Droid cost

[Stark]

That's a good point - the B1s, while a bit rubbish, are much more mobile and flexible then 3PO.

[Covenant]

Droids are generally not considered very expensive. The most expensive one on record I'm aware of was Xizor's custom build human-replica droid Guri, who was mostly just an expensive toy who doubled as a vicious assassin and plot device. Between two and three million for her, wasn't it? Seeing that droids are often used as disposable pieces of hardware, astromechs in specific, they must not be much more expensive than any other automated piece of machinery--or in some cases, batteries. Power droids, for example. While the actual physical cost of a droid is very rarely referenced in a lot of canon sources, it's easy to infer that they're pretty low in the credit costs if you look at the ANH monetary exchanges. Note, this isn't highly analytical, just stuff from memory that helps me get an idea of how much thus-and-so costs in Star Wars.

IE, Owen buys droids. No discussion of a large price is made, and the Jawas don't even mind swapping in R2 for that R4(5?) when it pops. I'm not sure that Luke's adoptive family's wealth is ever mentioned, but they seemed to own a fair amount of expensive equipment, but otherwise are very poor.

Then Luke sells the speeder and they get money to give to Han, and Han asks what appears to be an incredibly inflated price, but certainly nowhere near a million credits, let alone two. Battledroids, who seem to use small arms nonspecific to their design, have very limited labor requirements to manufacture them--Genosis scenes lead us to believe that.

Here's a question--we know the Clonetroopers are clones, obviously. But given the rapid aging of a clone, how many of the original series Stormtroopers have been retconned into a Clone force? I haven't heard it discussed, but it seems unlikely that the Galactic Empire would continue to pay for the creation of clones when there are so many warm bodies willing to sign up, just from a cost-to-benefit analysis.

It always seemed that the clone army was created not because they were necessarily better than normal soldiers, but that they would be there when the war needed to start and they'd be up to the task of finishing the job, and there'd be no annoying budget hearings to bother with. Also, the idea that the clone army is retired from service due to the negative effects of an accelerated aging process and replaced by the zealous new members of the Empire as Stormtroopers would explain the strikingly poorer showing of the Imperial ground forces of the original trilogy.

-edit- The point being that after the clone war, the costs for a stormtrooper might have shrunk dramatically due to an influx of recruits and a much smaller need for lots of ground forces may have allowed them to skimp on most trooper training costs. Just throw men at the problem until it goes away, use the heavy armor, and quell uprisings. From what we can gather, seems like most Stormtroopers never see any real warfare, and those that do are probably closer to elite forces than the ones sent out to help a moff keep the locals in line.

[Noble Ire]

I should just note, since I think I may have misread the OP, that the 2 million figure is for Imperial-era stormtroopers, not war-era clones. I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference, but there is a possibility that Kaminoan-issue troops might be less expensive.

[Aaron]

Droids are generally not considered very expensive. The most expensive one on record I'm aware of was Xizor's custom build human-replica droid Guri, who was mostly just an expensive toy who doubled as a vicious assassin and plot device. Between two and three million for her, wasn't it? Seeing that droids are often used as disposable pieces of hardware, astromechs in specific, they must not be much more expensive than any other automated piece of machinery--or in some cases, batteries. Power droids, for example. While the actual physical cost of a droid is very rarely referenced in a lot of canon sources, it's easy to infer that they're pretty low in the credit costs if you look at the ANH monetary exchanges. Note, this isn't highly analytical, just stuff from memory that helps me get an idea of how much thus-and-so costs in Star Wars.

Apperently General Grevious's Magna Droids cost the same as a starship to produce, I don't know what kind of ship but I think it's a military one.

[Darth Tanner]

Apperently General Grevious's Magna Droids cost the same as a starship to produce, I don't know what kind of ship but I think it's a military one.

Those are either bloody expensive droids or bloody cheap ships!
From the performance of those droids & the Seperatist ships in RotS id say cheap ship!

[Stark]

The term 'starship' could be used to describe any jump-capable ship, and in ANH Luke believed he could buy a ship for 10,000. He sold his crapbox car for 2,000. Clearly, droids and starships are BOTH cheap.

Even if B1s are ten times more expensive than droids like 3PO, it'd be possible to build hundreds of them for less than training a single soldier. The droids also don't need food, pressurised ships, time off, or bacta.

