[tiddchristopher]

It's a TIE Advanced x1. Although features developed for it were incorporated into the later TIE/IN Interceptor, the x1 had substantial differences, such as shielding and FTL capabilities. The mass-production craft resulting directly from the x series was the TIE/D Defender.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE_Advanced_x1

[jiggy2011]

That brings back memories of playing the MS-DOS "Tie fighter" game from the mid 90s where you could pilot the Tie Advanced later in the game, IIRC it was also slightly faster than a standard Tie Fighter.

However from what I remember of the original movies though there was no reference to Vaders craft having shields or hyperdrive (maybe I'm wrong?).

So I wonder if the technical details of the craft were invented specifically for the game and then retrofitted into the overall mythos?

One thing that always amused me about star wars was that the Imperial forces must have had a military budget that would make global GDP look like pocket change but had such clearly flawed designs for all of it's equipment (crap fighters, walkers, death star etc) while the Rebels had stuff that worked much better. Was Lucas trying to say something about the inevitable result of the military industrial complex?

[talmand]

No, the idea was that the Empire was using clones for their pilots so they didn't give a crap whether they lived or died. Therefore they received the cheapest equipment possible. That way they could often win by sheer numbers. Only important people got nice equipment that would keep them alive.

On the other hand the rebels considered every pilot they had as rather important since they had so few. That, plus the fact they had so few in the first place, warranted more expensive yet more robust equipment.

So, as the rebellion continued, the rebels were winning more often than losing and were swaying more and more to their side. Which made it easier to obtain the same equipment. The Empire had to respond in kind because pilots started becoming important, especially the pilots that had learned how to win against superior equipment. Kind of sucks to lose your best pilots because you were too cheap to get them cheap shields. This led to the development of later TIE fighters that had shields and other "rebel" equipment. You didn't really see things like the TIE Interceptor's until Return of the Jedi time, which by then the rebels had the A-Wing to counter that as well.

This is the reason that TIE Fighter is one of the greatest games ever made. You don't know how much it sucks to face a highly trained opponent with superior equipment until you fly the TIE fighter into combat. It's like being the pilot of a flying trash can with two lasers attached to it. Also keep in mind that a common tactic of an X-Wing or Y-Wing pilot was to fully charge forward shields and just ram the poor guy in the TIE fighter. No need to debate who survived.

[davidp]

> Was Lucas trying to say something about the inevitable result of the military industrial complex?

You're giving Lucas far too much credit.

Exhibit A: "Nooooooooooooooo"

Edit: Agreed, TIE Fighter was a stupendously great game. It captured the feel perfectly.

[NDizzle]

The Tie Advanced had shields and an incredible top speed. It was amazingly overpowered.

Fun, though. Tie Fighter and XWing had some of the best expansions of any game, ever.

[endlessvoid94]

That was a great game.