Droid B1 Battle Droid

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B1-SERIES BATTLE DROID

AFFILIATION
Various.

MANUFACTURER
Baktoid Combat Automata.

CLASS
Battle droid.

LOCOMOTION
Legged, bipedal.POWER SUPPLY
Rechargeable power cell, 72-hour duration.

SENSORS

• 2x photoreceptor.
• 2x audio receptor.

DIMENSIONS
Height - 1.93 meters.

COMPOSITION
Durasteel.

TOOLS & EQUIPMENT

• 2x manipulator arm.
• 1x standard I/O socket.
• 1x integrated comlink.

DESCRIPTION​

The B1 battle droid, better known as the Separatist battle droid or more derisively as the "Clanker," is a model of general infantry droid originally manufactured by the now long-defunct Baktoid Combat Automata corporation. Designed several decades prior to the Clone Wars, the B1 was perhaps the most widely used combat droid of its day, being a staple of numerous pre-war corporate armies, most famously including that of the Trade Federation. Later models formed the backbone of the army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the largest droid fighting force ever assembled.

The B1 battle droid was a product of the pre-Clone Wars Republic, that is to say, a Republic which had known over 1,000 years of peace. The design's main advantage on the battlefield was its existence alone; the mere presence of thousands or even millions of blaster-wielding droids was often enough to bring a planet to its knees, as few at that time possessed a military larger or better equipped than a jumped-up police force. The B1's other main virtue was that it was cheap; unlike organic troops, who had to be trained, armed, fed and paid, battle droids only required the low initial cost of purchase and the negligible cost of energy to keep them going.

The B1 is a standard humanoid pattern, standing 1.93 meters in height and weighing about 65 kilograms. It has a slender, relatively compact profile, with a distinctive design that certain species find to be unsettling; prior to and during the Clone Wars, the mostly Neimoidian leadership of the Trade Federation spread a rumor that the B1's head casing resembled the shriveled skull of their species. The B1 is capable of folding itself up into a highly compact form for storage, allowing large numbers to be deployed even from relatively small transports. Despite being a combat droid, the B1 does not possess any integrated armament or armor, although it can wield a variety of hand weapons with acceptable competency. In general, the design is quite flimsy.

Notably, the B1's joints are electromagnetic in nature; a well-placed blaster bolt can disrupt the fields holding them together, causing the droid to literally fall apart. They can also be manually pulled apart by a being with adequate physical strength. In combat, clone troopers of the Galactic Republic learned to aim for the joints of B1s in order to quickly disable them. A head shot is the only way to be sure of a complete shutdown, however, with damaged B1s missing various limbs being known to drag themselves around the battlefield, latching on to enemy soldiers in an attempt to hamper them, or at least continuing to transmit intelligence back to their superiors if completely immobilized.

Early B1s were not designed as autonomous units. Possessing only limited onboard processing power, they were instead coordinated remotely by a central control computer system, usually located aboard a large starship or inside a fortified command base. This scheme proved highly effective prior to the Clone Wars, producing a high degree of uniformity and precise coordination, allowing masses of individual droids to act essentially as a single organism. These scheme fell out of favor, however, after a series of high-profile attacks on droid control systems, notably the Battle of Naboo, during which a snubfighter attack destroyed a Trade Federation command ship. This single victory led to the total loss of a considerable invasion force on the planet below, when all droids, cut off from their control signal, simultaneously shut down.

Subsequently, the B1's design was modified, with a significant increase in onboard cognitive capacity to make them more independent. Although a central control system was often still used to coordinate and issue commands to droids in the field, later B1s were not wholly dependent on this system, and could continue operating even after it was destroyed, or indeed, well outside the range of its control signal. Ironically, this move toward more independence is widely considered to have lowered the B1's overall combat effectiveness; whereas before, B1s had acted literally with one mind, now each one had a mind of their own. Also, due to cost, the new cognition circuits for the B1 were not especially sophisticated, and the type was noted as being fairly dim-witted and clumsy. B1s which survived multiple battles without memory wipes could develop a level of competence and even skill, but given that the B1 was generally used as disposable cannon fodder, few survived long enough to exhibit these traits.

At the outbreak of the Clone Wars, B1 battle droids were in widespread use, forming the backbone of the CIS army. During the war, they generally proved inferior to organic soldiers such as the Republic's clone troopers, although there is some debate as to whether this was due to the droids themselves or to the tactics employed by Separatist commanders, whose battlefield creativity often did not extend beyond swarm assaults and patrols in force. At the end of the war, a shutdown command was issued to all elements of the Separatist military, with most B1s being deactivated and subsequently seized by the newly formed Galactic Empire. Large numbers of captured B1s were scrapped, with the remainder being expended as aggressor units in military training exercises, or simply languishing in storage. Many of those not seized by the Empire ended up on the black market, or remained active in the hands of Separatist holdouts which had for whatever reason not heeded the shutdown command.

Although they were one of the most widely produced droids of any type in Galactic history, B1s in working condition are exceptionally rare in the present day. With general infantry droids having been firmly banned under the Empire, and highly regulated under the New Republic, droid armies like those used during the Clone Wars essentially no longer exist, and B1s, though they could be programmed for other duties, were generally passed over in favor of more sophisticated models. They can still be found, however, generally in the hands of small planetary militias, mercenary groups and criminals.

Large stockpiles of B1s are still occasionally rediscovered, either leftover from Separatist armies or placed into storage by the Empire and subsequently forgotten. Entire production lines are also sometimes rediscovered, although getting them up and running would require the resources of a faction.

LEGALITY​

Illegal. General infantry droids such as the B1 are highly restricted under interstellar law, with personal ownership being banned. Many beings get around this restriction by reprogramming their B1s as personal attendants and bodyguards, or at least claiming to have done so.

INTENT​

To create a standard archaic battle droid model.