A Different Drone

Level	1 Storyline
Type	Courier
Objective	Deliver 32x Crate of Refurbished Mining Drones (320 m3)

Level	3 Storyline
Type	Courier
Objective	Deliver 45x Large Crate of Refurbished Mining Drones (4,500 m3)

Mission briefing

One of my clients asked me to send over drones to replace the ones his company's been losing in the line of work. That's all he said. He never said anything about needing mining drones; of course I sent him a set of scout drones, and he was very upset at me for not being able to read his mind. People should be more specific about things. Take these mining drones over to <Station> for him, and if he asks why the paint looks new, tell him they're fresh off the production line.

Development Pains

The most common mining drone, the Spider Drone, is manufactured by Ishukone. The brainchild of Chief Foreman Jaartu Mediuri in the early days following the first Caldari-Gallente war, the first mining drones were little more than immense strip-mining factories which were deposited on the surface of an asteroid to chew through the surface and process useful minerals until their belly holds were full, then sending an alert to the foreman for uplift and unloading. It wasn't until advances simplified the operation of the mining laser that Mediuri proposed automating a laser and attaching directional thrusters. The project was shelved indefinitely after the initial models failed repeatedly, but after Ishukone headhunted the prodigy roboticist Vayan Hemitaru from Sukuuvestaa, the programme restarted with renewed energy and interest. Eventually a self-powered, mobile mining laser was produced. Some contention was held over its need for basic guidance from an operator, but Ishukone argued that full autonomy was unnecessary, particularly since use of capsule-controlled ships had become common and a capsuleer controller could, through experience and training, more than accommodate for the lack.