Custom OOM commander battledroid figure inspired by the movie character

Battle droid commanders are droids that function as the officer class, and as the brains of the Trade Federation droid army. Battle droid commanders are seen throughout the prequel trilogy, and in the Clone Wars animated series. Battle droid commanders distinguish themselves by having yellow circular marking on their chest, and a yellow hat like area on the top of their head, and also a special characteristic their smaller backpacks than any other B1 battle droid. Otherwise they are superficially identical to standard battle droids in their outlook. However there are more significant differences in their programming! They have greater autonomy and freedom, and strategic skills when compared to standard battle droids. The question is evident, why the other droids have not got the same smarter module. Well, it is simply an economical decision. The Trade Federation could not afford to build in so much and so expensive droid modules in every droid units, so they decided to build many with a less clever programming, and placed them under the command of the commander droids. The commander droids received instructions from two sources, from the Neimoidian leaders, and from the Droid Control Ships (which is almost the same, since these ships just transmitting the instructions that were programmed in by the Neimoidians). We saw several examples in the movies, where Neimoidian leaders, or Separatist commanders gave instructions to a droid commander, who process the data alone, and converted the received orders into commands transmitting them to the infantry droids. A very similar situation was when this OOM droid commander received holographic orders to search the Naboo swamps and find the runaway Jedi and the primitive natives, the gungans, who were providing aid for them. During the Clone Wars, the commander droids served as liaisons between infantry droids and their Separatist masters, and army commanders (such as Dooku, Grievous, Assajj Ventress,) making them the CIS equivalent of the clone trooper commanders, who were functioning as an interface between the Jedi Generals and clone troopers. (There were many situations for that, I chose a picture, where the droids were instructed by Asajj Ventress in the very first episode of the Clone Wars animated cartoon series, trying to capture Master Yoda who arrived to Toydaria in a diplomatic mission.) However the situation is more difficult for the droids, since while the clone commanders do not get the power from their Jedi generals, each and every members of the droid army are ultimately subservient to the Droid Control Ships. The droid commanders received long-distance signals via their back antennae allowing them to be far from the supreme leader, or even from the droid control ship. Although most droid had antennae, some droids assigned to CIS vehicles droid transporters and AATs were lack of them. So the battle droids not only receive the operational data from the Central Control Computer, but their needed power, too. If a commander droid, or any other droid lost contact with a Central Control Computer, it would remain active for three minutes, upon which time it would enter standby mode for a further ten minutes, after which it shut down completely. It was seen during the Battle of Naboo, when the entire droid army was shut down, after Anakin destroyed the Droid Control Ship.

Until the Clone Wars, the commanders were the only OOM units to possess intelligence and partial independence. The most famous command battle droid was OOM-9, who commanded the droid forces in the Invasion of Naboo. He was that droid commander, who directed the droid army in his commander AAT, ordering fire, and after he noticed, that the tanks cannot fire through the gungan shields, he ordered to deploy the droids from the large troop transporters, and ordered infantry assault against the gungans. Later on, during the Clone Wars newer commander droids were designed, who worked parallel with the existing OOM commander droids. The newer droid commanders became a larger threat, and a bigger challenge for the clones, since they were smarter, and more independent. After a droid squad fulfilled an order, the droid commanders had to report directly to the Central Control Computer via their antennae, or personally to the supreme leader, or to the Neimoidian. A successful mission meant a relief, since the droid should stay intact, but reporting back an unsuccessful mission always had a possibility that the supreme leader, especially the feared ones, such as Asajj Ventress, and the dreadful General Grievous hit the droid in the head, or slice the droid with a lightsaber.

Thinking and talking however decelerates the reactivity and the overall efficiency of the droid commanders significantly, since their processor is always busy with converting the heard audio signals into binary codes, that they can process, reading them, deciding and defining the right reaction, then performing it. Maybe the best and funniest example for this was seen in the Phantom Menace, when the absolutely and easily identifiable Jedi and naboo pilots entered the hangar to get a ship, but the commanding droid commander started to inquire their destination, instead of attacking them at once. Only a few seconds later, after processing that Coruscant is not a logical destination, he ordered them to surrender, and told them they are under arrest, however they could not capture the naboo personals, because Qui Gonn and his party destroyed them all.