AER series/Project Familiar

[A®heim]

You're REALLY not helping, xinder. I hate to sound like some stuffy important person, but please try to reserve posts here for new ideas and developments not for petty arguments on what one did or did not mean. I'm trying to get some support and calling me an a-hole isn't exactly setting a good tone whether you meant it or not.

Thank you.

Anyways, I will agree that a space-focused model should be built to cater to ace pilots who may be interested. Then we'll fit it to an appropriate species and set it out. Which brings me to another matter: matching abilities to species. A few are obvious like Active Camo:Chameleon and Flamethrower:dragon but if you can't come up with any original ideas, then think of some good pair-ups that would make sense.

[Vipervertical]

Bah humbug. Tis what I do.

Matches:
Water basalisk = mach speed
Faerie Dragon = Space-functionality and system hack
Turtle = Communications relay and burrowing

I have more, but they're too obvious I decided it wasn't worth putting them up.

[A®heim]

possibilities for pictures (both near and far and farther fetched):

vhnori.deviantart.com/art/Mechie-Lizard-52685337

doodler-bunny.deviantart.com/art/Mechanical-Dragon-65956992

jesusdesaad.deviantart.com/art/HEROES-Snake-Automaton-72257469

draconicality.deviantart.com/art/Mechanical-Wadjyt-12867688

freddyjasonv.deviantart.com/art/My-Mechanical-Pet-63160289

utack101.deviantart.com/art/Missile-Tortoise-angel-no-mis-120267163

remdesigns.deviantart.com/art/Lizard-sketch-one-74932455

pyrofish.deviantart.com/art/robo-lizard-18176128

transypoo.deviantart.com/art/Roboticreature-87337525

drakkenchild.deviantart.com/art/Reptilian-Mecha-93275740

litemountain.deviantart.com/art/Robot-Monster-Snake-by-Adam-12018882

jingjie.deviantart.com/art/Robot-Snake-101359766

saera-song.deviantart.com/art/Robotic-reptile-15506039

midorikou.deviantart.com/art/Robot-Gator-66880500

gidorah2001.deviantart.com/art/C-MP-quot-Compy-quot-Data-Unit-124410272

img20.imageshack.us/img20/9507/athingy.png

These are just some concept ideas I dug up on Deviant Art. Hopefully they should provide some inspiration. If anyone finds any other that they think may suite one of the droids, please post it!

[A®heim]

no such thing as too obvious! I'll do it for you then:

Myth Dragon: flamethrower (duh) and maybe attachment to arm/back for use as weapon/jetpack

Chameleon: active camo (duh) and tractor beam

Gecko: surface adherence and small size

Turtle: burrowing and toolbox of doom!

Frilled lizard: communication array

cayman: aquatic model?

snake: assassin/venom (duh)

skink: taser/small size

More! We need more!

And why is only Xinder helping me? I need advertisement....

[sparrow]

I liked how the bird ones appeared externally similar. Never know which one you're going to get!

[A®heim]

So you're saying we should just pick one of the possible appearances and do it like the birds?

[Vipervertical]

Bah! That's boring! I say they all look different! Much more fun that way!

[Val - Warning:Contains Sarcasm]

Robot Jawa!

[Mara]

Those are all awesome species... but wouldn't it make more sense for them to be species in the SW universe?
I don't think there were pterodactyls in SW.


There's some awesome stuff if you type "creatures" into Wookieepedia.

[A®heim]

Actually I had thought about that Mara, but I came to an interesting conclusion:

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Snake

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lizard

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tulvaree

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=turtle&go=1

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=chameleon&go=1

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon

...and so on and so forth. Keep in mind also that there are things like starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Duck in the SW universe and arguably Earth is IN the Star Wars universe granted it is far far away.

