Demeter-class Harvesters

Demeter-class harvesters are massive, odd looking vessels built by the Waytani Corporation. Harvesters rapidly collect resources located on the surface of planetary objects and asteroids using beams of plasma superheated by proprietary WIA Promethean Reactors.
The Promethean reactors employed by the Harvesters are incredibly sophisticated machines that possess a suite of sensors that use spectroscopic LIDAR analysis to determine the primary elements located on the surface (and just below the surface) of stellar bodies. The crew of the harvester can then identify which elements they would like to harvest and the promethean reactors will adjust the temperature of the plasma beam to the specific vaporization level for the targeted elements. This is far from a perfect process as the vaporization temperature of heavier elements such as iron are much higher than lighter elements such as carbon. Additional spectroscopic sensors on the harvester's numerous collection tanks target the desired elements and use cutting edge technology to sift out the unwanted elements into different tanks or by disposing of the unwanted elements back to the surface of the planet below.
Generally Demeter-class harvesters collect lighter elements such as carbon, silicon and oxygen from planets passing over large swatches of uninhabited regions of the world. For heavier elements such as titanium, steel and iron the harvester crews will target asteroids, often vaporing the object entirely to acquire the vaporize elements rapidly from the vacuum. Harvester collection has become such a profitable and ubiquitous industry that it is rare to visit a world or asteroid belt that has not seen attention from a fleet of harvesters.