History Main / MobileFactory

* ''[[FanFic/SovereignGFCOrigins Origins]]'', a ''MassEffect''[=/=]''StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]''[=/=]''[=Halo=]'']] MassiveMultiplayerCrossover, takes what appears to be MatterReplicator technology to its logical conclusion: anything that can both mount this ability and move becomes a mobile factory. Combine [[StarWars World Devastator]]-like weapon loads with energy-to-matter and you have one hell of a construction system. Large (multi-kilometer) versions of the MatterReplicator also exist in corporate service for [[RidiculouslyFastConstruction producing ships]].

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'''s yard-class [=WarShips=] are mobile shipyards to repair, refit, and build starships and inter-system craft. The two types, the ''Faslan'' and ''Newgrange'', are [[MileLongShip both over a kilometer in length]]. The ''Newgrange'' performs a MegaMawManeuver to expose the drydock, with its entire nose assembly splaying open like a modern ferry. Only a tiny handful of yard ships remain, as they were juicy targets during the [[ForeverWar 300 year long Succession Wars]] which also largely [[LostTechnology destroyed the means to produce them]].

* ''The Hand of Rhuk'', the Beta's Epic Unit from ''VideoGame/GreyGoo'' is a vehicle that can produce any other land unit (including, inexplicably, Commando footsoldiers). This is useful for stocking up its hardpoints, and in one mission, supplying your cramped and teeny base with hardware. While the Grey Goo itself splits off combat units from a "mother blob" that migrates from resource deposit to deposit.

* The Sand Miner from the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial "The Robots of Death".

* [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast World Devastators]] from the ''[[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Dark Empire]]'' series. They land on a planet and start ripping up the environment with tractor beams, processing the raw material into automated fighters and other collection craft, both destroying and building at the same time.

* Factory ships take fish from whole fleets of fishing boats and prepare it for sale.

* The United Earth Federation in the ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' series is big on this trope. While most experimental units are gigantic assault machines or gun platforms the UEF invests in flying, crawling or seaborne factories instead. There are non-UEF mobile factories as well but the UEF alone has more than other factions combined.

* ''The Hand of Rhuk'', the Beta's Epic Unit from ''VideoGame/GreyGoo'' is a vehicle that can produce any other land unit (including, inexplicably, Commando footsoldiers). This is useful for stocking up its hardpoints, and in one mission, supplying your cramped and teeny base with hardware.

* The SpaceEmpires series lets you build these eventually, though your mobile shipyards will never build as quickly as your planets (and especially your {{Dyson Sphere}}s) do.

[[XMeetsY Combining the two]] creates a object that could do neither function very well, but does both just well enough to justify the cost. In fiction, at least; real-life seems a little slow on the uptake. Most often seen as military machines, they are also quite handy in colonization efforts, or really anything that needs [[MatterReplicator stuff]] and is willing to put-up with a wandering [[BuffySpeak stuff maker]].

[[folder:General]]
* AsteroidMiners are known to use this type of ship to process their asteroids into stuff.
* RealTimeStrategy games love these things.
[[/folder]]

* One race in ''TwilightImperium'' is able to move their shipyards, and in fact starts with three of them in their home system.

* In Palladium Games' ''{{Robotech}} II: The Sentinels'' RPG, the SDF-3 is noted to have a complete mecha factory located deep in it's bowels.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}} II'', the mothership, shipyard, and carrier classes are able to manufacture smaller vessels, and battlecruisers can repair fighters. There are also mobile refineries, which extract usable elements from ore brought in by AsteroidMiners.

[[XmeetsY Combining the two]] creates a object that could do neither function very well, but does both just well enough to justify the cost. In fiction, at least; real-life seems a little slow on the uptake. Most often seen as military machines, they are also quite handy in colonization efforts, or really anything that needs [[MatterReplicator stuff]] and is willing to put-up with a wandering [[BuffySpeak stuff maker]].

* The Raflessia in ''GundamF91'' could make Bugs, which were tiny chainsaw drones.

* The ''{{Macross}}[=/=]{{Robotech}}'' franchise group featured a number of these. Some big enough to mass produce warships more than a mile long. The Macross itself recycles HumongousMecha.

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'': the Tylium refining ship

* ''Tabletopgame/BattleTech'''s yard-class [=WarShips=] are mobile shipyards to repair, refit, and build starships and inter-system craft. The two types, the ''Faslan'' and ''Newgrange'', are [[MileLongShip both over a kilometer in length]]. The ''Newgrange'' performs a MegaMawManeuver to expose the drydock, with its entire nose assembly splaying open like a modern ferry. Only a tiny handful of yard ships remain, as they were juicy targets during the [[ForeverWar 300 year long Succession Wars]] which also largely [[LostTechnology destroyed the means to produce them]].

* The Mobile Construction Vehicle from ''DuneII'' was imported to the ''CommandAndConquer'' series. The ExpansionPack for the second game also added a Mobile War Factory to both factions. This was finally taken to a conclusion in Command & Conquer IV, where the entire base became a mobile factory.
** The expansion pack to ''Red Alert 2'' (which, due to the Red Alert series' origin as a prequel/spin-off to the Tiberian series, also had Mobile Construction Vehicles) brought in Mobile Refineries for the new faction.
** The expansion pack to ''Tiberium Wars'' also introduces the [[TankGoodness MARV]] (Mammoth Armed Reclamation Vehicle). Besides being a humongous tank that puts even the legendary Mammoth tank to shame, it can also instantly refine any tiberium it drives over into cash.