Currently all of the ships in the game can be piloted by a number of different pilots, but how would a droid ship with a droid brain computer differ in terms of pilots and upgrades?

Ie. Would there be different droid-brain types to choose.

Currently there are a few droid Starfighters that could be introduced.

*http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/D_automated_starfighter (for Empire)

*http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Swarm-class_battle_droid (for possibly either Scum or Rebels)

*http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Variable_Geometry_Self-Propelled_Battle_Droid,_Mark_I/Legends (for Scum)

*http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Droid_tri-fighter (for Scum)

In the case of the Shadow Droid Starfighter, the ship's brains were organic instead of computer, which were the brains of mortally wounded TIE pilots. The ships were also attuned with the Dark side.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_Droid

Would there be any additional differences with an organic brain instead of a droid brain, plus with additional force related abilities?

Droid pilots might not have the focus action available, but be able to take multiple actions, or have dials without as much red on (as they can take harsher manoeuvres without stress than squishy organic pilots).

Brain-jar ones shouldn't be that different from regular pilots I don't think.

No EPT for droid pilots either.

(apart from 4LOM and Leebo and IGGies)

Generic droids that came in massive batches probably should remain generic, especially ones like Battle Droids which were under central computer control, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be unique or elite versions of them if they managed to survive long enough to learn and develop.

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

(apart from 4LOM and Leebo and IGGies)

Generic droids that came in massive batches probably should remain generic, especially ones like Battle Droids which were under central computer control, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be unique or elite versions of them if they managed to survive long enough to learn and develop.

Yeah, this makes sense.

No focus action, stress immunity, no EPT. Probably low PS, at least for the most part. I would expect them to have some actionless eyeball result mods, otherwise they'd be pretty bad.

Potentially a new upgrade slot for every droid ship (like Tech for TFA+), "Protocol" for example.

I think Just no focus and no uniques.

It would be silly to make them too different, although thespaceinvader's suggestions look reasonable.

Why the lack of focus, and stress immunity, and no ept?

Focus: allocation of "processing power" to optimised defence/attack.

Stress: allocation of "processing power" to maneuvering, leaving less for others

Ept: Installation of subroutine with added features.

I think it would be cool if they felt totally different to fly than what is currently available. Make Generic droids cheap so that you can fly a large swarm, removing Focus and EPT's to make sure they are not too powerful.

It wouldn't be different at all except possibly lacking uniques.

This is already in the game in the form of the Brobots. They have both Focus actions and take stress normally.

Remember that stress is not necessarily stress on just the pilot, but physical stress on the ship itself. Being an emotionless robot wouldn't alleviate the strain on the hull.

1 minute ago, DarthEnderX said:

It wouldn't be different at all except possibly lacking uniques.

This is already in the game in the form of the Brobots. They have both Focus actions and take stress normally.

Remember that stress is not necessarily stress on just the pilot, but physical stress on the ship itself. Being an emotionless robot wouldn't alleviate the strain on the hull.

We're not talking about a ship with inhabitants though. We're talking about a ship which IS the droid, in most of these cases. They can be designed to cope with much more aggressive manoeuvring.

(Mostly I just think a ship without a focus action or red moves would be an interesting way to fly)

4 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

We're not talking about a ship with inhabitants though. We're talking about a ship which IS the droid, in most of these cases. They can be designed to cope with much more aggressive manoeuvring.

(Mostly I just think a ship without a focus action or red moves would be an interesting way to fly)

If they offered some sort of unique gameplay from other ships, it would be interesting to see how they would play when combined.

Perhaps also due to the lack of most standard options they could cost cheaper.

Because the droid's brain is the ship itself, maybe stress on just the ship.

1 hour ago, The Mighty Boushh said:

I think it would be cool if they felt totally different to fly than what is currently available. Make Generic droids cheap so that you can fly a large swarm, removing Focus and EPT's to make sure they are not too powerful.

2 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Droid pilots might not have the focus action available, but be able to take multiple actions, or have dials without as much red on (as they can take harsher manoeuvres without stress than squishy organic pilots).

Brain-jar ones shouldn't be that different from regular pilots I don't think.

I'd agree with this.

