An Industrial Automaton R5 (left).

RORDIS CITY, NUBIA -- After a year of disappointing sales, Industrial Automaton president Julynn Kentas confirmed that the droid manufacturing giant is canceling production on their R5-series of astromech droids. The droid was originally marketed as an affordable alternative to the higher priced R2. However, cost-cutting measures led to compromises, or what Mechtech Illustrated called "a meter-tall stack of the worst business decisions you could possibly want." IA hopes to recoup losses by reusing existing R5 shells in their moderately successful line of R2-AG and R4 agromech droids. The highly popular R2, R3 and R4 units will continue to see production.