My group is fairly quick to invest in droids to occupy needed rolls in a group that limited numbers. I am working on a formula to justify the credit cost for programming raising ranks of skills and talents. This is purely for npc droids.

100 credits x exp cost is what i am leaning towards. With a limit of the ranks of computers/mechanics as appropriate for a prequisite for the limits. This is the cost of time and materials used up in the programming and hardwear upgrades.

MY questions:

1) is 100credits x exp too much too little?

2) time for up grade 2 hours per rank/tier of skill more or less

3 any other input

I wouldnt let droids become a cash dump. I'd be more apt to let them receive 1/4 or 1/5 of total EXP earned per session (that they played a role in helping be successful) and the players can order the droid on what to improve. Only if they are buying rank 1 in an untrained skill would I charge players money to purchase that programming.

I would also have the droid set a primary and secondary skill and everyting else is considered non-career and carry the extra 5 xp cost. Now you have a droid that slowly improves over time. The money sink part comes when it needs repairs or new hardware capabilities or repairs due to threat/despair rolls and battle damage.

I see the droids in Starwars as improving more based on experience, not purchased booksmarts from a chip/software.

Here is a question you should be asking yourself. if your players were to hire out someone for a skill how much would it cost?

if the players we looking for the premier expert on Knowlege(Lore) it would take a lot more then credits to get him to answer your question. But an local infochant who knew about some treasure ship legend near the wheel, would likely help you out with a few hundred credits. A droid you bought at the tatooine Robo-mart and plugged in a "knowleged (lore)" chip would likely only tell you about "Triva" about Xim the Despot using a special megaphone to control his droid army in response to the same question.

Droids are really going to be Experts at one or Two skills and good at a few related skills.. that is it. Beyond it learning skills due to its Heuristic brain. It isn't just a matter of plugging in a programming chip. Who is going to program the chip? and if all it took was a chip, why would sentient beings do more then just watching some Holodrama all the time?

The limit of a stock droid should be around 3Y, or 2Y1G for one or two skills. (Look at the sample NPC droids in the core book) and maybe a rank in some related skills.

I partially disagree with letting droids serve as a cash sink. The droids is still cheaper then hiring an expert in the long run. The biggest problem is you really cant stop pcs from buying droids reprogramming them to serve as the labor. In 4 seperate campaigns the first pay off the crew buys an astromech droid folllowed by a medic droid. Droids earning exp is logistic drain and more tragicaly massive paperwork.

I would treat the droids as any other ability that the players have for their characters and have them spend their own XP on improving the droid's abilities and skills. Anyone in the group can spend XP improving them, within certain limits. Such as only one rank improvement on any skill per session or adventure, whatever seems fair. This is so they don't try to max out a certain skill like Medicine in one shot.

I would treat the droids as any other ability that the players have for their characters and have them spend their own XP on improving the droid's abilities and skills. Anyone in the group can spend XP improving them, within certain limits. Such as only one rank improvement on any skill per session or adventure, whatever seems fair. This is so they don't try to max out a certain skill like Medicine in one shot.

Actually, I would suggest pulling an idea from the old WOD system. Do not let anyone raise a skill beyond one rating per chronicle or many adventures. Keep in mind, that a single rating is a huge difference.