[Covenant]

The term 'starship' could be used to describe any jump-capable ship, and in ANH Luke believed he could buy a ship for 10,000. He sold his crapbox car for 2,000. Clearly, droids and starships are BOTH cheap.

Even if B1s are ten times more expensive than droids like 3PO, it'd be possible to build hundreds of them for less than training a single soldier. The droids also don't need food, pressurised ships, time off, or bacta.

Yeah, what he said, that's what I was getting at. Also, similarly, the Droideka are referenced as being incredibly expensive as well--at least the full-power shielded ones, and they originally could have come with a potent hunter/killer style AI package that apparently creeped the Trade Federation out. It was written that the cost of the droids was so difficult to handle that the Droideka were purchased from their insectoid creators with supplies of exotic meats. Essentially, they found a high-demand trade good and swapped that instead of credits. So it's obvious that SOME droids are very pricey, but as Stark so accurately put, our sense of scale is off when it comes to Imperial currency. I seems more like the old west, where 20 bucks was a fair chunk of change, rather than the cost of a few beers. Remember five cent hamburgers? Those were the days!

And the 2-million figure was for post-clone training? That's pretty incredible. I never would have imagined it would have been that high, if only because they seem to need lots of boots on the ground but not a lot of individual skill, and I thought most of that extra cash would go to training officers and vehicle crews.

Good numbers though, really makes you understand why droid armies could swell to such amazing sizes, and why it might have actually been so important to create an army of clones. Might never have had even tenth of the amount of troops needed otherwise.

[Admiral Johnason]

Well, with the price difference, I can see why the Republic had such a hard time taking down the Confederacy. But it also raises the question of why the Republic never used a combination army of droids and clones and get the best of both worlds. Make clons into your officer corps, special forces, and pilots and use droids for your main infantry and shock troops.

[Stark]

The best part is the Luke sold his car ON THE STREET in a deal that took FIVE MINUTES to strike. He could probably have got a lot more if he'd sold it to someone respectable. And his car was missing panels - we know how much that drags down resale value.

[Noble Ire]

Well, with the price difference, I can see why the Republic had such a hard time taking down the Confederacy. But it also raises the question of why the Republic never used a combination army of droids and clones and get the best of both worlds. Make clons into your officer corps, special forces, and pilots and use droids for your main infantry and shock troops.

Its probably a matter of Palpatine's grand plan. In order to consolidate his control after the war, one of the things he had to do was villify the CIS as much as possible. Citing their usage of heartless, faceless masses of droids to wipe out planetary populations is an effective method of doing that, and might have been somewhat deminished if the Republic had also used war droids extensively. Indeed, anti-droid prejudice triggered by the war seems to be long lasting; even twenty years later, on a desert rim world like Tattooine, many still dislike droids ("We don't serve their kind here".)

Its not a perfect, explanation, though, I know, as the Republic still did use droids in other capacities, like translators, astromechs, and medics. Perhaps it was simply that the CIS controlled most of the galaxy's major war droid factories, and it was more prudent, at least in the short run, to focus on clones and their existing facilites, rather than building new foundries for battle droids.

[Stark]

It's odd though, that late-Republic droid armies were nothing special. In TPM, nobody screamed 'SHITLOGS A DROID ARMY' as it was well-known that peolpe like the TF maintained such armies. So it must be a deliberate choice on the part of the Republic to not use droids.

Frankly, from what I remember about the Senate stuff in TPM and AOTC, I think the Senate is biased against droid armies. Perhaps after millenia of droids being used by traders, debt-collectors and various Rim organisations, the Republic elite like to turn their noses up at the idea. This is probably related to the SW attitude towards droids overall. I guess the idea of the rich, cultured core worlds owing their freedom to a bunch of dirty droid foundries was too much for them.

[Admiral Johnason]

Well, with the price difference, I can see why the Republic had such a hard time taking down the Confederacy. But it also raises the question of why the Republic never used a combination army of droids and clones and get the best of both worlds. Make clons into your officer corps, special forces, and pilots and use droids for your main infantry and shock troops.