I guess my point is that these aren't species, they're merely appearances. Just like the AERs just looked like birds. Not any particular kind of bird, just the universal appearance people associate with the word bird. The same applies to snake and lizard as well.
Something may look like this: i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd101/shapeshifter_pics/horned_toad.jpg

an something else might look like this: www.almac.co.uk/business_park/serpent/images/mangrovemonitorlizard_small.jpg

but they're both lizards. An word that will most likely conjure up an image something like this: www.the-lizard-lounge.com/content/gallery/lizard-pictures/green-anole-pictures/green-anole-01.jpg

On the other hand, I would be more than happy to model a few on SW creatures. Name it and I'll add it to the list.

[Mara]

Oh, I wasn't meaning a problem with generic lizard, etc... but you did also list some pretty specific species/animals that don't exist, as far as we know, in the SW universe.

And if I had more time, I would totally look for examples.

[A®heim]

I have put up a poll so that we can hopefully get somewhere. If you don't like any of the answers....*really tempted to say "Too bad!".....*sigh*....please post your opinion below.

Please, PLEASE try to keep this constructive and not DEstructive. I don't mean to say your opinion wasn't welcome Mara, but if your going to criticize something please have something else to take it's place. Keep the project moving forward as it were.

I'm NOT trying to be mean, I'm just trying to be efficient. ^ v ^


Some notes before (or after if you jumped the gun) you vote.

1. These are generally the same size as the AERs and may even, in some cases, be smaller. I say this because several people have pointed out to me that part of the appeal was in the fact they could sit on your shoulder. Like good Familiars.

2. Keep in mind that these AREN'T battledroids as many people have been mistaken about. Battledroids are generally expendable, can be mass produced, and don't cost millions of credits to build.

3. The "species" they appear as are just that: appearances. They have absolutely nothing to do with what they look like and shouldn't look like anything really specific. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear, Mara, but when I was listing those I only meant it as a reference point to what they could look like to imagine the level of appeal and function relative to each.

[Dire Wolf]

To be honest, if I was the government, or whatever program lead that was cooking this whole thing up... I wouldn't make a different design for every single model. Why, you ask? Well...

1) Its cost effective to have one likeness. This way you don't have to design oodles of new and flashy models.
2) Interchangable parts. You don't have to specially design a certain part for that certain droid. This fits into the above reason kind of.
3) Harder to identify their functionality. Why would you want the enemy to go "There's the turtle, he has <x> power, shoot it now!" when you can have them going "Oh no... there are 5 turtles! which one has which?"

Though, those are the realistic answers *shrug* there's my 3 1/2 cents.

[Talau the Ever-Lurking]

use a chameleon or lizard of some sort

[A®heim]

I was thinking that too. Go with something generic like the AERs were just generic birds. I'm leaning towards just doing a generic lizard myself, but no reason why one can't have the chameleonic (made up on the spot) ability.

[Vipervertical]

1. Love that word, Arh. That is going in the official Xictionary (made that up on the spot)

2. Perhaps 2 sets of appearances? Not going overboard and remaining cost-effective, while still giving you different appearances. ....just an idea...

[Mara]

Sorry for not having hours to surf through Wookieepedia to pick a real SW species.


Anyway, in the poll, agreeing with Wolfie, I think it's a good idea to just stick with one species/reptile, just like all the others are the same generic bird model.
As for what kind of generic reptile, I don't think it really needs to be anything more specific than that, since the bird AERs don't resemble any certain kind of bird. So perhaps the new batch is just some kind of small lizard/reptile then. Maybe only about 2-3 feet long.

[A®heim]

Dire and I did some mental crunching and got a pretty good idea of what this thing could look like. I've commissioned MA to do a couple concept sketches so we can see how it looks. ^ v ^

[Mara]

Will there be 10 of them like the AER? But being RER instead? Haha.

[A®heim]

Yep! ^ v ^

Which brings to a second, much easier matter: What should we call em?

QUICK! WHOEVER COMES UP WITH AN APPROPRIATE ACRONYM WINS!

READYSETGO!