Vulture-class starfighter

The Vulture-class starfighter, also known as the Variable Geometry Self-Propelled Battle Droid, Mark I, or more simply as the vulture droid, was an unmanned model of droid starfighter manufactured by Haor Chall Engineering Corporation and utilized by the Trade Federation and later the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The fighter relied on overwhelming numbers during combat. Usually, these droids were constructed in the cathedral factories of Xi Char, where precision manufacturing was considered an act of religious worship. They were present at many engagements during the Clone Wars.

With the effectiveness of droid starfighters debated in strategic circles for generations, vulture droids were as such capable of extreme maneuvers that could crush even the sturdiest organic pilot, but lacked the resourcefulness and cunning that living pilots brought into combat. Nonetheless, a lack of life-support systems allowed more room for armaments and fuel, and the lack of an organic pilot removed, for some, any moral responsibility for its destruction.