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The Jazz Intern wrote:I didn't like the buzz droids either. And, Why make it so ineffective? just mount a small ion cannon on the buzz droid.

Not a good enough power supply?The buzz droids were pretty darn small...they can't have had enough room for a big battery/reactor. It's the same reason you can't put a turret on R2, the power output is too low.

It's just another way to provide cheap thrills and new special effects into the movie

Seeing Red wrote:It's just another way to provide cheap thrills and new special effects into the movie

Yes, let's ignore SoD and go on about VFX. Thank you for contributing.

From what I've read and heard, they are specialized weapons used against Jedi. Notice how out of the many fighter kills in the opening battle, only Obi-Wan and Anakin were swarmed with Buzz Droids. I'm going by the movie alone here, since I haven't read the novelization.

As others brought up, the droids are far too small to mount an ion cannon, and theoretically, Buzz Droids might be useful in large numbers against a capital ship, whereas a fighter-mounted ion cannon is going to be useless against pretty much anything except other fighters. This gives them a bit more flexibility. Buzz Droids also seem to be a fire-and-forget weapon, which is an advantage in a dense battle. You can loose a swarm and then move off to engage more enemies, reasonably confident that your target will be suitably disabled or taken out of the fight.

Finally, it's pretty clear from the movie that all Anakin is doing is trying to keep what's left of the Invisible Hand from falling off. He isn't flying, just trying to keep all the pieces falling together.

I noted in the ep3 suggestions thread that the Buzz Droids would be suited far better for ship *repair*. They're smaller and more agile than an Astromech, who is stuck in place for the flight, and seems to spend more of it's time acting as a copilot and navigator.

Pcm979 wrote:I noted in the ep3 suggestions thread that the Buzz Droids would be suited far better for ship *repair*. They're smaller and more agile than an Astromech, who is stuck in place for the flight, and seems to spend more of it's time acting as a copilot and navigator.

Whoa! That would actually be pretty sweet! Something that small in huge numbers could easily self repairs parts of a Starship.

Crossroads Inc. wrote:

Pcm979 wrote:I noted in the ep3 suggestions thread that the Buzz Droids would be suited far better for ship *repair*. They're smaller and more agile than an Astromech, who is stuck in place for the flight, and seems to spend more of it's time acting as a copilot and navigator.

Whoa! That would actually be pretty sweet! Something that small in huge numbers could easily self repairs parts of a Starship.

Man, I hadn't even considered that. Trouble is, if they are deployed in the middle of a battle to repair a capship, chances are that capship is under fire and so you'd need very large numbers to offset the casualties you'd incur just from ship-to-ship fire. I can't see them hanging on in a dogfight either. So I think the main use for them would be for damaged warships to move out of the immediate battle and deploy swarms of buzz droids to affect temporary repairs, perhaps just enough to let them get back in the fight.

Well, they seemed to hang on to Obi's fighter pretty easily. Also, the Astromechs were deployed during TPM.

Pcm979 wrote:Well, they seemed to hang on to Obi's fighter pretty easily. Also, the Astromechs were deployed during TPM.

From what I remember of the opening battle of RotS and of TPM, neither of those ships were performing anything approaching dogfighting maneuvers. The yacht was flying straight, and I'm pretty sure Obi-Wan was holding fairly steady.

Well, I wasn't suggesting that they'd be running around fixing things up during heated combat, that'd be stupid. Just disengage from the dogfight, if possible, let the Droids bolt things in place a bit, and get back to it.

Edit: Also, using them on cap ships would be silly. You'd need zillions of the things.

Pcm979 wrote:Well, I wasn't suggesting that they'd be running around fixing things up during heated combat, that'd be stupid. Just disengage from the dogfight, if possible, let the Droids bolt things in place a bit, and get back to it.

Edit: Also, using them on cap ships would be silly. You'd need zillions of the things.

Why would it be silly? If you can manufacture quadrillions of battle droids, you should be able to easily manufacture enough buzz droids to perform simple maitnence on a capship. I'm not talking reattaching an engine or anything, but simple things like welding damaged pieces of armor back together, repairing circuits or getting into small areas to perform maitnence and repair where normal crews can't get to. They'd also be invaluable on a flight deck, repairing fighters as they come in to land and rearm.

In SW space battles, if you've got a big enough gun to penetrate a cap ship's shields you're going to leave more than a few scratches, the broadside to the Hand being an extreme example.

Pcm979 wrote:In SW space battles, if you've got a big enough gun to penetrate a cap ship's shields you're going to leave more than a few scratches, the broadside to the Hand being an extreme example.

Ok, perhaps I wasn't considering fully when I mentioned repairing hull plating so I'll concede that point, but for other forms of repairs, especially to cramped areas or inside the hull of the ship (since IIRC SW ship hulls are generally composed of an outer and inner hull) and to electronics and other systems which would require frequent maintence, they would certainly be useful. Also, they could work in areas that might be deemed too hazardous for living beings, such as in close proximity to the engines or reactor. On the outside they wouldn't be much use in battle, though I think in the aftermath they'd be good to have until you can get to a space dock. On the inside, I could very well see hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of buzz droids swarming through the space between the hulls and around the reactor and engines performing repairs.

Yeah, that'd work. I hadn't thought of *that*.

Just imagine in a fleet, you have a specfic ship that holds several Billion Buzz/Fixer droids. In battle you realise them like a swarm to do repairs. Maybe you could build them a little bigger to be more efective, but the same princple applys.

Anyone who every saw 'Mantrid' from LEXX knows what endless numbers of small robots can do...

That is essentially what the mouse droids on Imp ships are for, routine maintenance and getting into small spaces to fix stuff a person can't easily get to. The only difference being the Buzz droids have legs and maybe repulsors.