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Craft (blueprints)

A tech specialist can create blueprints for any item that he has the opportunity to dismantle and inspect, using the Craft (blueprints) skill. This includes items that are customised (but not personalised), effectively creating a new base item.

The DC for Craft (blueprints) is the same as for constructing the item, +2 for each customisation or (in the case of a droid) for each piece of equipment or level of experience different from the base model.

However, for each failure on a Craft (blueprints) check, the GM should apply a penalty to the item, either by adjusting one of its stats or selecting a suitable side effect from the cybernetics rules.

The procedure for modifying blueprints that you have is exactly the same as for reverse-engineering a constructed item, except that the tech specialist can design a derivative item of one step greater complexity (such as a droid of higher degree) by making a check at the DC of the item that he wants to build.

If the tech specialist has no blueprints or sample items at all, he can use Craft (blueprints) to design an item of, at most, Medium complexity from scratch, but this costs twice as much in resources. For example, to make a third-degree droid from scratch, the tech specialist could design a fifth-degree droid, then modify the blueprints into a third-degree droid, at a cost of two-thirds of the blueprint cost of the fifth-degree model plus one-third the blueprint cost of the third-degree model.

 

Depending on the number of droids that you plan to allow the player to build, decide how many droids of each model he should make to break even with buying them new. Then cost the blueprints at one-sixth the price of the droid, less the cost of the toolkit to make it. (Note: this assumes a reduced labour cost due to mass production by skilled droids using advanced custom-designed tools - most craftsmen in small workshops will not be as efficient.) Multiply this cost by the number of droids required to break even.

For Star Wars, it looks as if the break-even number is one droid, since Watto was happy for his slave Anakin to build a droid in his spare time using Watto's parts. (Note, this also supports the idea that droids have to match their blueprints, since Anakin constructed a standard 3PO droid even though he was working on his own with juryrigged parts). So blueprints for a 3PO protocol droid should cost (1/6 x 3000) - 150 = 350 credits.

There should be standard catalogues floating around, with the blueprints for a number of prevalent droid models of the same manufacturer that have been in production since an earlier era. This would give a discount of maybe 50% cost.

For example, an Imperial-era Industrial Automation catalogue might include the R2 and R4 astromechs, LOM and SE4 protocol droids, TTS-15 tutor, 2-1B and MD medics, and scrubber droid. I'll leave the cost of this as an exercise for the reader.