I just assumed they meant in fighters, to be fair, which may have been silly. Good points.

Forgottenlore has a point, it's clear that the Empire did have plenty of access ports for astromech droids on board the Death Star.

I would offer the notion that it might have been against the grain of the Imperial military to want droids anywhere near weapons, given the institutional background of having been built during the Clone War, when the main adversary was an armed droid army.

That's just my way of thinking though.

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.

Yeah I always thought those black astromechs with the clear dome were pretty awesome looking.

But yeah I was assuming the OP was strictly inquiring about starfighters.

Oooohhhh, that's a great point Mikael! I hadn't even thought about that, but there is some logic to it.

I would offer the notion that it might have been against the grain of the Imperial military to want droids anywhere near weapons, given the institutional background of having been built during the Clone War, when the main adversary was an armed droid army

That's a really good retroactive reason to explain the scarcity of droids in the original trilogy.

I would offer the notion that it might have been against the grain of the Imperial military to want droids anywhere near weapons, given the institutional background of having been built during the Clone War, when the main adversary was an armed droid army

That's a really good retroactive reason to explain the scarcity of droids in the original trilogy.

Also the bar scene.

"Your droids, we don't want them here!"

Astromech droids were originally designed to plot the jumps to hyperspace, as the original Tie Fighters did not have hyperspace capabilities so the need for an astromech droid was not needed. However it is documented in Return of the Jedi that the Emperors Shuttle was carrying am Imperial droid R2-Q5 that had plotted its jumps as well as carrying Imperial secrets.

I was surprised that the Shuttle didn't come with this card.

More geek stuff but I beleive the last imperial ship to have Atromech droids was the V-Wing.

really its because the empire is just smarter and doesn't need to prop itself up with little mobile trashcans.... however why does the empire have "Interfaces" for them all over the place????

Completely off topic: All of this really brings back memories of the scene in a comic about Biggs (from the Star Wars Empire series), where the rebels had just stolen their first batch of X-Wings from Incom and they also got a crate full of new R2 units, sitting like eggs in an egg box, looking around, beeping and being just cute...

I guess the Empire just couldn't handle cuteness of this magnitude!

Wouldn't a port for an astromech ruin the aesthetic of the tie, I think looking cool and badass matters more to the empire than pilots being able to plot hyperspace jumps.

It's not just astromechs but that is the main thing I suppose. The WED-15 is a droid but fills a crew slow. Not Rebel only but still only for Huge Ships.

The real questions is why doesn't any Imperial Ships have a droid slot. What about the new VT-49? Not all Astromechs say 'Rebel Only'.

They don't need astronavigation droids on hyperdriveless ships, and their hyperdrived ships are big enough for the full navicomputer. By the time the Empire starts making hyperdrive starfighters they've developed the technology to the point where they don't need them. The rebels keep them because the pilots have grown pretty fond of them.

At least, that's what I'd say. The actual reason why X-wings have astromech slots is to give R2-D2 more stuff to do.

The thing about the Clone Wars and the Empire not being institutionally all too fond of droids with guns is also an excellent point.

I feel that you are all missing the biggest reason. George Lucas obviously wanted the Galactic Empire to be truly and utterly EVIL (patent pending), and one more way to emphasize this, is by letting the rebels be all about cooperation (with other humans/aliens/pets/droids/whatever you can think of) while the Empire is all about the oppressing the masses with faceless military might. Can't have cutsey droids running around in that environment, it ruins the carefully built up image.

I feel that you are all missing the biggest reason. George Lucas obviously wanted the Galactic Empire to be truly and utterly EVIL (patent pending), and one more way to emphasize this, is by letting the rebels be all about cooperation (with other humans/aliens/pets/droids/whatever you can think of) while the Empire is all about the oppressing the masses with faceless military might. Can't have cutsey droids running around in that environment, it ruins the carefully built up image.

Explain the insanely adorable mousedroid?

Someone, somewhere decided that what the Empire needed was a small droid that could be easily scared by a Wookie. Elementary my dear Aminar.

The Empire had loads of Astros, like this guy:

http://www.hammerand.de/starwars/pics/r5-013.jpg

That said, they are used for different roles. By on large, the Astromechs purpose is general installation, maintenance, and repair of hardware and software aboard vessels. Incom ships, such as the TL-65 X-Wing, use them for astronavigation calculations for the Hyperdrive, and general interface between the pilot and ship of it's more complex systems.

