Some confusing contents in a sci fi novel?

im not a native speaker of English, and im reading a sci fi novel called "Malak" by Peter Watts, which tells a story about a semi-autonomous robot killer, and a code of conscience is added to it, some stuff like that cause i havent read it through as im running into some problems.
1. "It’s indifferent to the killing, too. There’s no thrill to the chase, no relief at the obliteration of threats. Sometimes it spends days floating high above a fractured desert with nothing to shoot at; it never grows impatient with the lack of targets. Other times it’s barely off its perch before airspace is thick with SAMs and particle beams and the screams of burning bystanders; it attaches no significance to those sounds, feels no fear at the profusion of threat icons blooming across the zonefile."

My question is how to understand "Other times it’s barely off its perch...across the zonefile." Does it mean that besides the time it floats above a desert, this robot will and is able to launch many SAMs and particle beams across the sky and set people on fire after it leaves its perch? Please tell me in simple English.

2."Twenty thousand meters up, Azrael slides south across the zone. High-amplitude topography fades behind it; corduroy landscape, sparsely tagged, scrolls beneath. A population center sprawls in the nearing distance: a ramshackle collection of buildings and photosynth panels and swirling dust." PS: Azrael is the name of the robot.

My question is what do the sentences "High-amplitude topography...sparsely tagged, scrolls beneath." and "a ramshackle collection of buildings and photosynth panels and swirling dust." mean? Especially the phrases "high-amplitude topography...corduroy landscape" what are these? like a real kind of landscape? please tell me in simple English? and also "photosynth panels", i know photosynth is the name of a software but how to understand it here? Please explain them to me in simple English!

than you very much!