Reverse engineer a repair drone

[Boldtaar]

Have a PC that was a navy engineer and that instead of picking a traditional vehicle as a benefit picked a repair drone.
But the descriptions and stats for repair drones are limited in the books.

First problem Is it a ship or a vehicle?
Second problem is how big should the drone be?
In Highguard a repair drone is described as man-sized and displaces the same as 1 tone hull, but has the same amount of hitpoint as a 10 tone hull.
It cost 200000 Cr and has Hits: 25, Armor: 6, Speed: Subsonic.

Trying to reverse engineer it using the Vehicle handbook because it seems more suitable fro creating a small drone.
Vehicle handbook uses Space and not Hull like Highguard to describe size.
In Vehicle handbook 4 Space = 1 ton cargo. And that is what I pick for the size of my repair drone.

This is what I came up with so far.
Any suggestions or input?

TL Cr
Light grav vehicle 8 120 000 Space: 4, Hull: 8, Armor: 2, Agility +1, Speed: Fast
Armor 8 9 600 Armor +4 . Space -0,16
Communication system (improved) 8 75 Range 500km
Encrypted communication 8 4 000
Receiver Control Interface (improved) 9 10 000 DM+0, Mass: 0,5
Actuation system 1 000 Space -1
Robot brain (basic) 8 20 000 Skill level -1
Computer/1 8 750 Specialised +2
Software Expert 1 11 1 000 Engineer 0
Software Expert 1 11 1 000 Mechanic 0
Software Expert 1 11 1 000 Electronics 0
Manipulator arm (advanced) 9 10 000 Space -2, STR: 15, DEX:12
Starship Engineer tool set 12 4 000 12kg
Cargo space Free space 198kg
total: 182 425 Cr

WTF how do I use tap to or create a column when posting?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That thing is HUGE, far from man-sized.

I fear neither the Vehicle nor the Spacecraft systems are suited to such small machines. A better comparison are the Robots in CSC. Since there is no specific design system I would take a robot and modify to my needs. See the "Robot or Drone?" sidebar VH, p66.

Take e.g. the Sanitation Droid, lower the intelligence and price, and done. See Battle Dress Modifications (CSC, p36) and Personal Augmentations (CSC, p86) for man-sized equipment to add to robots.


Note: Spacecraft are measured in displacement tons ≈ 14 m³. Vehicles are measured in metric tonnes = 1000 kg. Unfortunately 1 ton in HG (14 m³) is not the same as 1 ton in VH (1000 kg).

Note 2: Vehicles are rated by payload, not total size. A 4 Space vehicle would have 1000 kg cargo/passenger/equipment, in addition to chassis, drives, and shell. A car would be about 4 Spaces. A light grav vehicle of 4 Spaces would have a Shipping Size of 2 displacement tons or about 28 m³.



To make a vehicle the size of a probe drone, the default in HG, it should pack 5 to a displacement ton, so should have a shipping size of about 0.2 displacement tons, hence 0.4 Spaces.

 

[Condottiere]

Don't we have a robots supplement?

The problem with the term drone is that it covers a wide range of automated vehicles.

 

[Geir]

Don't we have a robots supplement?

I wish.
There is a 1e robots book, which was well-written, though completely non-Third Imperium relevant, I thought.
Also the design rules didn't make that much sense to me.

The problem with using vehicle design rules is, as mentioned above, scale. That even a basic arm takes a whole space makes it unsuitable for robots. The Aslan technician robot (hikare’ - p. 107 of Pirates of Drinax Book 2) is the best equivalent of a repair drone I've seen, though at Cr 650,000, it's a bit pricey. Of course, the requirement for auto-repair or remote ops implies the repair drones aren't very smart on their own, so that would drop the cost by a lot.

 

[Condottiere]