[Mod Suggestion] Expanding the Droids from Mechanized Defense.

[NephilimNexus]

"Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken." - from Alpha Centauri

I've been thinking about the Droids from Mechanized Defense and ways to improve up them further.  Here are some ideas.

First, the simplest: Add the ability to rename them.  I hope that this would be a simple change.  That touch of personality for them would be nice.

Second, more complex: Expand functionality in different directions.  I mentioned this in the thread, but it's worth repeating here.  Instead of a flat rate universal skill level for all Droids in their selected fields, change the research tree to include variations that can be selected based on need.  For the purpose of this, we'll call them the left and right branches for easy visualization.

The left branch would be simple: Increasing their skill at higher research levels.  The first tier of droid in the left branch would have a skill of 5, the second tier 10, third 15 and finally the last (and highest) tier would have a skill of 20.  Each tier would require, naturally, more and more research to unlock (and possibly more advanced components, or at least more of them). 

The right branch would be to expand their work types, making them more "general purpose" rather than more skilled.  For example, just as the Logistics Droids includes the Cleaning skill of the Cleaning Droid on top of it's Hauling, each rung of this ladder would expand the range of a Droid's abilities.  For example, starting in the second tier we could have "Heavy Labor" droids that do Cleaning, Hauling, Mining and Building.  Along side that would be a "General Labor" droid that could do Crafting, Repairs, Plant Cutting, and Tailoring.  It's third brother would be the "Social Services" droid that would have Cleaning, Growing, Medicine and Cooking.  Finally, the "Combat Droid" of the right branch would have both Melee and Ranged (more on that later).  Each of these would be fixed at the same base skill level of 5, however.  As the tiers increase so does their range.  At the third tier you could combine more skills with a "Organic Specialist" with Growing, Plant Cutting, Cooking, Cleaning, Medicine and Art paired with the "Materials Specialist" with everything else - Crafting, Tailor, Building, Repairing, Mining, Hauling and Cleaning.  At the forth and final tier you'd get the "Universal Robot" with all skills.  Keep in mind, the right branch is still fixed at skill level 5... for now.

That's when we get to the Central Branch.  It's research rungs would only unlock when you already have both side branches unlocked to the same level or higher, and would be the most costly research (and manufacturing) of all.  Being the highest cost it's the highest reward, as (you guessed it) it would combine the virtues of both branches to all multi-purpose droids of higher levels.  In the end, if one managed to complete all twelve blocks (four in each branch) it would unlock the ultimate droid - all skills at max level.  Game breaking?  Not really - by that point you've earned it.

The third, and probably most difficult aspect of droids would be to completely rework their Health & Body mechanics.  Not to make crafting more difficult, per se, but more involved & modular.  Those who've played "Cradle" recently will get what I mean, here.  Instead of having the droid just be a lump of metals and chips on a crafting table, expand that to include all the parts of the droid: Body (chassis), four limbs, eyes, ears and the CPU - all crafted separately.  Then you put all the pieces together at the crafting table afterward.

Now why do this?  Not only to change the make-up of Droid assembly but repair as well.  Obviously most of these parts could be copy pastes (even literal originals) of the parts available at your bionics worktable.  That's perfect.  Now when a droid gets caught in an explosion and has an arm and an eye blown off, it no longer has to return to a repair station and eat raw metals until healed.  Instead, it would suffer that same Manipulation and Vision penalties that a human would from losing those parts, until such time as you pull a new arm and a new eye out of the bionic parts bin and repair them manually yourself (in effect, the same as normal Surgery except that Crafting is used instead of Medicine, and no physical medicine packs would be required.)

Why go through all that effort?  Well, realism for one thing, and more depth for another.  But it also would factor into the Combat Droids that I've managed to avoid talking about much until now.  To revamp them:

1st Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 5, it punches things.
2nd Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 10, can equip melee weapons. 
3rd Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 15, comes with built in Stun weapon. 
4th Tier (Left): Melee Droid, Skill 20, replaces one arm with Scyther Blade. 

1st Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, Melee & Ranged, uses fists or guns.
2nd Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, As above and can Rescue (can rescue downed friendlies), all weapon types.
3rd Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, As above plus Capture (can capture downed enemies & lock them up).
4th Tier (Right): Combat Droid, Skill 5, As above plus Medicine (can do basic first aid once person is delivered).

1st Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 5, abilities of both Left & Right branches and Double Hitpoints (per area).
2nd Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 10, as above and Internal Armor (natural damage resist, doesn't decay).
3rd Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 15, as above and Personal Shield (Only protects itself, recharges over time).
4th Tier (Center): Warbot, Skill 20, as above, left arm is Scyther Blade, right arm can hold any weapon.

Obviously, by the time you've got a functioning 4th Tier Warbot you should have something that can go one-on-one with a Mechanoid, and that's good because for all the Research, parts and weapons that thing would take it dang well better.  Of course, getting the Scyther Blade to build it in the first place... yeah, you earned your Warbot.