A larger cousin to the venerable Junker, the ‘Junkmaster’ is part mobile robotics factory, part polysentience relay, and a self-replicating paragon of the Wire Guided's reason for being. It was first designed in YE 39 and is now found wherever standard Junkers roam, generally inside Freespacers factories, junkyards, trash heaps, sewers and derelict space craft.

Controlled by a rather placid, motherly intellect, the Junkmaster is technically a non-volitional AI system, but so utterly integrated into the polysentience that a true AI (or remote operator) can seize control in an instant. A cumbersome beast ten foot wide and six foot tall, it has four simple two-wheeled track-pods and four crane arms, allowing for reasonable mobility and fine manipulation upon fields of garbage and scrap iron. The wheels are magnetized like the more military oriented Deathcrawler Auto-Tank, but the increased weight is such that it only really helps the unit with mobility in outer space.

The unit is designed to take care of itself and operate independently the majority of the time, often lending to a jagged rag-tag appearance of constant self-repair and parts shortages. Guns are also sometimes attached when they are found, but only as a means of self defence. Unless specifically instructed to over the polysentience, it rarely bothers with outsider organics, and would prefer to be left tinkering in peace.

• Highly durable and capable of self repair.
• Usable either independent, or remote controlled.
• Can not only add weapons to itself on demand, but physically construct dedicated combat automata if needed.
• Relatively cheap and easily coordinated.
• Spreads a useful polysentience signal wherever it goes.

• No shields or inertialess drive systems.
• Zero ability for free navigation in space.
• Poor close defense attributes, not designed for combat.
• Can’t carry many resources itself, requiring other junkers, a derelict ship or a junkyard environment to operate.

Squat and crab-like, the unit is almost radially symmetrical other than the placement of the forward camera on the right-side pod. The front right and rear left sub-divisions of the square hull have rotational hardpoints, allowing for the attachment of additional cameras and turret weapons. The finish of the hull plating depends on available resources, and if there is anyone around who cares about decorating it; Most are rusty hulks with little adornment, lending them an element of camouflage among fields of debris and trash.

The design has it's origins in the industrial junkers created by the rogue type two Lycosidae for their secret fortress on Freehold Factory. After the place was once again scorched and Lyco was forcibly moved to the planet 188604, they came into contact with the travelling business machine Linelayer 'Hammerhead' 88, who convinced them to build something more independent and less reliant on the existence of secret bases and vulnerable motherships. As with most things, Lyco really completed his request out of spite for the universe at large, through Hammerhead's true intentions actually turned out to be less warlike in ambition.

The Junkmaster was a machine specifically created to spread Freespacer influence, even in places were there were no actual Freespacers. The vast bodiless AI population of Type Fives roaming around the polysentience network could transfer to these bodies themselves on a whim, or even have the Junkmaster construct new ones on site.

After all, who needs fancy gate systems and FTL starships, if someone can simply transmit themselves to their intended location?

Type: Large All-Environment Multi-Use Networked Construction Robot Designers: Steelrender Lycosidae Nine Two 92-4561-8893 Manufacturer: Freespacer Factions (Particularly The Wire Guided) Production: Mass production / Self reproduction Fielded by: Freespacer Factions, Independent Organisations, Open Market Suggested Cost: 10,000 DA (5,000 KS)

Junkmasters are about 6 feet tall, 10 feet wide, and 10 feet long. Some variance is possible due to availability of local materials.

The machine has an impressive climbing ability and turning speed, complete with a 360 degree visual sensor feed and reach from it’s arms. Not being designed for combat, however, means it is also rather slow, barely reaching 25mph even on flat ground. Having both a nuclear power plant and self-repair facilities on board means that its range is basically infinite, but that does depend on the availability of usable resources. A particularly healthy model with lots of spare parts (and thus redundant components) can actually be surprisingly tough to kill outright, even if it isn’t all that hard to damage the surface hardware!

Beyond that, it's all remarkably primitive. The hydraulic fluid is sometimes replaced with Liquid Ally, through it depends on the precursor; If the original had it, the ally replicates along with the unit. If it didn't, the unit itself cannot fabricate biomatter, and thus does not have this feature.

See Damage Rating (Version 3) for an explanation of the damage system.

• Hull; The Junkmaster's armor has the defensive profile of a Tier 6 Heavy Power Armour.
• Shields; The Junkmaster has a no barrier system.

Most commonly a Yama-Dura construction with boron wire mesh substructure. Variants exist, but the need for extra layers of armor is really quite circumstantial. It does, however, have thick radiation and scalar shielding as standard.

• Tier 3 Heavy Anti-Personnel, “Devil’s Doorbell” Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher x4

The exact armament is not standardized, but clusters of dumbfire rockets are popular. This is to allow the unit to ‘shock’ the enemy into cover with a large blast, before simply running away.

• Low-level non-volitional AI.
• Wide-range optics (Infrared, visual, UV), includes telescopic sight.
• Mindware/Polysentience relay system based on quantum entanglement (Literally a pirate version of Yam and Nep communicators, if not utilizing a legit model salvaged in the field.)

Though it depends on the exact fabricator, the Junkmaster can be equipped with one of the following:

• Nuclear Power Plant (Nearly infinite range, but stands out on sensors more. Heavy lead radiation shielding included.)
• Starlight Capacitor (Limits range to two days per recharge, but the unit now has a very low sensor profile.)

Given the relevant materials, Junkmasters can bodge together a great many things. To give an example on how long this typically takes, the following is a non-exhaustive list of things it can construct on demand.

Two or more units working in concert can reduce this time by about 25% for each additional unit.

Primitive Polygon created this article on 2017/10/21 07:47.