it doesn't seem unbalanced.

Right now I'm considering what would be an appropriate directive for some of the following types of droids:

2nd degree:

Slicer/computer security

Pilot/driver (different from navigation because this would emphasize Pilot-Planetary and not need Astrogation)

Gunnery a la Industrial Automaton's PG-5 (this might be more of a 4th degree though,

Salvage

1st degree

Mathematics/cryptographer

I'm sure more will come to me in time.

Also the fact the same book has guidelines for making cybernetics that boost skill and characteristics i cant see a reason those couldn't be made and fitted to a droid you constructed.

Also the fact the same book has guidelines for making cybernetics that boost skill and characteristics i cant see a reason those couldn't be made and fitted to a droid you constructed.

With the rules in Special Modifications, it makes it quite clear that certain cybernetic enhancements could be fitted to a droid. IIRC some are specifically designed for droids.

The main issue I have with the very limited programming directives from the book is that the Star Wars seems to be the sort of place where a droid exists to perform most functions for a living sentient, at least with some direction or oversight. With the available directives, they are much more limited in terms of what they can do, and even then couldn't be used to replicate one of the 'stock' droids from the Core books. I can understand not being able to make an advanced specialty droid like an R7 from Stay on Target, but a decent tech should be able to at least make a bog standard Astromech.

Any time there has been this feeling of lacking depth to this system so far it has been due to FFG holding back for another Supplement, I would expect there to be lots of compatibility with SM and the AoR Engineer book. They may have put out the more Edge droid options in this book, sticking to the theme, then keep the more Military droid designs for the Engineer book. They may fit droid creation into the FaD line as well, but i don't see the need except for in the Sentinel book.

We have quite a clear picture now of how they expect PC's to construct things, and we have rules for almost everything a PC could make, but we don't have rules for Vehicle construction. It would make sense to put the Vehicle making rules into the AoR Engineer book, and what goes well with Vehicles? R series droids... To me it just makes sense.

We have quite a clear picture now of how they expect PC's to construct things, and we have rules for almost everything a PC could make, but we don't have rules for Vehicle construction. It would make sense to put the Vehicle making rules into the AoR Engineer book, and what goes well with Vehicles? R series droids...

R-series astromech droids don't go well with Vehicles. They go well with everything. Except perhaps for medium-rare nerf steak. That goes better with Alderaanian wine, but I digress...

FFG also tends not to repeat specific rules, except for the Core rule books. Right now there are three different sets of rules for Crafting. Lightsabers appear in the FaD Gamemaster supplement, Armor in the FaD: Keeping the Peace, and now Weapons, Cybernetics, Gadgets and Droids in EotE: Special Modifications. I don't really see them including anything in the Engineer splatbook which would refer back to the rules in Special Modifications. If they have specific things for Astromechs, then they'd need to repeat the Droid crafting rules as well. Also even if they did include stuff specifically for Astromechs, that would still leave out a number of the very useful types of droids out that that PC's could be inclined to make.

Keep in mind that there are 5 droid degree classes, yet only 7 different directives, which means that while the different droid degrees might have several different categories each, a programming directive likely wouldn't be too close to a number of those categories.

True, but i get the impression that some of the rules from Stay on Target for riding and training beasts is going to be in the Savage Sprites book, thats probably going to give us more of an understanding. there is also the Base vs Business/Homestead rules that are same but different. I could be wrong for sure, but it would be a shame to not give more options later on. Hey it could even come in a Corporate Sector region book, who knows?

I have a similar question about this...

I have a Droid tech that wants to build a very simple medical assistant droid similar to the Medtech Mini-med droid (Far Horizons, p.49).

The thought was that this would be a Monotask Chassis but then what directive do we use.

The Healing Directives seem like overkill for what we're trying to do with this droid.

Is this a Healing Directive, or possibly a Labor directive due to it being Monotask.

Or can I make a call for something in between and still be within the boundaries of the rules?

I'd just design you own.

I've found so far that most rules in this system follow a simple enough pattern that adapting them to a different purpose is fairly straightforward, which agrees with the advice of most here. The only thing I have to add to this conversation is that both me and my PCs felt the programming rules as written were too boring, and that ALL droids should have some negative personality quirk. Therefore after resolving the programming check, we rolled on both the negative and positive quirks tables to give the droid a really fleshed out personality.