I sorta understand them not being used in a general stock Tie, cost saving, ect. but in anything else I don't get it, Vader albit as Anikin used R2 to help win the pod race and also help him blow up the controll ship, so he has first hand experiance on how usefull a Astro droid can be. Its been something that's bothered me for a while. Anyway after a prior thread cleared up the whole Han Jabba money issue thought this might be a good place to see what others think.

the ships would be more expensive than a galactic size empire can afford. The makers of the tie-fighters won the price bid on the ship building contracts.

They do use droids, just mostly on their big ships and not on their fighters. On big ships they don't make much of an impact (for example the R2-D2 and C-3PO crew cards) and they don't fit them to their smaller craft since they're not hyperdrive capable.

Mostly because they are not featured on those ships. The tie line of ships don't have Astros featured on them like alliance ships. You see droids running around on the Death Star but not on their fighters. Who knows why?

They are control freaks, you do not surrender any power or capability to a sentient machine. That is my guess anyway. The only imperial droids you see in the movies are protocol, torture or message senders. Vader did like his floating sphere of pain though. Of course by episode V he had traded it in for a pointy glowing bed.

There are two ways of thinking about it.

Astromechs are a workaround to having a good enough system in the first place. They often are mainly used to simplify tasks, and expand upon the computer's memory bank, particularly with hyperdrive coordinates and the like. Most of the tasks of the astromech, that are used, are simply built into the computers of most TIE craft.They are of a higher technology level, as far as cannon goes. The second part to it, is that no hyperdrive means harder difficulty to defect. Seeing as, again, the main purpose of the astromech was to store hyperdrive coordinates, why would you have it when you don't have the hyperdrive in most TIE craft?

The more advanced Tie crafts have sophisticated systems that does the same thing as the droids, so they never had to use the droids for the fighters. For the big ships, people have already answered that question. In short, yes, the Empire use droids, but not in this game.

Well R2 never helped with the podrace. So that.

But to answer your question an astromech is basically a removable computer that holds hyperspace coordinates, maps, info on planets and the like, while also providing some form of overclocking, if you will, or tweaking of starfighter capabilities. ("R2, try to increase the power!")

For the Empire, their ships don't need these abilities.

Remember, the Rebel Alliance is a group of freedom fighters that don't have a lot of resources. It would make sense that their rolling robot brains would double-duty as starfighter computers. Also there's the fact that any missions the Rebels went on consisted of only a handful of fighters. It would be too risky to send a huge fleet with your only 3 or 4 cruisers and battle ships. Remember Return of the Jedi? That was ALL of them fighting the Death Star, and they almost got completely wiped out. So with this knowledge it makes sense that their starfighters each had to have the ability to travel through hyperspace to a destination.

Conversely, let's look at the Empire. Their starfighters need no hyperspace capability because if there's trouble a-brewin' over in this sector, just send a Star Destroyer. Who cares? We have thousands of them. When it arrives and the situation requires it, unload an unbelievable amount of TIE Fighters at them.

Now there are certain TIE variants that have hyperspace capability (Avenger, Defender, maybe the Phantom) but that was just one example.

The Empire also doesn't care much about overclocking or tweaking their ships. The might of the Empire is not concerned with one or two customizable ships, it's in the form of a hornets nest where hundreds of weak things come at you. One blows up? Meh. There's a couple thousand squadrons on board those Star Destroyers just emerging from hyperspace over there.

Does that answer your question?

The Empire need a lot of cheap ships, and to put an astromech get more expensive ones, so it's not convinient for his filosofy, greettings.

the ships would be more expensive than a galactic size empire can afford. The makers of the tie-fighters won the price bid on the ship building contracts.

I would argue about that statement of them nor being able to afford it.

Not to get too political here with real world stuff, but look at the Middle East. People in power driving around in gold plated Escalades and living in the epitome of opulence with multiple houses and vehicles and airplanes and helicopters and yada yada, while the average home has like no electricity or plumbing.

That's how I view the Empire. Sure they could afford to equip every starfighter twice over with hyperdrive... but why when you could put those credits towards a second Death Star, or a Super Star Destroyer.

OR CLASSIFIED CLOAKING TECHNOLOGY!

dun dUN DUNNNNNNNN

Well R2 never helped with the podrace. So that.

He did help Anakin build the Podracer so he kinda did, no R2, No Podracer, Anakin walks the course

They do use droids, just mostly on their big ships and not on their fighters. On big ships they don't make much of an impact (for example the R2-D2 and C-3PO crew cards) and they don't fit them to their smaller craft since they're not hyperdrive capable.

I think it is partially because the MSE droids are smaller, faster, probably cheaper, and thus more effieicent

Same reason droids aren't allowed in Mos Eisley Cantina.

Well R2 never helped with the podrace. So that.

He did help Anakin build the Podracer so he kinda did, no R2, No Podracer, Anakin walks the course

I'm not above saying I'm wrong by any means, but I don't remember R2 doing anything with the podracer.

Granted my Ep1 kung-fu is nowhere near as wicked as my Ep4,5,6 moves.

From what I remember naked 3PO walked up to R2 and both of them just sat back and watched Jar-Jar electrocute himself while Anakin talked to his friends and hit the GO button and proclaim that it's working.

