Order your RRERED drone today!
RRERE Drone, usually pronounced Rered, Stands for Rugged Remote Emergency Repair and Engineering.
Throught all history, of evry known race, there has always been remote infrastructure, usually for things like communication ((semaphore stations, telegraph lines, communication satellites)), navigation ((Lighthouses, GPS satellites)), transportation ((Rails and roads of various kinds, hypernode/jumgates if such things are used in this setting)), or simple supply depots.
In past ages these needed to be manned by people spending lonely years away from their families, but with modern drones this is no longer necessary, and the best choice for the job is the rered!
(http://i32.tinypic.com/dw71ib.png)
(Pictured: A rered drone in defensive/deactivated mode, atmospheric flight mode, and operating mode. Please note that the paerspective of the last one is messed up and the arms look larger than they are among other things.)
The rered can work in almost any condidtion! From the freezing vacuum and microgravity of space to crushing pressure, immense gravity, acid rains and temperatures that would melt most metals nothing will slow it down in it's important work!
The standard deployment method of the rered allows it to deploy and preform it's mission with minimum delay and cost: Simply pack it into a RRERED Interplanetary Deployment Shell (sold separately) and launch at a proper trajectory, the RREREDIDS heatshields allow areobraking from up to low interstellar speed, and it's parachutes will put the reared safely on the surface of the planet (or if it is a gass giant, release it into the atmosphere directly), were it cracks open to release the droid.
The rered can navigate any terrain, be it land, sea, or air, and rapidly traverse thousands of miles to reach it's target.
Once it arives, it will use it's extensive array of engineering and fabrication tools to build, maintain or repair whatever needs to be built, maintained or repaired, and then proceed to the next. Once the mission is complete and there are no more targets within range it will go dormant and wait for either further orders, being reclaimed, or simply until the same structures are due for the next round of maintenance. The Rered has a very high degree of autonomic and can make high level decisions by itself and operate for decades without intervention, as necessary in many remote locations, in order to do this properly it is equipped whit a high intelligence compared to most drones.
This is not the only the only way it can be used however. As dictated by the Doctrine of Flexible Autonoumus Equipment it can be useful for a wide range of applications, including less remote engineering, construction and landscaping, exploration, geological or biological analysis, even makeshift fighting of aggressive wildlife or natives, and many, many others!
Specifications:
Shell diameter: 170cm
Mass: 230kg
Operating parameters:
- gravity: operational from 0g to 20g, can withstand several hundred in dectivated mode.
- temperature: −272 C to +600 C
- pressure: 0 atm to 150 atm
- Radiation: ((Lots! but I cant be bothered to look up exact units.))
- In addition to this, the rered can withstand every known naturally occurring chemical environment.
Top speed: ((Depends on environment, especially gravity and pressure, but it can fly damn fast, in earth conditions many times the speed of sound. It presumably uses those forcefelds you mentioned exist in this setting in order to fix it''s aerodynamics.))
Flight range: ((nearly unlimited, it can make it's own fuel if there is water, and it makes it has internal powerplants as well))
Combat ability: ((medium. The ruggedness that allows it to survive hostile environments also means it is fairly well protected, and the shell itself probably is comparable to light military armour even. It tools work fairly well as improvised weapons to: it has saws, cutting torches, and the jets can be adjusted to work as a makeshift plasma gun. However, it's still a civilian droid, and while it can go up agains wildlife, low tech natives, or civilian crowds it would be horribly outclassed against any serious military or police force. The outer shell gives fairly good armor but it cant fight in the defensive mode, and when it unfolds it presents huge vulnerable areas, and even the shell would not stand up against anything armour piercing. It also lacks ranged weaponry as even if the beam from the jets can be focused somewhat they will still dissipate within a few hundred meters. It also reacts slowly. Also, makeshift weapons from tools are of coarse extremely weak compared to actual weapons.))
Structure: (please use the image as reference when reading this)
When turtled up it is a perfect sphere, there are seams but even those are hard to see.
When in flight mode, the two halves of the sphere are separated and wings extended, as well as the Observation Arm, this of coarse makes for horrible aerodynamics but tech stuff like forcefields fix this. On each wing there is a dynamical modifiable muzzle plasma jet, meaning it can work as an ordinary jet, a scramjet, a rocket, etc. It can even be focused to work as a makeshift plasma gun.
When doing actual work (or traversing on ground, or fighting) one of the halves stay the same, this one contains most the large bulky things like comuters and power source and such, while the other is split up in 7 parts. the centre part remains in place, on the bottom of the droid, while the other 6 are located at the "knees" of its 6 legs. Note that the droid is radially symmetric.
the structure in this mode appears basically like an upside down "wedding cake" under the half sphere, were each layer can rotate separately.
On the lowest layer are the legs, on the middle layer are the two Heavy Manipulation Arms, and on the uppermost layer is the Engineering Head Arm. The Observation arm comes out directly from underneath the cap. Recapping this means the droid consists on one half sphere cap, 3 "cake layers", 4 arms, and 6 legs.
The legs are thin, but powerful, and leg strength will rarely be a bottleneck for how much the droid can lift. They have several detachable "feet" that are kept under the cap and can be easily refitted. Pictured in the image are the "snow boot" style feet for lose soil, sand, snow, dust, or actual snow. Other configuration include wheels for high speed on herder ground, griping claws with magnetic grappling as well for climbing and microgravity work, ski-like feet that in combination with a little power from the jets allow fast movement on liquid, snow, or some types of dust, as well as a few other configurations that together cover virtually any environment. On the "knees" of the legs are parts of the shell, as well as some hooks that can be used for storage.
The Engineering Head Arm consists of an expendable arm, on the arm a long flexible "snout", and on the end of that the engineering head, this configuration allows said head to get into narrow openings without having to take things apart. The engineering head itself consists of a wide array of tools and sensors, capable of virtually any repair and capable of manufacturing even complex components on spot, if you can think of an engineering tool most likely you can find it somewhere on the engineering head, including physical manipulators capable of easily preforming anything that can be done by hand. The head also contain several high definition cameras, microscopy for examination and manufacture of circuitry and other microscopic components, spectrography, infrared and ultraviolet cameras, mechanical and chemical sensors, ultrasound, etc.
The Heavy Manipulation Arms have shorter range, but are very strong ((Whatever that means in this setting, both arms together are basically equivalent to a forklift, or what fills the role of a forklift in this setting)). on the ends are simple cutting torches, a few tools like small saws and drills, but most importance powerful High Flexibility Manipulators, alowing it to manipulate items with high agility, and get a powerful grip on almost any object or surface.
The Observation Arm is long and flexible but not very powerful, and serves only to uphold the Observation head. The observation head contains cameras, a telescope, ((If such things are common in this setting, a holographic projector)), radar, a few other minor sensors, communication antenna, and an unfolding console ((probably holographic and/or touchscreen)) for accessing the rereds computer systems.