Drone Barge
< Droiden
Almost always in every case droids lack the intellegence, quick thinking, and situational awarness to make a truly great star pilot, but when the pace is predicatable, and the route is well-traveled, and the cargo is of little value, a drone barge is then substantially more cost effective than a Captain and Crew.
Drone barges are giagantic tankers that are steered by simple droid brains, and there are literaly thousands of configurations that exists, and the design vary by manufacturer and also with this the types of payloads it can haul vary too. Drone barges are even used to haul grain from Orron III, they ferry ice blocks from Ohann, and dispose of industrial waste from the stardocks of Kuat, Corellia, and Fondor. Drone barges are only capable of caculating elementary hyperspace jumps, home in on directional guidance beacons when in port, and are capable of running self-diagnostic checks on their cargo and propulsion system.
Due to their simplicity most of all the drone barges are produced by many starship transport manufacturers instead of automaton specialists such as Cybot Galactica. Gallofree Yards manufactured a modestly successful drone carrier before the company went bankrupt, and there are even a few of these drones still in service by smaller shipping companies.
The heavy-freight market is dominated by the Corellian Engineering Corporation, which now sells more than two dozen stock versions of the gigantic StarHauler drone barge. On planets like Fondor the StarHauler is docked at a surface landing pad where it sits for days on end while its external tanks and interior cargo holds are loaded with scrap metal, worthless ore, and toxic byproducts that are generated by shipyard construction and resource mining.
When several of these StarHaulers reach capacity they lift off and proced to the hyperspace beacons to make the jump to ligh speed. Since there are no organic beings ever aboard drones, the vessel lacks crew quaters, comfort amenities, and life-support systems, and the drones hallways only carry a few gulps of planetary atmosphere that were trapped inside when it was loaded.
Since some StarHaulers don`t make it back from there missions most companies don`t even invesitgate the disaperance since they expect this to happen once-in-a-while.
Technische Daten
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