It's something I've thought about in the past, thinking about the Droid TIE fighter. My thoughts:

• Should feel 'totally different to fly', but shouldn't achieve this by violating or ignoring the core rules. You can still do a great deal by exercising options on dial, upgrade bar, action bar, etc.
• I agree no focus action - a generic droid is never 'not concentrating' - but also isn't as creative and flexible. Give them Target Lock and Evade (concentrating on shooting or concentrating on not getting hit), so they can still put their action to good use, but nothing as universally 'useful' as focus. Probably barrel roll too, because TIE fighter.
• Essentially a purely green and white dial. To keep the 'zoomy' feel, I'd say no Koiogan turn, but a white talon roll. That actually makes turning back on yourself directly and 'just jousting' impossible, but also makes you fast around the board, and it's a very satisfying move to use (especially if white). You might still pick up stress for other reasons (debris, R3-A2, etc) so you'd have a few green moves, but not many - if a droid actually ends up stressed, then it should be in trouble and have to pull a green move.
• PS1 - PS0 is only achievable by 'special effects' so shouldn't happen by default. Besides which, a basic academy pilot matching a droid is not unreasonable - it's the aces that should take them down in laughable numbers.
• The TIE droid was pointedly supposed to be really fast - again, a way of making them really fast without, you know, making them really fast, would be to give them the SLAM action - combined with a speed 3 white turn and talon roll and/or speed 4 straight, that gives them the speed to match pace with TIE interceptors and strikers, but only for 'strategic' manouvres - if you want to shoot, you've got to slow down to a more sane speed.
• Fielding 10 or more TIE droids sounds good in theory but becomes slow and unpleasant to play against in reality (take it from an 8-ship swam player). The way I would prefer to see massive swarms done is to plagiarise draw inspiration from one of the better bits of attack wing - the idea of 'squads' or 'troops' as units:
  • Imagine a Large-based 'ship'.
  • Said base has a non-standard stand (like the Ghost's) which essentially forks a couple of times, holding 4 TIE droid models.
  • Said TIE droids operate as a single 'ship' for game purposes.
  • As a simplification, any time the 'ship' takes damage or critical damage, one TIE droid is killed (regardless of whether the ship took 1 damage from clipping an asteroid or 5 from Fenn Rau at point blank range) and the ship takes 1 face-down damage card only.
  • The 'pilot' card has a rule printed on it (despite being a generic, like the Gozanti), in this case - increase the agility and decrease the primary weapon value by the number of assigned damage cards. Hence an undamaged swarm has a (terrifying!) 5-dice primary and agility 0, whilst if only one is left alive it essentially has the stats of a TIE fighter (agility 3, primary weapon 2) - the more fighters in your target group, the less you have to 'aim' (think shooting at the sentinals in the Matrix)
  • Give it a couple of systems slots - two system slots is an unusual combination that someone can probably come up with a devious use for.
  • If you want something a little unique, then rather than unique pilots, a title for an 'ace' or 'oddity' droid TIE wing might increase your PS and allow you to equip [elite] upgrades as if they were [system] upgrades.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

We're not talking about a ship with inhabitants though. We're talking about a ship which IS the droid, in most of these cases. They can be designed to cope with much more aggressive manoeuvring.

(Mostly I just think a ship without a focus action or red moves would be an interesting way to fly)

It's a shame the IG-2000 wasn't more imaginative though to differentiate it from other ships. It'd have been cool if it had white sloops and k-turn but no focus action.

2 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

(apart from 4LOM and Leebo and IGGies)

Generic droids that came in massive batches probably should remain generic, especially ones like Battle Droids which were under central computer control, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be unique or elite versions of them if they managed to survive long enough to learn and develop.

They're all under central control. Doesn't that mean that if one learns and develops, the central computer can apply that new knowledge to all of them? To single one out to be elite based on experiences kind of undermines the whole "hive mind" thing...

I know some of the bigger badder battle droids were independent, I assume some of the droid starfighters were too - detached operations being occasionally necessary, adn some of them having been refitted for later use by other factions with independent brains.

Everything proposed here, also they could take extra damage from ion.

I did a Vulture droid custom expansion:

The Limited keyword isn't necessary. None of the ones that are Limited actually have any effect with multiple copies anyway.

29 minutes ago, The Inquisitor said:

It's a shame the IG-2000 wasn't more imaginative though to differentiate it from other ships. It'd have been cool if it had white sloops and k-turn but no focus action.

The IG was a pretty good K-turner/slooper anyway even with it being a red maneuver because of their ability to get powerful, modified gunner shots with no action and still have autothrusters. It's just a bit more subtle than ships in these past few waves.

not to mention Advanced Sensors.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

not to mention Advanced Sensors.

You get the choice between flexible sloops and having gunner/fcs off the sloop which are both powerful choices. In the current meta AS is probably better because the opposition tends to be more beefy than high agility.

3 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

We're not talking about a ship with inhabitants though. We're talking about a ship which IS the droid, in most of these cases. They can be designed to cope with much more aggressive manoeuvring.

If you read the lore for it, the IG-2000 is already designed that way. It has no life support, and leaves the inertial dampeners turned off to allow for maneuvers that would be impossible with an organic pilot.

Still has internal spaces and whatnot.

:-)

Makes me sad that in all this mention of 4-LOM, IG-88s, and Leebo, nobody has mentioned the most powerful droid in existence, C1-10P!

Chopper is awesome.

That is all.