Smelting facilities are common on resource-rich planets where much of the production process takes place. The furnaces of these factories stand over thirty meters high and easily reach temperatures of over 1,600 degrees all day long, every day of the year. Several steps in the metal processing can be done more efficiently with the aid of intelligent laborers. However, these conditions make the work unbearable for most biological beings. Specialized droids were developed to take over these tasks. The initial development was done by a group of droid manufacturers from the Verpine race, who based the droid appearance on themselves. This is why the D8 models have such long limbs and complicated leg joints. The greatest challenge, however, lay in fireproofing the droid. Every D8 model had to operate in an eternal oven, where furnace-feeding air blasts melted most alloys within minutes. Therefore, each body part had to be cast from a high grade durasteel molecularily bonded with kevlex. This off-white substance has a melting point of over four thousand degrees. The whole design of the D8 was based on operating under these circumstances, so the installed photoreceptors are mounted in a protective casing and operate only in the ultraviolet range, giving these droids very limited eyesight. Verpines, being the way they are, installed a relatively complex personality matrix in each of the D8 models, so they could converse with fellow workers on the odd occasion that they would be required to do so. This proved somewhat counter-productive as they have proven to be somewhat moody and argumentative, no doubt a result of the conditions under which they operate.
