Hi there!

This week we're taking a look at Robot Companions. Enjoy! We asked our developers:
"A feature that's been announced and explained in a few lines is a robotic companion for the player.  Can you expand on the roles and capability of the robot?  Will it die? have inventory space? Get in the way? Fight, Craft, Retrieve items from enemy corpses?"

And they said:
Robots, anyone? We got them, right here in Earthrise.

Robotic Assistants in Earthrise will be important companions that players will be able to craft and employ as they explore the island of Enterra. There will be several different models and their abilities range from assisting your combat, to providing healing and repairing aid on the battlefield, helping you out with item management and even providing some limited crafting functionality that otherwise would require a journey back to a crafting station. Designs used in crafting a robot are even more important compared to designs used in crafting normal items as they will be able to not only modify its qualities, but also its behavior. Some other uses that robots will provide will be bending the way the security looks up at your character, from forging temporary disguise for a criminal to making sure the security aid comes faster by alerting your Faction before your character can call for help. Robots, like every item in the game, will have Durability which will lower as it gets damaged and when they use their abilities; so even a robot that has never taken a dent, but has been extensively used, would require timely repairs. It is a clever tactic to take down an opponent's robotic assistant first, but only if you got enough Shield that has you covered while you take your opponent's fire.

We of course welcome your comments in the thread below.
~ m.

Looks like they decided to allow (limited) crafting outside of factories.

Places to do crafting now looks like:
Factories (full spectrum)
Crafting stations (possibly another word for factories - scope not clear)
Robots (limited ability)

Holographic disguises most likely.

And, your pet being useful? Sign me up! I wonder what else those floaty little things can do. Modulate shields? Drain your opponents shields? Place mines? Act as a sentry? Recon?

Possibilities are an awesome thing to behold.

If we have hoverboards, we will probably get hoverbots - it would make terrain navigation easier. Heck, maybe we can have a model thats both board and bot.

Great info Moll, thanks.

And yes, I look forward to my little Astromech friend!

Wow the little guys sound great wih the multitude of tasks they can perform.

Huge question though, are these little guys gonna be able to be programmed to do everything or are they gonna be only able to carry out one or two things? As in if the robot can do everything Moll stated, I would assume that it performs the tasks fairly well versus a robot made to do maybe one or two tasks well. And will we be able to have more than one, like a combat droid and a crafting droid and a harvesting driod, perhaps?

Nice info moll! But I wonder if the bot will keep on functioning after you have killed the other player and would the bot come back to you or will it just stand out in the open and do nothing.  From the way I read it seems like your robot will have the abillity to go out on its own and explore Enterra. Maybe bring back resouces and stuff... I would like to see a robot that kept on doing work while you were out some where killing someone. 

that sounds great! i wonder if the ability to use a robot is going to be a trained skill?