Hyperdrive TIEs in Heir to the Empire comic?

Is there a hyperspace capable TIE variant? The first page of Heir to the Empire comic showed them coming out of lightspeed!

 

Yeah, the comic depicts a "realspace" drop for what appear to be "TIE/Ln" variants, but there were several hyperspace-capable models produced: Vader's "TIE/Aa," the "TIE/Df" ("Defender") from Rebel Assault II, the "TIE Hunter" from Rebel Strike, and the V-38 rollout.

 

The TIE Advanced X1 Prototype, the TIE Advanced "Avenger" production model, the TIE Defender were all hyperspace capable TIEs.

TIE Interceptors can apparently point profusions of additional equipment at the cost of agility - X-Eing Wraith Squadron showed this.

And TIE Starfighters based on the Death Star (not Line Fighters) mounted shields.

 

TIE/Ln is the TIE lone scout model?

 

The "TIE/Ln" model ended up superseding the "line" TIEs following Yavin, and was far superior in speed capabilities. It might've been the "TIE/Rc" that the Heir adaptation depicted.

 

The blood drinkers used TIE/recons in Before the Storm on the Polneye attack. I liked that book; that's when I found out Interceptors had four lasers, not two.

Odd, that they didn't make the hyper-TIE in that opening page of HTTE's comic a bit different. You'd think hypers would change their profile even if just a bit.

 

Thrawn was fond of adding additional equipment to his TIEs, his Interceptors were nearly all shield equipped, and apparently some of his TIE fighters were too.

It's possible those particular fighters were doing armed recon, something the standard TIE/RC isn't really equipped for.

 

What's the source for the sheilded TIEs on the Death Star?

TC

 

Thrawn's TIE Interceptors were equipped with shields, not his standard TIE Fighters, as shown in the sourcebooks; in the case of TIE Bombers, it is very possible that the Chimaera only carried the newer TIE Scimitar Assault Bombers (Or just Scimitar Assault Bombers; EGVV claims that they have only one sublight engine, but SWAJ 15 refers to them as TIEs specifically, and the original Dark Force Rising Sourcebook mentions engines rather than engine)

From various sources, TIEs can be equipped with "extras", ie hyperdrives or shields; in TIE Fighter we see Zaarin's various TIE models equipped with shielding, and the aforementioned TIE Interceptors aboard the Chimaera; IIRC, in the Dragon magazine article mentioning the Dragon-class Heavy Cruiser, the TIE squadrons aboard that ship had shield generators as well. Also, in Allston's novels the TIE Fighters in New Republic service are retrofitted with shields. Shield generators do not seem to affect TIE performance negatively.

As for hyperdrives, according
to the TIE Fighter and X-wing game manuals,TIEs can be equipped with hyperdrives, but the Empire chooses not to because of the excessive cost of retrofitting hundreds of thousands of fighter, and the fact that hyperdrives would affect TIE performance; Aaron Allston's books back up the idea that hyperdrives would hamper TIE performances, as the 'drive equipped TIE Interceptors in his books seem to be less maneuverable. TIE Interceptors with hyperdrive engines, used by former Imperial pilots, were also featured in the Star Wars Tales Lando's Commandos story, but I can't remember which issue that was, but they were short-range hyperdrives, allowing Lando and his pals to deduce the ex-TIE pilots' home base (But they refer to the TIEs themselves as being short range rather than the hyperdrives, as TIEs usually are; to be fair, it was a bad story with bad art and I didn't expect a technical explanation for the 'drive equipped TIEs)
As for standard TIE Fighters, or TIE Starfighters in X-wing games, or TIE/ln Fighters for RPGists, there have been various cases where they have had hyperdrives. In Star Wars: Empire, the Darklighter story arc, there was TIE Fighters in use by the Rebellion with jury-rigged one-shot hyperdrives, and visually there was serious modifications to the aft engines of the TIEs, but it was never mentioned whether the hyperdrives hampered the "appropriated" TIEs.
The ISD Admonitor, in SWAJ 11's Command Decision story, was equipped with a TIE fighter squadron with hyperdrives, which at one point they call TIE scouts, (This story, by Timothy Zahn, did no use capital letters for the TIE model designations), but IN MY OPINION these are not the TIE SCout or "T/SR" from Decipher's SW: CCG, which is in fact not a TIE model but is the picture of the Lone Scout-A scout ship produced by Sienar; the Lone Scout-A may have in fact two engines, thereby technically making it a Twin Ion Engine ship, but I sincerely doubt that the Empire would use such a shoddy ship for military scouting; I really wish Decipher hadn't just stolen the Lone Scout-A pic to make a hyperdrive-equipped TIE, and used an actual Imperial used scout ship like the Telgorn Pacifier or something.

So in conclusion, TIEs can be equipped with hyperdrives, but as a result they may be less maneuverable. Those TIEs in the Heir To The Empire comic book may just be retrofitted TIE Fighters, ie Command Decision's TIE scouts, or it could just be artistic license; you can't expect every Dark Horse artist to know evey single detail about Star Wars, but personnally, given the context of the mission of the novel's "scout ships", armed reconnaissance to Obroa-skai (sp?), I would have rather seen some Xg-1 StarWings, or in other words, Assault Gunboats.

 

TIEs can be equipped with hyperdrives, but the Empire chooses not to because of the excessive cost of retrofitting hundreds of thousands of fighter, and the fact that hyperdrives would affect TIE performance; Aaron Allston's books back up the idea that hyperdrives would hamper TIE performances, as the 'drive equipped TIE Interceptors in his books seem to be less maneuverable.

That and probably they don't want to give their pilots the ability to defect with their ship too easily.
Biggs and company tried it, and had to go back to the Rand Ecliptic because they didn't have the range in the TIEs.

 

Yeah, I have Empire volume 2 and I noticed the same qoute. Some of the TIE-shuttles/couriers seen on some internet sites may have hyperdrive and shields if they want to transport somebody important but without the conspiscuity (sp)? of using a Lambda class shuttle. On the other hand they could just use Assault gunboats or Escort shuttles to escort the important persons shuttle, but who knows?

 

what about TIE Aggressors and TIE Oppressor?

 

There are quite a few hyperspace capable TIEs. Any TIE model is capable of mounting one though.