Are there rules anywhere for reprogramming droids?

If you just want to reprogram a droid for different loyalties, or maybe a different personality, I would think that might just be an opposed roll of Computers vs, the droid's Discipline. And then you end up with a droid who likes the Rebellion instead of the Empire.

If you want to "reprogram" a droid so its skills are better (to improve its prime directives), that might be a Computers check with the difficulty based on what you're trying to accomplish. Say, improving the droid's existing Ranged (Light) skill by 1 might be an Average difficulty. Adding Tricky Target to a pilot droid's repertoire might be a Hard difficulty check.

Adding a second pair of arms would be a Mechanics check to assemble, and then a Computers check to add the software that would allow the droid make proper use of those arms (the Additional Limbs benefit some species have).

But how does one reprogram a droid to perform a different job altogether? Do you use the droid crafting rules in Special Modifications?

What I'm thinking...

Step 1: Select Template. In this case, no matter what the droid was previously programmed for, you are selecting its new template.

Step 2: Acquire Materials. You have an existing droid. It is already acquired. But, how you got the droid, and what shape it is in, can certainly vary. It can cost money; it can cost adventure. Whatever.

Step 3: Chassis Construction. "But, Rich. The droid is already built. Why am I making this roll?" The droid chassis may already be built, but it may need repairs or you might need to rebuild it some for its new programming. Turning a protocol droid into an assassin droid might require giving its arms more flexibility or attaching blades to its fingers. Recycling the remains of a couple deactivated battle droids into the crew's new co-pilot droid might require some significant repair work. If you already have a droid-person that you are reprogramming, make the Mechanics check one difficulty easier for the intended new chassis.

Step 4: Program Directives. Here is where you are replacing the droid's old programming with the new. The check stands as it is in Table 3-9, but upgrade the difficulty a number of times equal to the droid's Willpower (or Intellect maybe?) because you are trying to overwrite old coding that you might find undesirable but that the droid sees as its core self. Add one or more Setback Dice if the new programming is vastly different from the old.

For the droidcrafter, reprogramming a droid instead of building a new one offers a benefit but at a cost. Acquiring materials and building the chassis is easier, unless you really have something more specific in mind such as building a protocol droid out of an IG-100 that you have yet to acquire. But then programming the new directives is more difficult.

Rogue One has definitely gotten me to thinking about these questions, but I don’t have any suggestions.

At least, not yet. I’ll have to digest your ideas and see if there are any improvements that I think need to be made.

Thanks!

I would suggest the following.

If you want to work on the chasis then consider using the base droid as materials to build a new droid and give the player a discount on the cost to build the new droid.

Build the new droid using the standard chasis rules in special modifications.

If you want to wipe a droid I think there is a lot of precedent for it, and I would let someone do it with a difficulty 3 computers check and then simply put in a new directive as normal.

If you want to "reprogram a droid" without hindering the core memory and alter its directive/loyalty I could see this being a difficulty 5 computers check and allow you to keep the memories but change the directive/loyalty/traits. I might even consider allowing some previous skills/talents to roll over when you program the new directive.

I would watch reprogramming very closely though if you did this as you don't want god robots also be sure things make narritive sense there is no way you are going to turn a mouse droid into a battle droid.

From what I can gather from the source material K2SO was a massive fluke. Anybody that tried it before broke the droids. So I dont think that doing it would be easy. After all if you could go round reprogramming droids then it would give spies the perfect in road into wherever they want , as long as droids were present. Even in Cassians csse, as soon as K2SO opened his mouth, so to speak, it was obvious that there was something wrong with it. So that spunds like it was done with success with threat or despair.

If you're programming skills, I'd suggest that Rank 1 start at Easy and each successive rank increases in difficulty. Doing multiple skill increases would up grade the difficulty. Programming from Rank 1 to 4 would set your difficulty to 3 Challenge and 1 Difficulty dice.

But the real question is where to set limits. Maybe the characteristic limits the number of skills governed by that characteristic would work.

I'd say you should probably make the mods for reprogramming droids pretty difficult, otherwise it seems like the kind of thing savvy players could exploit a lot.

Maybe make the most achievable option changing skills, rather than adding/upgrading new ones. Like, swapping a Protocol Droid's Charm 2 for a Fighting 2 could be only a moderately difficult test, whereas adding entirely new skills, or upgrading existing ones, would be much more difficult. That'd put some nice hard limits in place to prevent players from making super droids.

You definitely want to put limits on what the players can do here. Otherwise, they wind up with a super droid army and nobody can stop them.

But I’ll have to give some thought as to how I would want to do that, and keep things in line with the current droid crafting rules, etc….

