GrS 17:2:8 Astromech droid review

Reviewed plans for the astromech droids to be used on the "Death Star". With every system (except the tractor beam) controllable by astromech droid, you just know we're going to need them.

Apparently, in spite of all the sudden-death turmoil going on there, we managed to agree last week to license the R2 design from Industrial Automaton on what Vader calls "very favourable terms." Hmmm.

So not much is changing. Vader doesn't want to bother buying the thruster jet mod, because he hasn't seen any R2 units use them in a few years; it's like R2 units equipped with them have forgotten the jets exist.

I asked about dropping in a speech module. It wouldn't cost much, a few decicreds at most, and the R2 units would be able to communicate properly. Nope, said Tarkin, no added expense. Besides, that's what protocol droids are for. I pointed out that needing a protocol droid every time you wanted to talk to an R2 unit would be more expensive than adding the speech module. Anyway, everyone knows protocol droids are annoying, prissy-as-hell silver and gold prigs.

Vader shot me down this time. "At least they're respectful," he rumbled. He added that some R2 units he'd encountered were pretty mouthy, and adding speech would only "exacerbate an already unpleasant conversational experience."

GrS 17:2:1 Industrial Automaton in difficulties

Wow, what is going on with Industrial Automaton? They're the astromech droid guys, and it seems five of their board members died suddenly this week. Man, and I thought things would be going well there--word is, we're going to use IA's R2 series of astromech droids for the new space station (yes, the "Death Star". Sigh). Nice fat contract for them.

GrS 16:6:8 R2-D2 visited Polis Massa!

Did some thinking about things. The Jedi that took charge of Padmé would have wanted to get her to medical care as soon as possible.

The closest place that would have been friendly to them was Polis Massa, so a little bit of hacking later, and I had all the information.

The only ship that left there was the Tantive IV, and sure enough, not long after that, Raymus Antilles, captain of the vessel, logged registrations papers for one R2-D2 droid with Industrial Automaton. He's listed on the papers as being a gift from Padmé Amidala, the last registered owner.

So the little guy is still out there. Now I've just got to get him back.

After all the work hacking into Polis Massa, I've left a nice little shortcut in my system, so if I want to get into the Polis Massa database again, it's just a couple of clicks.

GrS 2:2:23 R2-D2 tracked down

Succeeded in breaking into the Industrial Automaton computers and tracking R2-D2. He was sold as a refurb to the Royal Engineers of Naboo. They probably wiped his memory too, or the little guy would be trying his darndest to get back to me.

The really sad thing is he was sold as a standard droid, so the guys on Naboo probably don't even know what an awesome little droid he is. Unless they pull him apart, they won't even know about all his modifications.

GrS 2:2:18 R2-D2 sold to someone else!

ARGH! R2-D2 has been sold to someone else!

When Industrial Automaton receive a "standard" R2-D2 unit back, they immediately ship out a replacement, and service the old one and sell it on as a refurb. Because I bought the standard R2 unit, they refuse to believe that I could have made all the modifications I claim in just one month, so they say there's nothing they can do for me.

I've received R2-E9 as a replacement, but after all the work I put into R2-D2, my heart's not in it anymore. I sent him back, unopened. I want my little guy back!

GrS 2:2:10 R2-D2 is gone!

Right after I'd finished a ton more mods, too numerous to list, there was a minor factory recall for the units we had, and somehow my personal R2-D2 got shipped back with all the corporate units! I've been on the communicator all day with Industrial Automaton trying to find the little guy.

GrS 2:1:5 My very own astromech droid

Finally bought my very own R2 astromech droid from Industrial Automaton! I've wanted one of these little guys for quite a while now.

There's been a waiting list for a while, but I upped the ante and paid around 6000 credits for it, instead of the 4245 list price.

I got all the standard bells and whistles, but I didn't spring for Industrial Automaton's more expensive addons. They've made the R2 line so easy to upgrade that I plan to add a lot of mods myself.

My unit came with the two manipulator arms, electric arc welder, circular saw, computer scomp link arm and the holographic recorder/projector unit. There's even a fire extinguisher! Its designation is R2-D2, which is a pretty cool name.

First things I'll be adding are the booster rockets.