Xhaba wrote:How to (re)name, program a droid:
1.) Call Your droid. (If it’s a deed, use the ’ready droid unit’ command from the deed’s radial-menu. After You’ve done this once, You will find the droid in Your datapad – tho I’d advise to drag and drop it to Your toolbar – to make it easily callable.)
2.) Once called, hold the cursor over Your droid, and choose ’Program’ from radial-menu – now You can see the available abilities of Your droid, with the commands attached to those. At a new droid, the abilities and the commands are the same (e.g. Attack – attack). Click on the row of the ability ’Attack’ to program its command (and hit 'Train'). Your droid responses with a question mark ’?’ – now it’s ready to learn the new command. Type ’Mikrobi at’ (in this case, ’Mikrobi’ means the name, how I’d like to name my droid, and ’at’ means the command for ’attack’) into spatial ’Chat’ channel. The droid will response with an exclamation mark ’!’ – it’s learnt the new command. Do this 3 more times, with 3 other abilities/commands (e.g. ’Mikrobi st’ – for ’Stay’, ’Mikrobi gr’ – for ’Group’ etc.). After teaching the 4th commands, the droid will response with ’Mikrobi?’ and a few seconds later ’Mikrobi’ will appear over it – You’ve successfully (re)named Your droid.
3.) Now start the whole process again from the beginning – because now You should type ’Mikrobi at’ into the spatial ’Chat’ channel, to order Your droid to attack. So the process above is to (re)name Your droid, not to teach it the commands. So choose ’Program’ from the radial-menu, click on the ’Attack – Mikrobi at’ row, hit 'Train', and type only ’at’ (or anything else – which You would like to use as the command for ’attack’) into spatial ’Chat’ channel. Do this with all the abilities, that You would like to use in the future (e.g. ’st’ for ’Stay’ etc.). Finally, You’ve named Your droid ’Mikrobi’, and taught it the commands. *cheers* Now it’s enough to type ’at’ to order it to attack, or ’st’ to stay it etc. Your droid only accept the commands, if You type those into spatial ’Chat’ channel!
Small hint: Instead of typing the commands into spatial 'Chat' channel, rather use the /tellpet command, to avoid spamming the spatial 'Chat' channel (ie. '/tellpet at' to order Your droid to attack - if 'at' is Your command attached to its 'Attack' ability). Noone likes to see the 'Chat' full of 'st', 'ft', 'at' etc. "sentences"- which is understandable. Personally, I'd say that to (re)name, or to program a droid is more quick by only typing the commands into spatial 'Chat' channel (these are usually single cases) with less typing, but for the usage of the droid (or its "macroed" commands), it's better to use the '/tellpet' command.('/tellpet' commands must consist at least 2 letters - that's why I advised above to set 'at' for 'Attack', instead of just simply 'a')
How to make a droid easily handleable via „macros”: of course, there are droids and cases, when You have the time to use its radial-menu, or to type the appropriate command into spatial ’Chat’ channel (ie. choose ’Set harvest interest’ or ’Turn on/off effects’ from radial-menu, or type ’follow me’ or ’fm’ into spatial ’Chat’ channel - or with the '/tellpet' command, when You aren’t in a hurry). But also there are cases, when You don’t have time to do this (e.g. in combat) – in these cases, the ’one hit command’ can be handy.
Create short, one line „macros”, like ’/tellpet ft’ – when ’ft’ is the attached command for Your droid’s ’Follow target’ ability; or like ’/tellpet at’ – when ’at’ is the attached command for Your droid’s ’Attack’ ability etc. You can place these „macros” to Your toolbar (e.g. place the two „macros” above to Your toolbar’s first ’1’ and second ’2’ slot. Now, if an enemy attacks You, You just target it/her/him, and hit the ’1’ and ’2’ buttons, and Your droid will follow and attack Your target. (Nowadays I'd rather advise to use 1 macro with /tellpet fm /tellpet gu (where 'fm' means follow, and 'gu' means guard) - but when I wrote the original guide, the "guard" option didn't work yet, that's why I used the "attack".)
"How to (re)customize a droid: since in a former publish SOE made this to be a bit difficult, many believe, that the droid customization kits are bugged. No, they aren't - they (almost) work as intended (with the usage of a little trick). If You try to use it as You would use the vehicle customization kit (call droid, choose "use" from the kit's radial - or click on the kit in the toolbar), You will get the message: "You may only use this tool to customize droid pets.". You will get the same message, even if You targeted Your droid, and it is Your intended target. Of course, You called Your droid, and Your droid is Your droid pet, and of course You know this, but the game-system isn't as wise as You, it seems. So what to do, is:
1.) Call Your droid (If it's a deed, use the "ready droid unit" command from the deed's radial-menu. After You've done this once, You will find the droid in Your datapad - tho I'd advise to drag and drop it to Your toolbar, to make it easily callable.).
2.) Place (drag and drop from Your inventory) Your droid customization kit to Your toolbar.
3.) HOLD THE CURSOR OVER YOUR DROID! (It isn't needed to target it, to make it to be Your intended target etc. - that means nothing to the system. Just hold Your cursor over it.)
4.) Now launch the customization kit from Your toolbar, by hitting the button, which the kit is attached to (ie. "1" etc.).
5.) Now You should get the usual, well known window for customization(s), and You can (re)colour Your droid, with the usual method.
(maybe there are other methods too, to customize Your droid, but this one works well - even if it seems to be a bit complicated)"
Other small hints/comments:
1.) Don't be afraid letting Your droid "die" in combat - it won't vanish (sadly - hey hey, I'm a DE...), it will just "go back" into Your datapad with 0 health. Next time, when You call it in an "out of combat" case, it will get its health fully back in a few seconds/minutes (depends on the droid's type, health etc.). So You won't need to buy an other one *sniff*, it's enough to buy a certain type of droid only once.
Have a nice day, and have fun with Your droid companion/pet!
Sakh
