Ore crawlers, also known as "World Devastators" by witnesses, were a specific type of crawler employed by the Mining Guild on the planet of Lothal. Their purpose was to scour the planet's surface for unrefined resources, which were then used to supply Imperial factories. Notably, crawler 413-24 was hijacked by the group known as the Spectres, who intended to utilize its communications array to establish contact with Alliance High Command.
The Mining Guild deployed ore crawlers throughout the planet of Lothal with the mission of extracting raw materials from the landscape. These materials were destined for mass production of Imperial weaponry at locations like the Imperial Armory Complex and other Imperial factories. Specifically, Crawler 413-24 was assigned to operate in the planet's southern hemisphere. Observers of these machines nicknamed them "World Devastators" because of their method of traversing the terrain on massive repulsorlift legs, consuming the ground beneath them.
The visual design of the ore crawlers took inspiration from the World Devastators featured in the Dark Empire comic book miniseries of the same name.
Essentially, both the ore crawler and the World Devastator fulfill a similar function. Both extract basic minerals from a surface and repurpose them as raw materials for the Imperial production of fighters and starships. The key distinction is that the Devastators were self-contained factories, while the crawlers transported their extracted materials to external factory locations.