Insert wookiepedia article here...

Insert counter claim here

Insert arguing here

Insert nerd rage here.

It seems like some of the Empire ships between Episode III and IV used astromechs, but by the time we get to the period that this game takes place in, they just didn't need them.

But Vader did use R4-K5 in battle at some point, and even the Emperor used R2-Q5 (and apparently trusted it a great deal). In game, Empire might never see the astromech upgrade slot, but it should only be a matter of time until we get some Imperial droids as Copilot upgrades.

The obvious answer is the rebel scum get all the good stuff...

Ok, not going to turn this into one of those threads. Others have mostly answered this already. One thing left out was "robots are cute" and the empire is not, and the terrorist propaganda uses them to recruit youth. They are techno-ewoks really.

The empire just has better options. Sure R2-D2 is handy (the actual hero of the whole universe when you look at it as a whole- really gotta squint your eyes and cock your head kinda funny...) but probably wildly inefficient.

As has been stated, it is for a lot of reasons, likely. I'd say the primary is that the empire's initial philosophy was one of cost cutting. TIEs don't have hyperdrive, shields, or even life support. Pilots are trained to whatever is barely adequate and sent right out to grind the enemy to death. The astromech doesn't really have a place there. While the Imperials did eventually upgrade their fleets with elite ships, they did so from a framework based on their initial philosophies.

The rebellion is much more about elite fighters, with highly trained pilots, flying at the peak of performance. Here a droid helps a ton. It can do some repairs, reroute power, and do all sorts of other things, allowing the pilot to work on blowing TIE fighters in to tiny shiny pieces. It also allows for easier deep space missions. I think in some novels it discusses pilots sleeping while the astromech did the boring easy travel bits.

One thing left out was "robots are cute" and the empire is not, and the terrorist propaganda uses them to recruit youth. They are techno-ewoks really.

That's an interesting point. I never thought of that. Makes a lot of sense, too.

**** terrorists.

As has been stated, it is for a lot of reasons, likely. I'd say the primary is that the empire's initial philosophy was one of cost cutting. TIEs don't have hyperdrive, shields, or even life support. Pilots are trained to whatever is barely adequate and sent right out to grind the enemy to death. The astromech doesn't really have a place there. While the Imperials did eventually upgrade their fleets with elite ships, they did so from a framework based on their initial philosophies.

The rebellion is much more about elite fighters, with highly trained pilots, flying at the peak of performance. Here a droid helps a ton. It can do some repairs, reroute power, and do all sorts of other things, allowing the pilot to work on blowing TIE fighters in to tiny shiny pieces. It also allows for easier deep space missions. I think in some novels it discusses pilots sleeping while the astromech did the boring easy travel bits.

I actually somewhat disagree with what you are saying. The Imperial TIE Academy trained the pilots to be the best pilots in the galaxy (Corellians excepted). The TIE Pilots were all really good, they were just conditioned to view themselves as expendable. The perfect pilots lived, while the good pilots died. When you are a TIE pilot, you cannot afford to be anything less than perfect.

The Rebels on the other hand, had to recruit whoever they could scrounge up to fight. I mean, they gave a kid with ZERO flight experience a starfighter and sent him on a mission that out everyone's lives in his hands. Those pilots aren't the best: they are the washouts, no-names, freight haulers of the galaxy. They aren't in perfect control of their ship. They need help. Enter the Astromech. Now, perfection is not expected from you; the Astromech will help alleviate the burden from these less experienced pilots.

Also, the whole hyperspace thingy.

Well, those are some good points. But I was speaking more to philosophy.

The empire can train more. Does train more. They don't really care what happens to the pilots. I'm sure as you get farther down the rungs, this changes a bit. Flight instructors probably try their best, since no matter what you serve, training someone and then sending them out and them getting killed is rough. Further, I would imagine the pilots themselves do train as hard as they can, as you say, it is the only way to live. The guys at the top though? I don't think they care. I mean, Thrawn, a tactical genius was relegated to secondary roles and shoved off to nevernever space.

Now as for the rebellion, your right, they do with what they can. Part of this is knowing that new pilots may or may not be available. If the empire sends out 3 squadrons, and they all die? Meh, brings up some more recruits. If the rebellion sends out 3 squadrons and they all die? That's some serious logistical nightmare, right there. Sure, they gave Luke a fighter, but really, what is the harm? If the deathstar doesn't blow up, they're all dead. At the very least he is another IFF on the enemy radar to mebbe distract them. While there are some washouts, dregs, and no-names, they also had a lot of aces. Wedge, Biggs, Airen Cracken, Dodonna. Those were all incredibly talented individuals who could have made it in the empire, but were true believes in freedom. So they took their talents to the rebellion. Heck, even Han Solo was a rising star in the empire, until injustice made toss that in the bin.

2 pages I to the thread and I am a little shocked that no one has mentioned that the empire DOES use astro mechs. Above and beyond the fact that the Death Star had astro mech interface ports all over it, there are a couple of scenes with imperial astro mechs in the background (I know of 1 for certain, and I can remember a second, though I am not sure where exactly it was). To say nothing of the fact that the official transport of an imperial senator had several.

So, yeah, the empire uses astro mechs, just not on fighters.