In anticipation for the holiday coming tomorrow to some countries, here's a yard ornament I made.
Omake: Hammerscale Remote Fighter
Production Information
Manufacturer:
Mindan Shipyard Workers Academy
Model: Hammerscale Remote Fighter
Type:
Drone
Cost: 10,000 Credits new
and well made, 5,000 Credits used or "new"
——
Technical Specifications
Length: 5 meters
Engine unit(s): 1 underpowered
Hoersch-Kessel ion drive
Maximum atmospheric speed: 600 km/h
Hyperdrive: None, and incapable of being installed.
Maximum Range: Very close space stations or traveling from a planet to an orbiting moon on a preprogrammed route.
Shielding: none, section for bolting one on externally.
Power:
power cells and a
Draxton-12 small-yield portable generator for emergencies.
Hull: inexpensive titanium alloys
Standard color: bright yellow
Sensors: short range sensors
Armament: 1 light
autoblaster
Crew: 0 (remote controlled and
very limited autopilot)
Cargo Capacity: 10 kg
Life Support: none
Operation Time: 12 hours
Consumables: 1 set of cheap parts kept in the fighter for on site repair.
Other Systems:
Distress beacon
Fake cockpit
——
Usage
Availability: Restricted
Roles (in recommended use order):
- Training model for shipyard workers
- Budgetary savings implement
- Training target for cadet pilots
- Spare parts container
- Holofilm prop
- Showpiece for ship sellers
- Expensive yard ornament
- Anything but using it in active combat
- Stationary remote control autoblaster turret
- Ineffective last ditch short range fighter defense
Affiliation:
- Mindan Shipyards
- Pilot academies
- PDFs who have run out of options
——
Description
"Steady, steady… nope it crashed into an asteroid. Sorry, I don't think you're getting a passing grade. At least it wasn't piloted." - An unsuccessful test flight exam of an assembled Hammerscale
The Hammerscale Remote Fighter is a ship designed for the manufacturer, not the theoretical user. Envisioned as a training tool for newly hired shipyard workers to acquire hands on experience building starships as cheaply as possible. Any results after these starships leave the assembly line is either coincidental, or an attempt to recoup costs by the makers. This has not stopped the Hammerscale from flying through the stars it was never intended to see.
Background
"We could have them assemble Mankvims, that way the new hires can get practical experience."
"And leave us with a bunch of shoddy interceptors to find a use for? No, if we do this, we go all the way. Draw up a design that strips all but the bare necessities for the workers to train with." - Discussion that would lead to the creation of the Hammerscale.
During the early ABYs the Minda system faced a challenge. They just had a large shipyard towed into their system and were facing a massive shortage in skilled labor. Thousands of newly hired shipyard workers needed to acquire the training and hands on experience necessary to work in a shipyard.
If the new workers needed to learn how to build a starship, then the Mindan government decided they would learn by building a starship. They drafted a design for a starship that was small, could be assembled via unskilled labor with a decent chance of success, and made with cheap, readily available parts the Mindan government could buy in bulk to further reduce costs. Thus, the Hammerscale Remote Fighter was born.
Design
"Alright so we will go with remote controls in order to side step the inevitability of pilots dying in these death traps during test flights. Droid brains are also out so we don't wind up with another Detritus Satellites situation, no matter how ineffective they would be." - Conversation in the Design room discussing how the Hammerscale will be piloted.
Measured at five meters long, the Hammerscale was never intended to house a flesh and blood sentient. The cockpit inside was both for show and to teach students how to assemble a cockpit. Rather, the fighter was designed to undergo test flights via remote operation from a console at base to ensure the students assembled it correctly enough.
A basic autopilot was installed in case of a sudden disconnection from the operator. Said autopilot could do basic flight tasks like moving in a straight line and adjusting its course to avoid ramming into incoming obstacles. However the Hammerscale lacked a sophisticated and relatively expensive
Autopilot Droid Brain, preventing it from performing anything resembling combat maneuvers or agility like a true
droid starfighter would.
For its sole armament, the Hammerscale comes equipped with one light
autoblaster. This archaic, short range weapon combined with a weak targeting system made the Hammerscale more suited to dissuading skittish trespassers than actual dogfighting. Which made the load out perfect for teaching cadet pilots how to keep calm under fire during training exercises.
The decision was made to have the Hammerscale use an underpowered
Hoersch-Kessel ion drive for its engine. This was done due to the ubiquitous nature of the engine allowing for a cheap discount bulk order, and in order to use the slightly radioactive nature of the engine's exhaust to give the students practice in hazardous material training. Plenty of students would find themselves laid up in academy clinics due to foolishly believing they could cut corners in the protocol.
Sales
"Sell them? The Empire already sidelined the Bot-drones. Who is going to want an even worse version of that?" - During an argument that broke out when selling the Hammerscale was first suggested.
Hammerscales rarely left the locations they were assembled in. If a Hammerscale was built perfectly to design, the students would get a perfect score on their test flight exam, and afterwards the test the Hammerscale would be rolled back into the building for disassembly for next semester's class. Their instructors more concerned with saving costs for the academic year than putting fighters in the field.