Let me know when you folk get this hammered out; I relish the idea of having a Nemisis reprogram a PC droid when the entire group is incapacitated...

You definitely want to put limits on what the players can do here. Otherwise, they wind up with a super droid army and nobody can stop them.

But I’ll have to give some thought as to how I would want to do that, and keep things in line with the current droid crafting rules, etc….

This, very much so. If it were easy to reprogram any droid to do anything you want, droid armies would be cropping up everywhere on a daily basis. No doubt the manufacturers have already had this idea and put safeguards in place to prevent it from happening (or at least, prevent it from being easy).

How much time it would take for one programmer to write a program like Windows. To write a 1 rank Ranged-Light skill program for R2D2 or getting him some neat combat talent should take as much long. Programming a droid is a serious business, not something you do between hyperjumps. Also without laboratory to perform tests, check, verify, etc., the difficulty should be around 4 or 5 purples, especially for the non-combat droids cause they do not have the correct core, processor, protocols, bla bla bla, bla. So I, as a GM, would dismiss the idea of repogramming the droids immediately - you can still do it, just come back to the campaign in few months, after you write the program. You want a combat droid, then buy one. You want your droid to improve, then take him on the missions. You will put him at risk, but if he does something, I will grant him a bit of XPs and allow him to buy skills or talents as apropiarte narratively.

In SW D6 there was a concept of buying skill datacards for the droids and uploading them to the memory, you can check those rules.

If you want to "reprogram a droid" without hindering the core memory and alter its directive/loyalty I could see this being a difficulty 5 computers check and allow you to keep the memories but change the directive/loyalty/traits. I might even consider allowing some previous skills/talents to roll over when you program the new directive.

Why not call it "impossible", even.

How much time it would take for one programmer to write a program like Windows. To write a 1 rank Ranged-Light skill program for R2D2 or getting him some neat combat talent should take as much long. Programming a droid is a serious business, not something you do between hyperjumps. Also without laboratory to perform tests, check, verify, etc., the difficulty should be around 4 or 5 purples, especially for the non-combat droids cause they do not have the correct core, processor, protocols, bla bla bla, bla. So I, as a GM, would dismiss the idea of repogramming the droids immediately - you can still do it, just come back to the campaign in few months, after you write the program. You want a combat droid, then buy one. You want your droid to improve, then take him on the missions. You will put him at risk, but if he does something, I will grant him a bit of XPs and allow him to buy skills or talents as apropiarte narratively.

In SW D6 there was a concept of buying skill datacards for the droids and uploading them to the memory, you can check those rules.

There is an entire specialization--Droid Tech--that would be far less attractive under the advice you are giving. Droids are gear, and this system is very friendly to modifying all sorts of gear quickly and (relatively) cheaply.

How much time it would take for one programmer to write a program like Windows.

Not necessary. You could easily install FreeDOS or Linux or something else.

For someone who is skilled and talented in Mechanics in general, or Droid Tech specifically, it shouldn’t be too hard to do the sort of thing being discussed here. Hard enough, yes. Too hard, no.

Assuming how easy is to get several ranks in Mechanics, there would be hordes of wannabe droid techs who would modify the droid

How much time it would take for one programmer to write a program like Windows. To write a 1 rank Ranged-Light skill program for R2D2 or getting him some neat combat talent should take as much long. Programming a droid is a serious business, not something you do between hyperjumps. Also without laboratory to perform tests, check, verify, etc., the difficulty should be around 4 or 5 purples, especially for the non-combat droids cause they do not have the correct core, processor, protocols, bla bla bla, bla. So I, as a GM, would dismiss the idea of repogramming the droids immediately - you can still do it, just come back to the campaign in few months, after you write the program. You want a combat droid, then buy one. You want your droid to improve, then take him on the missions. You will put him at risk, but if he does something, I will grant him a bit of XPs and allow him to buy skills or talents as apropiarte narratively.

In SW D6 there was a concept of buying skill datacards for the droids and uploading them to the memory, you can check those rules.

There is an entire specialization--Droid Tech--that would be far less attractive under the advice you are giving. Droids are gear, and this system is very friendly to modifying all sorts of gear quickly and (relatively) cheaply.

Why less attractive? You can still craft droids, create great NPC followers, earn money selling crafted droids, gain access to the imperial droids for spying purpose, etc. But to increase the ranks in skills for the droids, especially in skills they were not constructed for, no. There are gazzililions living beings in the galaxy, billions with 5 ranks in Computers, yet the droids are not cheap and we do not see armies of R2D2s shooting and killing, or kitchen droids modified to become killers. Why? Cause it is not so easy. I marely prefer to have some consistency in the galaxy I run as a GM. Improving ranks should be extremly time consuming and complicated, otherwise it would be as common as blaster pistol. This is just my vision of the galaxy.

