Droid Condition Decay to make Droid Engineers more useful

Droid Condition Decay to make Droid Engineers more useful
This idea/suggestion is Open. You can respond to ask questions or discuss the idea and either vote it up or down if you believe it should or should not be implemented, respectively. Popular suggestions and ideas will be considered by the development team to become reality in-game.
Proposal
Create a new stat, or change a current stat(like Vitality), on the droid to one that decays over use time(time summoned/in space) to eventually require repair or replacement of the droid.
Justification
By adding decay, and the ability to repair, it will add another facet of player interdependency to the game and more market activity. This would also function as a good use for the relatively unused Droid Assembly skill. It will increase the cost of using droids; but, at a reasonable decay rate, most people would only need to buy/repair a droid every month, with maybe the most active users every week.
Motivation
To allow Droid Engineers to be as useful and engaged in the player economy as other Artisan professions. Currently, Droid Engineers are few and far between as their products last forever, other than bounty hunter droids.
The droid decay could be easily structured as a time dependent decay, where most droids would last for 50-100 hours of being 'out' before needing to be repaired/replaced. This would also serve to make planned limited availability droids maintain their value and not become worthless over time due to supply saturation.

Having a decay system opens the door for other ideas and PVs(THESE ARE EXAMPLES, NOT THIS PV):
-Certain modules and experimentation could increase this lifespan, for things like medical droids, to add depth and decisions to droid crafting.
-Something like powerups for droids that increase their effectiveness at the cost of faster decay.
- Decay penalties for certain things like letting your droid die in combat, your ship blowing up in space, etc.
-Some sort of equipment styled decay system for combat droids where their lifespan, or even the effectiveness of their armor/damage, is more determined by active usage than time summoned.
(DISCLAIMER AGAIN: These ideas are meant to show what the system opens up for future ideas, these are not this PV.)
 
I Have been thinking about this and have a idea to add to the pot for thought.

Currently the droid has a system for power where you top it up and it counts down and becomes unusable until recharged.

How about a similar system but using parts that were used to create it, like modules and chassis. Each droid has several components which slowly degrade utilising the same system above but you need to add in a replacement part. Say Droid Brain, Chassis and Module.

Droids then decay when called, and when in combat decay faster (x2, x3). If a component fails completely then will blow up like your swoop when it is disabled.

So you need to buy a new one. (And there are plenty). Or create a repair kit like the vehicle one with Asteroid resources)

This would make DE viable as a consumable shop and Droids not a one time purchase whist (in my ignorance of developing) just utilising a system that is already there.
 
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As well a droid that gets destroyed shouldn't be an automatic fix when you pull it out again. Maybe require they be taken to a DE to be repaired before they can be used again, kind of like vehicles require a vehicle repair kit. Ditto for astromechs and flight computers. Coupled with a decay every time they get destroyed this could really help keep our DEs busy. I'm sure the developers would love to add another credit sink :p

upvoted
 
When I suggested harvesters decay requiring eventual replacement, I got lambasted as an Architect just trying to increase his sales by having harvesters decay. Despite this, :) I'm going to upvote this as I believe that droids should also decay requiring either maintenance from an engineer or replacement. Any economy that depends on new players to exist or grow, isn't sustainable. The economy has to have obsolescence built into it so that maintenance, repair or replacement is required. Else it stagnates. I agree with the honorable GS RGViza that a repair kit or such should be used when a droid is destroyed before it could be used again.
 
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