Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Automata Tank

The Automata Tank is the light unmanned AT tank and one of Alliance's experimental vehicles.

Overview
The Automata Tank was originally designed as Neptune Hovercraft's entry to the Alliance' "Armoured Airborne Vehicle" Competition as the Crocodile Hover Tank, but were effectively laughed out of the competition before it had even started. Programmed with powerful friend/foe recognition algorithms and hover engines for naval patrols, its main role was to defend vital research and military compounds from intruders.

The Automata Tank was incorporated into all Alliance arsenals, heavily redesigned and outfitted with a rotating autocannon turret, to eliminate hordes of infantry and light vehicles. When moving over water, Automata Tanks can fire small torpedoes against enemy naval targets. They are also excellent in preventing enemy infiltration of Alliance bases as they can easily "see" past disguises.

Automata Tanks are unique in that both Alliance War Factories and Naval Shipyards have everything needed to assemble a dedicated production line for them. Since the unit is just as effective on land, as it is on water, it can be produced from both types of factories and assist ground or dedicated naval forces alike.

History
Despite moving on from the failed Crocodile Hovertank and focusing on more promising works. Many workers at Neptune Hovercraft's still couldn't stop thinking about the failed hovertank, since the use of a light, amphibious tankette still had potential. And curiosity to relook at their failed project heightened when news of the Dragon Clan using the Crocodile to great effect in their battles. And, a week after said news came, a small team was made to see if they can make the Crocodile worthy of serving the Alliance, something which the Alliance had found amusing.

Taking notes from its performance by the Dragon Clan the research team realized that speed was essential to it success and knew they could make it faster. In reality the Crocodile max speed was actually limited as test had shown that the crew couldn't handle the Crocodile at full speed, often missing their targets by huge argins as the pilots doesn't have a quick enough reaction time to stop while the speed made aiming impossible, not to mention that ten minutes at moving such speed made the crew hurl chunks, suffer from extreme dizziness, and swear to never drive again. Thus the issue wasn't about making it faster but how to do so without the crews life endangered. And had hit a brick wall until another promising project came.

As during their revamping of the Crocodile AseliaTech has also been conducting an experiment with a captured Terror Drone and had found how the Voshkod controls it. And applied it putting a control building with communication equipment in an Allied base, and slaving several remote controlled drones to it via radio link. And while tests were still uncertain it gave the team an idea.

By creating a dedicated structure, which would become known as the Robot Control Center, housing communication equipment in an it and slaving several remote controlled Crocodiles to it via radio link they realized that it could be piloted without anyone manning it. And aftera few test they reazlised they strucked gold and started working on the Crocodile with renewed vigor.

The remote control replacing the crew had also come withunintended benefits. Since the radio required to control the Crocodile was one tenth the size of the controls/crew compartment it replaced the Crocodile now had room to put in stronger and heavier weaponry, allowing them to improve the cannons caliber, mount torpedoes, and even a discharger that can fire off smoke that makes it impossible to target the tank and units in the smoke trail it leaves behind. And since the radio was cheaper it also meant that the Crocodile was even easier to mass produce.

Thus the new Automata Tank soon stormed out and pleasently surprised Alliance High Command. And without the space for a crew it can not only move faster but also equip itself with a heavier autocannnon that can rip apart most infantry and vehicles and a sensor suite to detect enemies using stealth. Though its armour remained unchanged its speed, lack of a crew, immune to mind control (particularly when the Alliance got involved in the Mental Omega war years later), and cheapness meant that its armor wasn't a concern.

Thus the new Automata Tank became the scout/cannon fodder (though they dislike the latter term) of the Alliance.

Trivia

 * The Automata Tank has lore elements to the Crocodile Hovertank from Red Alert Paradox (the Behind the Scenes section for the Crocodile is based on the Robot Tank).
 * In Gaiaterra in-game, the Automata Tank is the combination of the Robot Tank in Red Resurrection and Mental Omega and the Automata Tank in Red Alert 20XX
 * The unit reuses the sounds of the Robot Tank from Yuri's Revenge.