Just as the topic says. What's the advantage of making clones when droids can be produced so cheaply and effectively? Are clones more versatile?

This is pretty much explained in an explicit fashion by Prime Minister Lama Su in Attack of the Clones.

Realistically, the superiority of clones over battle droids is arguable.

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"..history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers". - RedImperator

"ha ha, raping puppies is FUN!" - Johonebesus

"It would just be Unicron with pew pew instead of nom nom". - Vendetta, explaining his justified disinterest in the idea of the movie Allspark affecting the Death Star

Clones can take the initiative, think creatively, and can still have standardized weapons and armor. The clone army probably uses one or two sizes of uniforms in all.

In the translated novelisation Lama Su says that Sifo- Dyas explained to them that the Jedi were averge to controlling droids, they could only command a living force.

The biggest advantage I can see is that with clones you don't have to worry about having your droid command ship get blown to pieces and effectively ending the battle.

That problem was solved as of AotC. The droids were no longer dependant on a droid control ship.

They didn't?

In fact, in the RotS novelization and AotC deleted scenes, they mention/show the destruction of the droid control ship and how the droids power down for a second and then turn back on. They just can't be given as detailed orders as with the droid control ship.

Yep, there's a deleted scene where a Jedi strike team destroys the command ship. The droids halt for a second and the arena Jedi cheer.. but the machines whirr back to life a moment later (though possibly with reduced coordination, tactical creativity and initiative).

They do indeed have advantages in the brains department... and, in a manner, no disadvantages in terms of firepower and armor; where large droids are used, like Spiders and Hailfires, the Clones simply use vehicles for the same role.

However, I'm not sure if the aforementioned advantages (creativity, initiative) really do make up for the massive numerical superiority that a battle droid army (at similar cost) would enjoy.

Ah, yeah.. I'd forgotten about the Force aspect of the deal. I guess Jedi can group buff clone squads, but not droids

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"..history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers". - RedImperator

"ha ha, raping puppies is FUN!" - Johonebesus

"It would just be Unicron with pew pew instead of nom nom". - Vendetta, explaining his justified disinterest in the idea of the movie Allspark affecting the Death Star

The clones can also be upgraded without making a new one. And they can learn and improve as a result of combat experience. When you want to upgrade (a good combat upgrade) a droid, you have to build a new one or add new parts to it.

Not to mention all of the other nasty shit that can muck up droids: there's the potential for havoc due to natural and artificial EM waves, environmental hazards such as excessive moisture or heat, some sort of malicious electronic espionage, and the bad PR that could crop up.

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This has been another blunder by you friendly local idiot.

Why would it be harder to equip a droid than a clone? You've still got to build and give them equipment. Besides, when you give a clone a new weapon, you've got to teach them how to use it. With a droid, you can train one of them to use it, save that combat experience to disk, and then upload it into all your new droids.

Besides, why can't a droid learn and improve as are result of combat experience? Hell, you'd think it would be easier to teach a droid, since a droid you can plug into a computer and upload as many hours of combat experience and weapons training you want.

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"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet

"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert

"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter

Same applies to clones- vacuum, biochemical agents, etc.

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ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer


George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor

Isn't clone/storm trooper armor air tight and pressurized?

So? You can shield against nasty radiation, moisture, heat, EMP, etc on droids as well.

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ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer


George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor

It think droid's potential for millitary use is limited due to the possibility that, if left unattended, and learns too much, it may eventually rebel against it's owners, a la IG-88, except in huge numbers. Maybe that's also the reason why they stop working when the control ship gets destroyed, it's too dangerous to give them independent minds.

Perhaps battledroids have their programming checked on a regular basis, thus making it difficult to conceal Order 66 in them. Probably easier to hide things like that in an organic brain.

Woudnt the separatist's hae an advantage against other droids?
After all how hard would it be to hack them or take advantage of the design flaws of inferior enemy droids.

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Photography
Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from its hands and the blood has been cleaned up.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Clones can also have a "kill all jedi" subroutine programmed in without having some snooping techie/jedi (Anakin) or maintenance guy stumbling upon it.

edit: dammit iguana!

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Children of the Ancients
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Could be a cultural thing; most SW cultures are more comfortable commanding an organic sentient, maybe. There seems to be a disdain for droids. Clonetroopers need someplace to live, food, water, and medical care whereas driods might be constructed more independent of maintenance and so harder to contain of they do go rogue.

Having just read the ROTS novelisation I feel Dooku's internal monologue reveals a lot.

The Civil War was a set-up with evil, greedy, slimy aliens with their inhuman robo-soldiers on one side and the Republic with it's genetically superior humans on the other.

That, and as has been already pointed out it would be harder to find/alter Order 66 in a fleshy than a droid.

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Don't abandon democracy folks, or an alien star-god may replace your ruler. - NecronLord

A droid army could potentially be vulnerable to some sort of slicer attack. You can't hack an army of humans, but you might be able to find some kind of hack for an army of droids. That's a particular point of weakness that clone armies won't have. Hell, that's what happened at the end of the Clone Wars; they shut down the entire droid army with a single command.

That could arguably have been part of Palpatine's thinking; an enemy with a single point of failure is convenient when you're only using them as pawns in the first place.

Whether by chance or by design, it certainly was a very convenient feature for Palpatine.

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"..history has shown the best defense against heavy cavalry are pikemen, so aircraft should mount lances on their noses and fly in tight squares to fend off bombers". - RedImperator

"ha ha, raping puppies is FUN!" - Johonebesus

"It would just be Unicron with pew pew instead of nom nom". - Vendetta, explaining his justified disinterest in the idea of the movie Allspark affecting the Death Star

What if they'd just fielded a force of Terminator Endoskeletons and given them the Clones's gear?

As to the slicer angle, that is a good point, but then again, we have 'mind slicing' in Star Wars.. via Jedi and other mind control tricks, even with drugs like Spice. And instead of EMP's we have biological and chemical agents. Wasn't there some EU story about some anti-clone virus being used in the Clone Wars? (Off screen of course)


I guessed that the Jedi were commanding the Clones (as of AOTC), but then with Order 66, Palpatine took control of them (sort of like the Battle Meditation thing). If Droids can have a "backup brain" with loss of coordination but still function, and if the humans under the control of the Empire can have their own "backup" but lesser coordination after the Emperor's death...

So why didn't the Jedi prevent Order 66 from happening? Simple, the Shroud of the Darkside that the Sith were creating prevented them from realizing that the 'safeties were off' so to speak and didn't see it coming. Perhaps that would help explain some of the shock on the Jedi faces... Ki Adi Mundi's "C'mon!" and then realizing they're not obeying him anymore. Funny.. it always worked before! *boom*

Emperor Palpatine = the 'Droid Control Ship' of his human weapons?

I'm just purely speculating here of course.

At the end of the Clone Wars, the droids were shut down completely. Palpatine's death didn't actually kill anyone.

Clone and Stormie armor is impervious to NBC weapons.