I had already made a personal version of every single type of drone, except for one.
A personal drone is just a drone I made for my own use, not that they were elite units, even if there was overlap.
Even the defender drone had a personal version, even if it was just a defender drone using better ammunition with an improved speed.
A squad of distractor drones that could use shield generators to make solid barriers of air to block projectiles, and to contain liquids, as well as the obvious benefits of shielding themselves and me.
They mainly worked in the labs to help contain shrapnel and toxic gasses but they were used more often than any of the other drones based solely on sheer utility.
A pair of interceptor drones made up to serve as long range scouts, with the added capability of dropping grenades onto enemies. Needless to say they were made of sterner metals and featured more advanced and stronger weaponry.
They hadn’t seen use outside of testing, since I hadn’t actually faced combat since the interceptor drones were designed but I did still keep them with me, just in case.
A dozen destroyer drones with custom paint schemes, each capable of killing a bug the size of a tank within a few seconds, and capable of disassembling even larger bugs in the same timeframe with teamwork. At which they excelled with the programming I had designed for them myself, which had been distributed to all the destroyer drones, but they had had it the longest.
Note - I probably need to do something about the destroyer drones connection, they mainly use it to send combat data and effective strategies, but I hadn’t planned for them to do that. So the network needs to be upgraded to facilitate their learning speed.
Logistics drones with an increased weight capacity and a significant increase to speed. The 2nd most used personal drones.
And a veritable fleet of construction bots. Well 50, but that is still the largest type of drone I keep for personal use, even if only 6 are actually stored on me.
The only drone I don’t have my own copy of is the courier drone, and since I had a few free hours today I was building one. Large enough to sit on even in my armor, and with a built in saddle.
So I was currently making a robotic fire breathing tiger, with a laser tail, that was large enough for a 12 foot tall suit of power armor to ride without it looking stupid. Which meant I was making a 10 foot tall courier drone.
The normal courier drone really only had teeth and claws as an offensive weapon, the napalm breath was more a defensive measure to make sure it couldn’t be chased. Mine would have a few more weapons.
Keeping the fire breath was an easy choice, as was increasing just how much fire the drone could throw as well as how far. With the choice of a sticky napalm or more standard fire breath, each capable of releasing a cone of fire 20 feet in diameter up to a distance of 50 feet.
The claws were more daggers on a thing this size, or maybe short swords. Making the ends hooked to enhances its ability to climb and tear flesh, as well as giving the claws serrated edges was a simple enough endeavor.
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The teeth went much the same, now when its teeth sunk in they did so with 20 tons of force, and with serrated teeth they tore the flesh on the way back out. Or metal but it was much more likely this thing would be eating bugs.
A tail with a laser emitter, allowing a full range of coverage. And it was one of my more powerful laser variants, capable of melting a hole through 12 inches of steel. The drones combat algorithms make it the courier drones longest range weapon.
Missile pods in the shoulders and a gatling gun in its torso, aiming out of its chest, and a cannon that could pop out of its torso, near where the rump would be, just to give a wider spread of ammunition, and a bevy of my armors own point defense lasers to give it a bunch of smaller bits of firepower, just in case it got swarmed.
A good thing about many small lasers though, if you point them at the same spot you essentially have a really big laser. If one with poor range.
A bunch of shield generators and reactors to power the thing and it was done. A giant thing with a black paintjob and red highlights, the gem on its tail a sizable ruby sharpened to a point.
The thing was 4 feet taller than me out of my armor, and with a width of four feet it left me feeling tiny, even smaller than a tank made me feel even though this thing was technically speaking smaller, probably because a tank was a vehicle while this thing looked like a predator.
Calling it a courier drone felt wrong though, it was more of a panther. A massive metal panther.
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Unit designation ‘panther’ woke up for the first time in a large workshop, staring down at what it knew to be its master and creator. The next few hours were filled with test’s as its advanced mind learned how to best use its body, and as it learned more about the world around it.
The first thing panther learned was that it was a variant of a courier drone, not that panther knew what a variant was. The robot's mind just knew it had smaller kin that it was similar to. It had even seen a few of them while it was completing its tests.
The second thing panther learned was that it was to be its maker's steed and guardian. Its size and strength meant to kill anything that might harm its creator. It soon learned that it was aided in this task by minds similar but immeasurably greater than itself, and by a large network of mind’s slightly lesser than it, though older and more wise. Who gladly taught Panther of the enemies it would face.
The third thing panther learned was that she was a very good girl.
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Panther had been set free to roam the factory, when she wasn’t sitting by her masters side or resting she was allowed free roam, and she often used it to meet with her subjects.
They were like her, but smaller, weaker, and dumber. Capable of learning yes, but only simple concepts and only at a slow rate, they were to her what she was to the minds. And what she imagined the minds were to her creator.
But they sufficed as entertainment, she was created with a desire to “play” and the maker did not often have time to indulge in such things, her lesser subjects however had the same desire, and she could often find a fair few resting in between tasks who would be more than willing to play.
Still she was far larger than them, so what she could play was limited, but she was clever and more than capable of finding many games to play.
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I watched as panther dragged in what had to be the 4th small biter into the walls this day, she would often venture into the tunnels beneath the factory to hunt down the small insects only to bring them back alive for the other couriers to chase with her, often times swapping between her herding the fleeing insect into the waiting claws of the other courier drones or the courier drones chasing the bug in her direction.
I might have added a bit too much towards feline behavior after I had decided on a name, they were supposed to be a mix of canine and feline behavior, but panthers only really showed feline traits routinely.
Though they did have a fondness for fetch and chasing their own tail, so maybe they just really liked hunting insects? I did make them more intelligent than a standard courier drone, so a more stimulating activity like hunting was probably more enjoyable than what the courier drones did for fun, which mostly consisted of wrestling or sleeping. But sometimes included tag and hide and seek when enough of them were on standby at once.