Droids, power and... oh crap, I was shortsighted!

[Ankhanu]

An important aspect in the narrative involving droids in Star Wars is their limited power reserves. In A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back we see C-3PO powering down to save energy, R2 charging in both the Lars' garage and from a portable generator on Dagobah, and several other examples of power saving and recharging... and let's not forget our old friends, the GNK ("Gonk") power droids, who's function is to recharge other droids (and other items too)!!


It's an aspect that is, like many other aspects of the SW universe, not covered in the WEG (or to my knowledge the d20) rules. I have the inclination that power capacity and use would be an aspect of droid characters and NPCs alike, particularly in situations where a quick recharge isn't an option. So... House Rule time!!!

I guess the issue here is to determine how long a droid's installed power source would last under normal circumstances, factors that might reduce or increase operation time and how long it takes to charge. I find that authors tend to either have their droids take every opportunity to shut down or charge that they have, or completely ignore the idea altogether... so there's not a lot of consistency in the books (perhaps because this tends to be an outside the scenes idea). Any thoughts on how long the average droid power cell should last?
_________________
Hotaru no Hishou; a messageboard about games, friends and nothing at all.

Donate to Ankhanu Press

[Random Numbers]

My guess is that droid cell packs last forever, but the screen writers run on fossil fuel...
_________________
Random is who random does...

[Esoomian]

You could replace the stamina skill with a power supply stat for droid characters. If a droid spends CPs in power supply it is making an effort to run more efficiently.
_________________
Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[Ankhanu]

Yeah, I was just thinking that it could be analogous to Stamina. But, with that idea in mind, a mechanic is still needed to determine max life, recharge time and the like. The Stamina analogue would probably be used to keep going when power starts to dwindle... and could be used, as you mention, to represent max charge level... but what would that level mean
_________________
Hotaru no Hishou; a messageboard about games, friends and nothing at all.

Donate to Ankhanu Press

[Esoomian]

Perhaps call the stamina analogue Battery Life and have it take the following formula to determine recharge time

(Droid's highest attribute) x (Battery Life) = Recharge time in hours

That way a load lifter with 3D in strength (all other attributes at 1D) and battery life at it's base strength level would take 3x3 hours to recharge.

If you treat maximum charge as stamina and recharging as eating then you can just use the standard starvation rules to determine how long a droid's battery will last.
_________________
Don't waste money on expensive binoculars.

Simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

[garhkal]

I usually give droids a 24 hr go capacity between charging. 2 hrs after they are at -1d due to low power, 4 hrs is -2d, 6 is -3d.. More than 6 hrs is out of power.
_________________
Confucious sayeth, don't wash cat while drunk!

[Gry Sarth]

Actually, the latest Clone Wars episode "The Deserter" showed what I believe to be the first example of droids running out of battery power.

Grievous is stranded on Seleucami with a bunch of B1 battle droids, and they are marching from one crashed escape pod to the other. Grievous is mounting a Reek, but the other droids are on foot, and eventually they start deactivating one by one due to lack of power. In the show it's not clear how much time ellapses until they start running out of power, but it couldn't have been more than a day. So, less than a day of hard marching for a crappy battle droid to run out of juice.
_________________
"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."