Written by Paranoid Droid

Droids are an absolutely essential part of the Star Wars Universe. Where would the Star Wars movies have been without the classic duo of the headstrong R2-D2 and the paranoid yet intelligent C-3P0? Inhabitants of almost every planet rely on droids to perform anything from daily house chores to full scale starship construction. In order for a game to fully encompass the Star Wars Universe, it must include the ability for characters to be able to own and even create their own droids. Star Wars Galaxies delivers this important aspect of gameplay. The following excerpts from the official FAQ answer a few of the questions dealing with droid ownership and construction.

Does the crafting system allow you to make droids?
Yes, the crafting system is designed to allow players to build droids and droid components including chassis, motivators, sensors, and electronics. Players can build their droids for one of three specific fields: service, technical, or combat. Service droids assist players in every day tasks including serving food and drink, translating, and bearing burdens. Technical droids assist in the construction, repair and maintanence of items, vehicles and structures. Combat droids can be equipped with weapons and programmed to fight for their owner.

What is the Droid Engineer profession?
This profession combines skills from the droid design and general crafting disciplines. A player in this profession can design droid components, instruments and droids themselves.

The following information has also been given by the develeopers via the official forums.

Can Droid Engineers both design and build droids?
Good Question. In general, a designer can either make a "draft schematic" which can be used to make multiple items (usually via a factory) OR they can make a one shot "prototype."

Prototypes can be treated as custom crafted items, but the drawbacks to them are that they take longer to make compared to one made in a factory and they end up being more complex.

Complexity matters because that modifies how hard the item is to repair, as well as how quickly it breaks.

So as a designer, you have a choice. Do you want to make something that can be used to make multiple items (but that requires a factory) OR do you want to make a single item that can be used right now, but that will be higher maintenance?

Anthony Castoro
Lead Systems Designer

When asked about droid engineering at Star Wars Celebration 2. . .
When asked about building droids from scratch, they answered that you will be able to make your own from parts available. For example, you might make a faster R2, or a smarter service droid. The parts would be filtered or type-sorted so that maybe a C-3PO head would not attach to an R2 body.