A FastPanda and Deployable Repeater both say the following: "The FastPanda/Deployable Repeater is a piece of Equipment that contains a Repeater." The Deployable Repeater also says: "Once placed on the table, the Deployable Repeater starts functioning in the following Orders." The FastPanda however, has no such limitation. Does this mean that it functions as a repeater even before it is placed on the table? (I.e. making the bearer a repeater until the panda is deployed) My gut feel is that they are not per se intended to work that way, but there is definitely ambiguity in the rules.
The Fastpanda model isn't put on the table until the skill is declared, so there won't be a Repeater on the board until that point. A lot of people put the FP near it's bearer until the skill is declared because it looks cool and to remind them it hasn't been used yet, but the FP doesn't actually exist until it is used.
A FastPanda and Deployable Repeater both exist before they are deployed or else the models carrying them could not be targeted by the blackout program, which we explicitly know they can be because of the example on the Deployable Repeater page. That said: I've edited the original post for clarity.
It still fundamentally won't work: A repeater lets things hack in the Zone of Control (8-inch radius) of the Repeater as if it was their own. A zone of control is A trooper's Zone of Control is an area 8 inches extending from the border of its base, as measured vertically or horizontally. The Zone of Control is projected upwards and downwards in a cylinder 8 inches high. Since the FastPanda isn't on the table and it's the thing with the repeater, you have no base from which to measure the repeater's zone of control
No. Both a placeable repeater, a pitcher and a fastpanda are the same thing: a "wifi hotspot" that is on standby until planted, the same way a troop carrying a mine won't deploy templates when an enemy gets in range. So while those have an electronic footprint (comms device), they are not working as Repeaters until deployed on the table as a marker.