Its probably a matter of Palpatine's grand plan. In order to consolidate his control after the war, one of the things he had to do was villify the CIS as much as possible. Citing their usage of heartless, faceless masses of droids to wipe out planetary populations is an effective method of doing that, and might have been somewhat deminished if the Republic had also used war droids extensively. Indeed, anti-droid prejudice triggered by the war seems to be long lasting; even twenty years later, on a desert rim world like Tattooine, many still dislike droids ("We don't serve their kind here".)

Its not a perfect, explanation, though, I know, as the Republic still did use droids in other capacities, like translators, astromechs, and medics. Perhaps it was simply that the CIS controlled most of the galaxy's major war droid factories, and it was more prudent, at least in the short run, to focus on clones and their existing facilites, rather than building new foundries for battle droids.

You could be right. Palpie was shrewd enough to play the living card or that the CIS had monopolized droid production, but the relative cost of droids would eventually overcome the desire to use clones as the war progressed.

[SCVN 2812]

It's odd though, that late-Republic droid armies were nothing special. In TPM, nobody screamed 'SHITLOGS A DROID ARMY' as it was well-known that peolpe like the TF maintained such armies. So it must be a deliberate choice on the part of the Republic to not use droids.

Frankly, from what I remember about the Senate stuff in TPM and AOTC, I think the Senate is biased against droid armies. Perhaps after millenia of droids being used by traders, debt-collectors and various Rim organisations, the Republic elite like to turn their noses up at the idea. This is probably related to the SW attitude towards droids overall. I guess the idea of the rich, cultured core worlds owing their freedom to a bunch of dirty droid foundries was too much for them.

Looking through the SW wiki apparently IG-88 was hardly the first to organize a droid rebellion, a couple more seemed to have happened sometime between the Golden Age and KOTOR. One more reason for suspicion of droids, Irrational fear or not, a droid is only as good as its programming and the possibility always exists that whether through getting to be too smart for their own good or outside influence they might turn their weapons on their organic masters.

[Stark]

Heh. That would have made an EU novel that didn't suck - exploring galactic attitudes to droids, the history of droid-biological conflict, and the legal and technological results of this. You know, like *real* science fiction?

[Noble Ire]

Heh. That would have made an EU novel that didn't suck - exploring galactic attitudes to droids, the history of droid-biological conflict, and the legal and technological results of this. You know, like *real* science fiction?

While I disagree on the first point, it would make for a good novel (and in fact, there are a few pre-KOTOR novels in the planning stages, I believe). Actually, the Medstar books explored a similar topic rather well; the view of clones in the Republic during the early part of the war, and the main character's progression into accepting them more as humans than fighting machines.

[Stark]

You know, the reason things like Asimov's Robot books work is exactly because people DON'T change their attitudes in the course of a book. Social attitudes are just passing fads, anyway: it's more interesting to look at sources and consequences. But I've heard the Medstar books are quite different to the regular toxic waste EU novel.

Man, if Greg Egan wrote a SW novel... that would be sweet, and it'd give all the little brand-loyalists a headache. Two for one!

[Adrian Laguna]

The term 'starship' could be used to describe any jump-capable ship, and in ANH Luke believed he could buy a ship for 10,000. He sold his crapbox car for 2,000. Clearly, droids and starships are BOTH cheap.

Wrong. He said that he could "almost" buy his own starship for 10,000. This would mean that a total piece of shit jump-capable ship, which might be stolen, would run probably between 12k and 16k.

[Stark]

What the fuck? Sure, he might not have a clue how much shit costs, but 'almost' meaning 60%? Is that what YOU mean when you say 'almost'? And STOLEN? How the fuck would farmboy Luke even know how much stolen ships cost? He probably knows how much ships cost from constantly looking in the fucking Trading Post!

Further, WHO CARES. Jumpdrives and associated powerplants are obviously not expensive. Even in your insanely inflated example, perhaps three decent groundcars would buy you a jumpship. Since Luke's car sucked and was 20+ years old and he got ripped by a street vendor, I imagine a 'proper' new car would sell for as much as ten times more. In other words, jumpships cost about as much as cars.

[Adrian Laguna]

*Looks at own post again*

That came out way more hostile than I intended. Actually, any hostility was way more than I intended. I should have written "Nitpick" instead of "Wrong", that would have been a much better representation of what I wanted to say.

But yes, if I had $10,000 and wanted to buy a $14,000 car I would say that I had "almost" enough.