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Drone Modifications
ANALYZING… FILE TYPE: Technical Documentation PERIOD: Colony Era TOPIC: Geological Drone Surveys of Tau Ceti IV SUMMARY: List of unauthorized modifications to geological survey drones, compiled by senior technician Z. Christoforos shortly after the colony's founding. Drone missions suffered significantly lower attrition rates during Christoforos's tenure, and colonial administration largely ignored these breaches of protocol. =================================================================== Airborne: TOI Exo-Matrix A9 QIDAR errors are a huge problem. Best guess is that we've got uncharacterized Minkowski space perturbations, but only beneath the planet's surface. Fortunately, it doesn't disrupt old-fashioned LIDAR, and the mounting points are similar enough if you know what you're doing. Replace the expensive quantum suite with optical and double-check battery compatibility.[1] Underwater: TOI JJ Capsule Pro Good out of the box, but Traxus was too stingy. They didn't send enough of this model with the Marathon, so we can't conduct deep surveys at scale. Also, something down there mistakes our drones for prey animals; the JJs often surface with almond-shaped sucker marks. Alternating rows of titanium spikes and hypercobalt lights keep the critters at bay, even if it looks like a demented holiday ornament. Subterranean: TOI Exo-Matrix S4 Whatever is messing up our QIDAR also causes subterranean drones to fail. Explosively. In narrow, dark tunnels and shafts. Handheld, non-networked tools still work fine, and signal doesn't penetrate through rock. We are back to human surveying; bring extra personnel and feed the results into Bastion's database after returning to the surface. Wear earplugs, take anti-hallucinogens, and don't mind the lingering whispers; BOBs say they're not real, and all credible sensor data agrees. Multipurpose: TOI AP Flex V7 A solid all-rounder. Reliable SLAM even under sub-optimal flight conditions, good amphibious conversion mode, capable of shallow bathymetric surveys to offset our low underwater drone count. Major weakness is the composite rotors; toxic pollen tends to stick to the blades, and we do low-altitude sweeps over potential agricultural sites. Disable the proprietary enforcement lock (duct or electrical tape) and replace rotors with alternatives.[2] =================================================================== [1] Z.C: Admins notice when a drone unexpectedly combusts mid-flight. [2] Z.C: Purple ones from NuCal's toy line are best. =================================================================== TYPE: TEXT [X]; AUDIO [ ] TAGS: new cascadia; tau ceti iv