Industrial Automaton's initial offering in their V-series pilot droid product line was the V1 pilot droid model. Like other pilot droids, their purpose was to augment or stand in for organic pilots on starships. These droids were the most ubiquitous pilot droid model seen during the Galactic Civil War, and they saw use by both the Galactic Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
The V1 droids differed from the R2-series astromech droids that came before them; their construction and software placed less emphasis on repairs and hyperspace navigation, and more on serving as automated pilots for short-distance transport spacecraft.
Similar to the R2 units in appearance, V1 droids possessed cylindrical bodies measuring one meter in height, dome-shaped heads, and moved around on three wheeled legs, with the center leg being retractable. V1 droids included a retractable arm and a starship interface jack inside their chassis. The droid's primary component was the interface jack, which allowed it to access nearly all of a ship's systems to either replace or aid a living pilot. In addition to their advanced piloting abilities, their default programming encompassed fundamental skills in repairing space transports, computers, and astrogation. A V1 droid could only store three sets of hyperspace coordinates, in contrast to the ten sets that an R2 unit could manage.
During the Galactic Civil War, the V1 pilot droid was the most commonly deployed pilot droid model. New V1 droids had a price tag of 11,800 credits, while used models were priced at 9,600 credits. The cutting-edge technology used in their manufacture contributed to their high cost. This made purchasing them new too expensive for the Rebel Alliance, but they readily accepted them as donations or when they were taken from the Galactic Empire. The Alliance used V1 units to transport cargo when they couldn't spare living pilots.
Both Imperial and Rebel V1 droids were programmed to identify allied and enemy starships, but they were not intended for combat roles. When under attack, their only options were to activate shields and execute evasive maneuvers. To prevent the Empire from gaining any knowledge from captured droids, Alliance droids typically had self-destruct mechanisms installed.
V1 droids were utilized as systems operators on the Death Star I.
The subsequent model in Industrial Automaton's pilot droid series was the V6-series pilot droid, which replaced the V1-series.