In the future, we’ll still want to move stuff around. We’ll need not just the spacegoing equivalents of container ships and long-distance haulage trucks, but also loaders, pallet jacks and forklifts.
Designing a forklift for the Classic Space future allows you all kinds of possibilities. You could make a semiconventional surface-bound one that’s futuristic in that it doesn’t need a driver, but that’s kind of boring. It’s much more fun to build one that flies.
~~~
The Grubb Corporation’s H19G hoverloader is a versatile, manoeuvrable antigrav vehicle employed by any number of agencies and companies who have a need to lift and stack goods crated in small to medium-sized canisters.
Utilising three powerful countergravitational motors for lift, stability and manoeuvre, the “G” is the seventh iteration of the successful H19 series, incorporating a number of refinements to its attitudinal sensors and handling controls.
The magnetic claw arrangement in front is designed to pick single standard-diameter holding canisters, and can also be used to lift old-style crates or larger items such as this fusion engine spool (tall, in the back), and H19s are a common sight in any loading bay or spacecraft maintenance facility.
Standard holding canisters are, of course, colour-coded according to their contents. Most containers are the yellow of general cargo, but other colours are also employed: white for liquid oxygen, grey with hazard striping for small engine parts (which may be contaminated with high-energy radiation), red for spacecraft fuel, black for oils and lubricants, and so on, just as astronauts in different branches of Federation Space Command wear different coloured spacesuits for easy identification. Green-suited astronauts like the one shown here are Space Command’s logistical support, including environment techs, general service ground support crews not directly involved with the engineering aspects of servicing a spaceship, some mech pilots (if the mechs are general service models and not combat variants) and so on.
Square Feet 
Ooh, fantastic! Been too long since I’ve seen a Neoclassic creation. I love the triadic design of the thing, and the general Exosuit-esque design and greebling. I quite like how you used the green suited pilot, too (your definition of what green indicates in the Federation is also probably the best I’ve read), and all the different cargo classifications were a nice touch.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. Yeah, green as simply indicating mech drivers never has worked for me. I just can’t see suit colours defining a specific colour for that, even with a modern LEGO colour palette to work with. So I’m revising my colour scheme.
Red = Engineering/Power techs
White = Pilots and flight crew
Yellow = Scientists, Medical personnel etc.
Blue = Command personnel
Black = Security and Planetary Forces
Green = Logistics
Pink = ? There is a pink-suited near-Classic Space astronaut in one of the Minifigures lineups, but I don’t know what the colour should represent. Alien liaison specialists, perhaps?
And my own unattested colours, which I use in digital models:
Orange = Space Construction
Brown = Space Miners
LikeLike
The pink for alien liaisons sounds about right. Either that or, like, human resources or something. 😛
It’s funny, I’ve always followed the more Reidian route of Red as pilots and White for engineers. I guess that’s the beauty of classic space—there’s room for interpretation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, that works, too. I’ve always felt that red is a very engine roomy, power systemy colour. Hence my flipping of the Reid/Goddard colour code.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, I’ll be honest, dressing your engineers in white doesn’t seem like a very wise idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person