The TIE fighter, (and this is no knock to TIE pilots) is a cheap vessel. It has no complex systems. It has no Hyperdrive. Heck, it doesn't even have an atmosphere in the cockpit! Like the TIE/ln, many other variants are also 'dumb' ships.

From FFG's perspective, these are the sort of ships they want the Empire to include. I have a feeling that, upon the release of Imperial Epic ships, we may see some Empire-Only droid crew 'ala the CR-90's R2).

Hope my ramble helps somewhat!

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Astromechs were designed with small ships in mind. Their role on larger ships was generally relegated to a repair only role.

On small ships like the X, and Y wing, Astromechs helped to bolster the somewhat limited Navicomputer that were included in these ships. Most small fighter Navicomps could only calculate up to 3 jumps, and were ponderously slow in doing so. Astromechs had the capability to vastly increase this jump memory, and to help speed up the process of calculation as well.

They were capable of minor repairs, routing, and rerouting of electrical feeds/communications feeds etc. (Thus their main use on larger capital ships that had no use for their navicomp enhancing abilities).

If you look at the movies only - you'll see that Astromechs were used on small fighters almost exclusively - The X, Y, Eta-3, Delta-7, Naboo N1 etc. You see them on some freighter sized ships - like the J-Type Nubian, where they were used in a repair only capacity, the Falcon (off and on throughout the OT) etc. And you see them on large capital ships like the Corvette etc.

The Imperial fighters like the Tie series were made to be expendable. By the time the Galactic Civil War had started, the Imperials were in full on war mode. That meant that they were burning through clones faster than they could make them. That also meant that they had started conscripting from sovereign worlds for a cheap and plentiful fighting force. What better way to go cheap than to make explody pieces of junk?? Ties were designed to do a couple of things really well - go blazing fast, and fill the dark void of space with plenty of brightly colored 'frickin laser beams'. To do this, they had to sacrifice a lot - navicomputers, hyperdrives, and life support. This cut down on the bulk and weight, and allowed them to fit a metric f*ckton of them in their base carriers - Star Destroyers.

If you look at the movies specifically, Astromechs are used exclusively on fighters through Episode IV.. In Episode 1, it is the N1, in Ep 2, the Delta7, Episode 3, the Eta and the ARC 170 all had Astromechs. SW had the X and Y, ESB had the X (don't think we saw any Y-Wings at all..), and by the time RotJ rolled around, we see a move away from Astromechs with the A and B wings.

The Rebels have always valued multi-role fighters that are like the Swiss army knife, whereas the Empire has an emphasis on precision, and speed much like a surgical scalpel.

It's not just astromechs but that is the main thing I suppose. The WED-15 is a droid but fills a crew slow. Not Rebel only but still only for Huge Ships.

Also one in the background of the Death Star.

The empire did make use of droids, just not in fighters from he reasons explained. FFG decided to limit droids to rebel only mechanically in the game probably as one of the ways to make the 2 sides distinctive and for no other reason.

how come the rebels don't have Droid fighters?

This thread turned out better than I had hoped, good thoughtfull no flame posts....YAY

Because droid fighters can't fight or fly for ****. Plus, they're expensive and have terrible survival rates. In addition, the Empire was born from the Clone Wars. They know how to take down droids.

Droid fighters only work with huge numerical superiority the rebels lacked.

Because droid fighters can't fight or fly for ****. Plus, they're expensive and have terrible survival rates. In addition, the Empire was born from the Clone Wars. They know how to take down droids.

Droid fighters only work with huge numerical superiority the rebels lacked.

R2-D2 can outlfy just about anyone. It's no coincidence that 2 of the pilots in the galaxy both happen to have the same droid plugged into their ships... I can't wait to see R2D2 Piloting a xwing and and ETA-2!

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.

As far as fighters go its based on SFS design philosophy, to try and have smaller craft. Besides that the empire has crap loads of astros, they had a R2 3 and 4 in ep 4 and on the 2nd Death Star they had black and orange R5s waiting for the Emperor in the landing bay.

Because droid fighters can't fight or fly for ****. Plus, they're expensive and have terrible survival rates. In addition, the Empire was born from the Clone Wars. They know how to take down droids.

Droid fighters only work with huge numerical superiority the rebels lacked.

R2-D2 can outlfy just about anyone. It's no coincidence that 2 of the pilots in the galaxy both happen to have the same droid plugged into their ships... I can't wait to see R2D2 Piloting a xwing and and ETA-2!

R2 was doing an amazing job there when he got his head poped of by Vader in ep 4 ; )