Why less attractive? You can still craft droids, create great NPC followers, earn money selling crafted droids, gain access to the imperial droids for spying purpose, etc. But to increase the ranks in skills for the droids, especially in skills they were not constructed for, no. There are gazzililions living beings in the galaxy, billions with 5 ranks in Computers, yet the droids are not cheap and we do not see armies of R2D2s shooting and killing, or kitchen droids modified to become killers. Why? Cause it is not so easy. I marely prefer to have some consistency in the galaxy I run as a GM. Improving ranks should be extremly time consuming and complicated, otherwise it would be as common as blaster pistol. This is just my vision of the galaxy.

It could just be that it’s not worth their time. Re-programming a droid that costs 10k credits to buy may cost enough time that almost all people are better off just buying new ones instead of reprogramming them. Are droids disposable?

Maybe droids that have high Intellect and high Mechanics skills also almost always have their own internal directives against reprogramming other droids for their own purposes, as a core directive. That would help prevent droid revolts, unless there’s an organic being involved that creates/modifies a droid to not have this core directive.

Maybe installing core directives is a write-once process, and the most expensive parts are the parts that are also write-once. So, if you want to re-program a droid, you’d end up spending almost as much money doing that as you would creating a droid from scratch.

Or, maybe droids have a lower-level micro-code, which is like the micro-code of modern CPUs from companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, ARM, etc…. So, it’s relatively easy to give them a new firmware, operating system, application software, etc…. But unless you’re capable of making your own from-scratch CPUs (i.e., you’re capable of doing the same thing that Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, etc… can do), then you can’t change their micro-code.

And who knows what might be in that micro-code? Is that something that NSA could exploit in the real world? What about other state actors? What is the next zero-day “F00F” bug?

In the game, is that something that ISB could exploit? What about other in-game state actors?

Or maybe there’s just not much utility in doing so? Do you rebuild and reprogram your battery-powered drill? Do you rebuild and reprogram your soldering iron? What about the remote to your garage?

I can see a lot of ways to spin the fact that we don’t see much in the way of droid re-programming in the Star Wars universe.

I think the trick here is to balance the cost/time/effort required against those narrative devices, so that the outcome is what the GM wants while not destroying the utility of certain rare PC careers.

I could see doing this 2 ways depending on the reason for doing it. If the reason is to reward/add depth to a trusty and loved NPC, I think I would go with giving it 3-6 hardpoints/cybernetic implant cap and have players freely choose +1 skill implants/ +1 ability implants or even from attachments that makes sense. Upside with this is it's easy and with limited HP you don't get the armies of assassin R2 you seem to want to avoid. Downside is ofc it doesn't cover more complex and complete reprogramming, like reprogramming a hostile unit to change sides while still keeping information.

Method 2 would like Rlogue177 noted to use the crafting rules from special modifications. Unfortunately FFG didn't suggest a way to calculate the difficulty of random directives. I think I would go with something like:

1. Find closest base directive.

2. For each new skill increase diff by 1 (upgrade if over 5)

3. For every 2 skill points over the ones listed in base directive upgrade once.

4. For every 2 talents over the ones listed in base directive upgrade once and for every 2 removed downgrade once.

5. Anything combat oriented upgrade twice.

6. Only labor/translation/peaceful downgrade twice.

7. Wrong kind of chassis? Upgrade once or twice!

8. Want to keep information instead of wiping? Upgrade once or twice (or more if droid can be assumed to have anti tampering installed)!

9. Off the shelf standard droid? Reduce difficulty, standard stuff is probably widely available and known.

Step 1-4(with 9) might be better hand waved since there are so few directives in SM and 5-9 can be disregarded when doing a droid of your own with fresh install.

I guess all steps is just a complex way to determine a difficulty and how many upgrades you should do on something like reprogramming an imperial astromech while retaining information or reprogramming a translation droid to become an assassin for some special mission. This seems to be mostly edge cases that probably are best hand waved.

In my mind Method 1 is the best in general.

Have you read the book made for Technicians (EoTE: Custom Modifications?)? It had a whole section on droid programming/reprogramming.

Why less attractive? You can still craft droids, create great NPC followers, earn money selling crafted droids, gain access to the imperial droids for spying purpose, etc. But to increase the ranks in skills for the droids, especially in skills they were not constructed for, no. There are gazzililions living beings in the galaxy, billions with 5 ranks in Computers, yet the droids are not cheap and we do not see armies of R2D2s shooting and killing, or kitchen droids modified to become killers. Why? Cause it is not so easy. I marely prefer to have some consistency in the galaxy I run as a GM. Improving ranks should be extremly time consuming and complicated, otherwise it would be as common as blaster pistol. This is just my vision of the galaxy.