Given the fate of a well built Hammerscale, it was understandable that those that left the academy gained a reputation for questionable quality. The ones that lasted more than a few test flights were those that were either unable or uneconomical to be broken down for future assembly while still being flight worthy. Given the remote nature of the Hammerscale, that margin was wider than other ships.
The main reasons a Hammerscale might be declared for "export" were manufacturing errors or damage sustained during test flights. To recoup some of the losses, efforts were made to pawn off the "new" Hammerscales to earn more than just melting them down as scrap. Of course appropriate warnings and recommendations were given on how they should be used.
Actually selling the Hammerscales proved to face a few obstacles. Fighters without a sentient pilot were frowned upon by the Empire despite the Hammerscale's programming struggling to compete with a
Marksman-H combat remote. That would not stop some regulators from crying
Vulture if the Hammerscale ever hit the open market.
One loophole came from the same source that created the Hammerscale in the first place, academia. Certified flight academies were one of the few organizations that were allowed to use automated vessels as training targets controlled by academy staff. This lead to Hammerscale being assigned to local academies then "transferred" to interested academies out of system in exchange for goods or favors.
This process did lead to some unintended consequences. Particularly bold or desperate PDFs would sometimes fill out the flimsiwork to "found" a flight academy for their world, order some Hammerscales for training purposes, then close the academy due to "unexpected budgetary problems". The hope that these drones would be able to work as a cheaper alternative to manned starfighters was quickly dashed when they entered combat.
Performance
"I assure you sir. The Hammerscale will perform just as well as the Planetary Defender, all without risking our limited stable of pilots." - A commander of a PDF greatly exaggerating the capabilities of the Hammerscale to his superior.
Hammerscales were never designed for combat. They were built to at best complete a few test flights and maybe provide a target for cadets who are in a cockpit for the first time. This intention can be seen in the many, many flaws that show themselves when people have tried using them in combat.
One of the main flaws of the Hammerscale is its crippling weakness to ion weaponry. Hammerscales are incredibly vulnerable to fire from even a
light ion blaster. Ion fire could mission kill a Hammerscale to the point it would need in depth maintenance to replace all the cheap wiring that will have been overloaded and burnt out.
The cut corners in the electronics also give the Hammerscale very weak resistance to electronic warfare or even just background interference. Should the Hammerscale encounter such disruption it will default to its autopilot making it an easy target for enemy fire. This has resulted in a section in the owner's manual recommending the Hammerscale stick to designated training areas far from urbanized areas, particularly strong signals, or during days with heavy cloud cover to avoid "unfortunate occurrences".
In addition, the Hammerscale can often experience difficulties when operating at farther than intended distances from its remote operator. These difficulties can come in the form of input lag as the Hammerscale can take up to several seconds before preforming a maneuver or firing its weapon. Another issue is constant attempts to reconnect with its operator resulting in confused movements as the Hammerscale switches from remote control to autopilot constantly as it loses and reestablishes connection.
Hammerscales cannot even perform the swarm tactics well known by
droid starfighters. When more than five Hammerscales are in a small area, the signals from all the different operators begin interfering with each other. This leads a notable drop in performance and even crashes into each other in some cases.
The 12 hour operation time for the Hammerscale is also a theoretical maximum. Performing combat maneuvers or firing the autoblaster decreases that operation time. Meaning every sortie of the Hammerscale puts it on a strict time limit.
Beyond all those flaws, how does a Hammerscale perform when put on the ideal battlefield? In terms of combat power, the Hammerscale was designed to be defeated by untrained cadets. Unsurprisingly it does very poorly against pilots who are slightly competent.
Attempts have been made by PDFs to make the Hammerscale better. A shield generator can be bolted on the drone, but it would decrease the already slow speed and make it difficult to control due to the extra weight and throwing the drone off balance. At least it made it a more durable training target.
Talk was made about improving the piloting by installing an
Autopilot Droid Brain. However that talk usually died down when they run the numbers and realize that the droid brain would more than double the cost they paid for the Hammerscale in the first place. Attempting to put in a smaller sentient pilot inside was deemed a creative form of roster reduction.
Conclusion
"Those Slaggers barely did anything! Why did we even buy them!?" - The previous commander during a pirate raid later that same year.
The Hammerscale was a fighter meant for the design board and classrooms. A drone meant to never venture beyond the hands and tools that birthed it. An implement crafted with cheap parts to instruct the next generation in Mindan's creative methodology of shipbuilding.
They are destined to be disassembled before it could fire its weapon in anger. Yet despite the odds, some of these "Slaggers" broke the their chains and became glorious stars, burning up after almost always being shot down in their first sortie. The Hammerscale proves that anything can become a weapon of death with enough desperation and lack of funds.
——
Making this was prompted by seeing the
TIE/D automated starfighter and wondering why Las and other Outer Rim governors don't use droid fighters to make up for their lack of manpower. After a quick jaunt through Star Wars' history of droid fighters and drone fighters, I realized droid fighters were probably too heavily restricted by the Empire to be worth it. So I made a cheap remote operated fighter and showed why that is probably a terrible idea to use in high speed starfighter combat.
The inspiration for this one is the Elektra Trainer Ultralight Aircraft from Elektra Solar. Just with an ion drive instead of propellers and a gun in the front tip.
Crossposted on SB and SV
