God, but don't I just love massive vehicles that can serve as a mobile base/home for their crew.
Just… the idea of wandering aimlessly over the surface of some alien world in a truly massive mobile mining platform. A crew of 16 resides in your amalgamation of a Euclid R100 and a soviet Kharkovhanka. You and three others serve as a bridge crew, piloting, scanning, maintaining comms, and navigating. The rest sit on their asses until a new deposit comes up, then they get out in 10-feet-tall exo-suits equipped to tear through the earth and stone of this world.
The bridge itself isn't the most spacious you've seen - more like a set of four desks built into the hull, with enough room to walk between them - and really, the only reason anyone not on duty at one of those stations winds up in there is the external hatch that leads to the balcony wrapping around the front of the landship. Best view on the planet, right there.
A door at the back of the cockpit leads to the main sanctuary for crew. Well-worn diner-style booths line one wall and sleeping alcoves/bunks line the other. The back and some of the middle is taken up by a kitchenette that provides just a bit of a taste of home. The front and middle is taken by an entertainment system that's seen contiguous use since the start of the mission.
A door at the back of that cabin leads to a hanging balcony inside the docking bay/engine room. There's twelve suits in there, and not a week goes by where some sort of malfunction or disability doesn't rock the work crew. Number 3's been having issues with the actuators in its left arm for a month, and Number 8 was leaking power through a faulty coupling until early that week. The engine is a delightfully, near-silent hum that only occasionally trades places with a band of baboons playing 50 steel drums...
Finally, at the very rear of the vehicle, and separated by a coupling that drags the facility along at a healthy 20 mph, is a massive foundry and storage system. Hunks of ore go in, 4"x4"x8' billets come out. You're currently only at a third of total capacity, but you'll hopefully be at capacity in time to return yourself, rather than have an automated system do so, or - worse - another crew relieve you. It'd be a shame to put in all the work you've already done, only to have someone else enjoy the downtime at the end of the shift...