It could just be that it’s not worth their time. Re-programming a droid that costs 10k credits to buy may cost enough time that almost all people are better off just buying new ones instead of reprogramming them. Are droids disposable?

Maybe droids that have high Intellect and high Mechanics skills also almost always have their own internal directives against reprogramming other droids for their own purposes, as a core directive. That would help prevent droid revolts, unless there’s an organic being involved that creates/modifies a droid to not have this core directive.

Maybe installing core directives is a write-once process, and the most expensive parts are the parts that are also write-once. So, if you want to re-program a droid, you’d end up spending almost as much money doing that as you would creating a droid from scratch.

Or, maybe droids have a lower-level micro-code, which is like the micro-code of modern CPUs from companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, ARM, etc…. So, it’s relatively easy to give them a new firmware, operating system, application software, etc…. But unless you’re capable of making your own from-scratch CPUs (i.e., you’re capable of doing the same thing that Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, etc… can do), then you can’t change their micro-code.

And who knows what might be in that micro-code? Is that something that NSA could exploit in the real world? What about other state actors? What is the next zero-day “F00F” bug?

In the game, is that something that ISB could exploit? What about other in-game state actors?

Or maybe there’s just not much utility in doing so? Do you rebuild and reprogram your battery-powered drill? Do you rebuild and reprogram your soldering iron? What about the remote to your garage?

I can see a lot of ways to spin the fact that we don’t see much in the way of droid re-programming in the Star Wars universe.

I think the trick here is to balance the cost/time/effort required against those narrative devices, so that the outcome is what the GM wants while not destroying the utility of certain rare PC careers.

In SW d6 you could buy "data skill" sets to improve your droid, but there a character has dozens of skills with range from 1D+1 to 15 or more, so you have to spend a lot of money on improving your droid to a serial killer for example. The success was not guaranteed and depening on the degree of the droid (AFAIR) there were different difficulties. In SW d20 droid could reprogram itself, I found it unrealistic. In SW SAGA was introduced a concept of two kinds of droids with different processors. "Stupid" droids, created to do a menial work and droids with "heuristic" processor that could learn and adapt. I can imagine that because of such complicated processor, it is hard to improve skills of the droid once it leaves the factory, so the droid has to learn new things by doing them. At the same time, stupid droid cannot be learn anything more that simple commands like droids in our world.

Also, when we go to the very first SW movie, when Owen buys the new droids, he tells luke at the dinner(?) that the next day he has to go the Toschee station to wipe their memories. In d20 it was said that such process requires a DC 10 or 15 check and takes hours (I write from the memory). So if such trivial (as it looks) task requires a time and a check, what about improving the skills. If a droid does not have a skill, a programmer has to create it from a scratch. Sure, you could take it from droideka for example, but a program is dedicated to droideka and its hardware and specific weapons, a hardware of C3P0 is completely different and I can imagine that companies use different hardware to make such process for the user even harder so he has to buy another droid from him. Another thing, R2D2 cannot speak, he lacks a voice module yet for the entire time he was with the Skywalker family no one thought to install him such module, instead Luke relies on his "understanding" what the droid says. Simply to put, R2 does not have any hard points to add any new attachments, the droids come from the factory like my mobile phone. The philosophy is exactly the same as in our world. Use the droid, when it gets old, throw it away and buy a new model..... that is why we have R1, R2, R3, R4, R5.... Of course the droid can learn and improve, but then he aquires quirks, so we have to wipe his memory, but then we wipe everything except for the factory default skills.

One can use more examples from SW lore to argue that it should be extremely hard and rare to improve skills or talents of the existing droids, with plenty of upgrades to the difficulty as you risking a "blue screen" .

Just to add again, this is only my vision of the galaxy.

Have you read the book made for Technicians (EoTE: Custom Modifications?)? It had a whole section on droid programming/reprogramming.

Page number?

My view is :

If you want to have a PC droid, you use PC rules.

If you want to have an NPC GM controlled droid, you use NPC rules (ie make it up)

If a PC wants to reprogramme a droid, you're basically wiping the existing directives, and creating new ones. So have a check to wipe them, difficulty based on your access levels, then just use the droid directive crafting rules from Special Modifications to create the new one.

Clearly you can also add implants up to the droids normal cap to increase stats or skills, and embed/equip equipment to have other effects.