The Essential Guide to Droids (Page 52-53)
Commercial Service: Robo‑Bartender
[edit]'Setting 'em up and knocking 'em back' is how most rough‑and‑tumble freighter pilots prefer to spend the interminable stretches of downtime between cargo hauls and charter flights. If a starport's cantina is situated amidst a high‑tech urban zone or anywhere in the cosmopolitan Corporate Sector, it's a good bet that the barkeep is a droid.
Automated drink mixers, commonly known as robo‑bartenders, are in use wherever efficiency takes precedence over atmosphere. Droids can't empathize with a crestfallen customer over his lost love and have no interest in the local shockball team's win/loss record. On the other hand, they can whip up complicated concoctions in a twinkling and never forget an order.
This trade‑off explains why robo‑bartenders are usually found in busy starports. The proprietors of these establishments care little for customer loyalty, since dozens of new passenger ships arrive daily. Robo‑bartenders are a cheap and effective way to move patrons through the doors as quickly as possible.
Cybot Galactica's MixRMastR is the most common bartender on the market, followed closely by LeisureMech Enterprises' C5. The MixRMastR, less than 1 meter tall, is designed to be bolted directly to a table or countertop. Tubes extend through the base of the unit and into the floor, where they connect to drums of soda water and common alcohols. The droid's speedy processor takes drink orders, finds their matches in its extensive library of libation recipes, and siphons the appropriate ingredients into a glass. Drinks are dispensed, and money collected, through a retractable tray at center front.
Not every business owner can afford to place a robo‑bartender at every table. For them, Cybot Galactica offers a mobile version of the MixRMastR. This droid comes equipped with a tiny repulsorlift unit and two manipulator arms for fixing and carrying beverages. A rudimentary vocabulator and auditory sensor allow it to perform simple interactions with customers. Because of the automaton's small size and 3.5‑meter flight ceiling, it can easily navigate the busiest barroom.
Electronic sabotage is a constant headache for droid‑dependent tavern owners. Unscrupulous slicers can reprogram robo‑bartenders to delete their bar tabs or give them endless rounds 'on the house.' Pranksters have also been known to override the droids' safeties and order fictional cocktails with ingredients that are chemically incompatible.
The subsequent explosions are always met with roars of approval from the inebriated crowd.
Info Boxes
[edit]Front View
[edit]- Manipulator Arm (retracted)
- Photoreceptors
- Vocabulator
- Auditory Sensor
- Drink Dispensing Hatch
Side View
[edit]- Accounting Processor
- Drink Database
- Command Input Panel
- Serving Tray (extended)
- Repulsorlift Engine
- Short Range Receiver/Antenna