No Frills, No Thrills: The Mobquet A-1 Deluxe
By Clegg Holdfast
It’s hard to tell just what the “Deluxe” in the Mobquet A-1 Deluxe refers to. In an industry where the luxury slice of the consumer pie is quickly being gobbled by SoroSuub, Incom and zZip Motor Concepts, Mobquet Swoops and Speeders have decided to think cheap. The results are, well, on-target.
The Deluxe won’t be winning any awards for performance. Or appearance. Or just about anything else. But, to be fair, what can one expect for 6,500 credits standard? It’s a capsule-shaped craft, with the pilot and passenger sitting in a single file. This, to some, at least suggests the appearance of speed or invokes images of cloud car or suborbital hoppers. But opening the engines all out will only deliver about 160 kilometers per hour of raw speed – hardly the stuff records are made of.
Though not powerful, the engines are sturdy and reliable, the six RS-J24 thruster modules are well-crafted pieces, and the Mobquet A-1 shows ‘em off. In fact, it sacrifices logical ergonomics to do so – to crawl out of the craft, pilot, and passenger must show faith in the cooling shrouds, lest they get burned by the exposed engines they have to crawl over!
And speaking of cooling, that’s the Deluxe’s other great flaw. A series of inlet ports on the speeder’s nose draws in air to cool the engine banks. The air channels bracket the engine compartment, but their insulation leaves much to be desired. Not only is noise contamination a problem, exterior odors pour into the cabin as well, making travel on polluted worlds a choking pain.
Mobquet’s Deluxe-1 campaign stresses affordability, but ask yourself – is that all you deserve? A functional speeder at a low cost? The standard model lacks any sort of amenities, including autopilot, entertainment module, and navigation beacon. Sure, they can be purchased as add-ons, but why bother? In its current configuration, the A-1 can only achieve an altitude of about two meters. Mobquet does offer an altitude sled package, but at nearly half the cost of the speeder, it clearly isn’t worth it.
I suppose the A-1 is good for Outer Rim and frontier worlds. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m stuck on the frontier, I sure don’t want to look the part. At the very least, it’s a good starter kit for the customizing craze that’s sweeping the Core’s youthful speeder crowd.
Data at a Glance
Manufacturer: Mobquet Swoops & Speeders
Model: A-1 Deluxe floater
Type: Landspeeder
Length: 7.1 meters
Crew: 1
Passengers: 1
Maximum Speed: 160 kilometers per hour
Maximum Altitude: 2 metersl
