Name: Sand Skimmer
Cost: $15,000
Weight: 5 Tons
Function: Speed Enhancement
Mounts On: All Burrowing Zoids
Mount Location:
--Mounts internally to all Zoids. This part cannot be mounted with any other EP Part. This modification is permanent.
In Brief: The Sand Skimmer uses shield technology to enhance the streamlining of a burrowing Zoid, giving it a 50% increase to its base burrowing speed, limited by its base above-ground speed.

Description: You may have noticed something: burrowing Zoids are slow. Really, they are. Take the humble War Shark -- it can move at 240 kph in the water, but its speed is thirded, to 80 kph, while on land. The Stealth Dragon can move 310 kph on the ground, but only 140 kph below it. In sand, even the dedicated burrowing Revenge Trap has its 210 kph speed roughly haved to 120 kph. Severe reductions, all of them. Now, there is a reason for this rather unfortunate loss of speed -- burrowing is hard work. Conventional drills and shovels can only burrow a few meters a day through harder rock, and may a few meters a minute through something as simple as sand. Only many innovations through the long years in the desert have allowed the burrowers to move as fast as they can through the sand and the dirt.

Anyway, switch back over to the great, soulless entity that is the Extra Potential Corporation. "Good" is never good enough for them, especially if there's money to be made. So, they ordered their engineering teams to begin producing parts to make Zoids go faster. And their engineering teams hopped to work, and managed to concoct the Aerodynamic Advantage, a remarkable innovation that allows terrestrial Zoids to move faster. Fortunately for the EP Parts Line, some clever engineer took one look at the AA and realized that it shouldn't stop here. It wasn't terribly practical to make an AA for aquatic Zoids for various reasons -- mostly because aquatic Zoids are already streamlined, and the AA field didn't hold together in fast-moving aerial Zoids which were already streamlined anyway... but what about burrowing Zoids?

Anyway, the Sand Skimmer is the spin-off of the Aerodynamic Advantage for burrowing Zoids. It basically projects a shield around the burrowing Zoid to make the shape of the Zoid more suitable to burrowing and reduce friction between surrounding sand and dirt and the Zoid itself, allowing the burrower to move much faster through the ground, with the added advantage of pushing sand out of the way and helping clear the path. The net effect is rather spectacular: the burrowing Zoid can move up to 50% faster while burrowing, but limited by the top surface speed of the Zoid (because that's as fast as the Zoid can go overall). For example, the Stealth Dragon gets a bump up from 140 kph to 210 kph in sand, because its overall surface top speed is 310 kph, so no problem there. However, the Guysack, a clever and effective desert combatant, can already move 120 kph through both sand and air. Unfortunately, the Guysack gets no additional boost in sand, but it does get the boost from 80 kph to 120 kph while moving through packed dirt. The Warshark can only walk on land at 70 kph BUT it can also swim at 241 kph, so it gets a full burrowing boost from 80 kph to 120 kph as well.

Unfortunately, the Sand Skimmer does nothing to actually protect the Zoid from damage, unless your enemy happens to be slinging slow-moving gravel at you, which I find unlikely. It also does nothing to increase the speed of the Zoid above the ground -- you'll have to buy the AA for that. However, if you have bought the Sand Skimmer, you can't buy the AA, because the Sand Skimmer is a permanent EP Part modification. Whoops. Ah well -- that just means that you should think carefully before you choose. The Sand Skimmer can be yours for the bargain price of $15,000, after all...