So, I was wondering,

TiE fighters have un-pressurized, non-atmosphere cockpits, which is of course why their pilots wear those flight suits with fully sealed helms et al. But TiE's are often stored or berthed on spacecraft or bases that do have atmospheres. Which means that when a TiE is first launched, it carries some of that atmosphere with it.

I wonder how long it remains. I wonder how quickly a TiE's cockpit retains a breathable atmosphere and atmospheric pressure before it's gone. And if the cockpit is sealed, does it ever leave? Why would Sienar leave a cockpit unsealed when it wouldn't cost anything to seal it? I have seen scenes of TiE's stored/landed planetside, if the fighter wasn't sealed wouldn't it run the risk of getting varmints, dust and rain in it depending on the planet?

Just a random thought.

There is a difference between seals and pressure seals. My car has seals on it which keep out noise, dust, rodents, etc., but is not pressure sealed at all. Likewise most small aircraft are not pressurized, but have seals to keep out dust. But if they fly too high, they need an oxygen mask. Larger aircraft are pressurized, which maintains full pressure at high altitude. I am not sure whether or how much they leak, so if an airliner ended up in space, I am not sure how long it could maintain atmosphere. Truly sealing an craft is not cheap, especially from a maintenance standpoint.

That being said, I would probably rule you could last a few rounds in a TIE fighter before having problems. Maybe make resilience checks of increasing difficulty every round. Most people could use it to transfer to a nearby ship hangar in an emergency. But your time could be dramatically increased with a simple breath mask.

Maybe while they're hooked up to another vessel there's an umbilicus that tops-up life support consumables?

OK, I believe the TIE fighters are sealed and pressurized they just don't have life support systems. This would be just like a modern day military aircraft here in real life (I was a F-16 Crew Chief for 23 years). The pressurization of the F-16 was very primitive and was there just for a little comfort, but as altitude increased and pressure lessened the requirement for oxygen increased on pressure demand.A TIE being in space would be the same except the demand for oxygen would be immediate, and the air in the cockpit would be so thin that it wouldn't be breathable. So yes the TIE's cockpit would be sealed.

We were always pulling bugs out of the cockpits and "dusting" every once in a while. Maintainers are always forgotten about in the scheme of things.

The TIE fighter omits life support (along with shield generators and hyperdrives) to save mass, making them cheaper and easier to accelerate. However, the TIE pilot wears the flight suit with life support. He sits in the cockpit, adding both him and his flight suit to the mass of the TIE fighter: the TIE contains life support: just because it's attached to the pilot doesn't mean it isn't contributing its mass and expense to the TIE. TIEs do have life support: it's just so basic it's incorporated into the vacuum-resistant flight suit, making shipboard life support redundant. Plus if the hull gets breached the pilot's in with a chance if they're wearing a suit.

I'm with Osprey on this one: I think they have fully sealed cockpits rather than all the air rapidly being sucked out and the cockpit being under vacuum once they're out of the hangar. If you fly a TIE without a flight suit then you've got the air in the cockpit and that's it. Plus the flight suit contains the TIE's communication headset and likely helps with G-force too, so you'll pass out if you do any extreme maneuvers and you'll need to bring your own comms.

tl;dr, you probably won't burst in vacuum if you fly a TIE without a suit, but the air in that little ball is all you've got and you'll probably die if you do any extreme maneuvers. Probably easier to steal a flight suit: it'll make it much easier to steal the TIE too.

There is this shuttle variant of the TIE bomber. It would be very odd if the shuttle half was pressurized and the other half wasn't. Makes me think the entire thing is pressurized. Either that, or all passengers need to wear pressure suits. (Which would be odd.)

Edit: Doublepost, ignore please

I think all the more advanced TIE variants have onboard life support. Otherwise the pilot would have issues using the hyperdrive.

Won't argue the shuttles or the advanced TIE. But presurization does not equal life support. It could be part of it but it is not.

Using a RL fighter jet in comparison. The F-16 is pressurized and carries a maximum of 5.0 liters of oxygen. Pilot wears a "G" suit to keep the blood where it needs to be during high maneuvers. The TIE pilot carries his ox with him and wears a pressurized suit. The pressurization on the 16 is very small and in complex and the oxygen bottle is the size of a small cooler lunch box. Just know the pressurised cockpit doesn't equal breathable air.

So, I was wondering,

TiE fighters have un-pressurized, non-atmosphere cockpits, which is of course why their pilots wear those flight suits with fully sealed helms et al. But TiE's are often stored or berthed on spacecraft or bases that do have atmospheres. Which means that when a TiE is first launched, it carries some of that atmosphere with it.

I wonder how long it remains. I wonder how quickly a TiE's cockpit retains a breathable atmosphere and atmospheric pressure before it's gone. And if the cockpit is sealed, does it ever leave? Why would Sienar leave a cockpit unsealed when it wouldn't cost anything to seal it? I have seen scenes of TiE's stored/landed planetside, if the fighter wasn't sealed wouldn't it run the risk of getting varmints, dust and rain in it depending on the planet?

Just a random thought.

Another interesting question: how much work does it take to consistently spell 'TIE' with an upper-case 'T', a lower-case "i", and an upper-case "E"? And is it worth it?

Just razzin' ya, but that really stuck out to me.

So, I was wondering,

TiE fighters have un-pressurized, non-atmosphere cockpits, which is of course why their pilots wear those flight suits with fully sealed helms et al. But TiE's are often stored or berthed on spacecraft or bases that do have atmospheres. Which means that when a TiE is first launched, it carries some of that atmosphere with it.

I wonder how long it remains. I wonder how quickly a TiE's cockpit retains a breathable atmosphere and atmospheric pressure before it's gone. And if the cockpit is sealed, does it ever leave? Why would Sienar leave a cockpit unsealed when it wouldn't cost anything to seal it? I have seen scenes of TiE's stored/landed planetside, if the fighter wasn't sealed wouldn't it run the risk of getting varmints, dust and rain in it depending on the planet?

Just a random thought.

Another interesting question: how much work does it take to consistently spell 'TIE' with an upper-case 'T', a lower-case "i", and an upper-case "E"? And is it worth it?

Just razzin' ya, but that really stuck out to me.

Copy and paste my most excellent friend, copy and paste.

I just sorta learned a long time ago that the correct way to spell TiE was with the lower case i because Twin Ion Engine was a crude acronym but the I from Ion wasn't what was carried. Not sure where I heard that from. So whenever possible I try and do that.

There is this shuttle variant of the TIE bomber. It would be very odd if the shuttle half was pressurized and the other half wasn't. Makes me think the entire thing is pressurized. Either that, or all passengers need to wear pressure suits. (Which would be odd.)

According to Incredible Cross Sections TiE Bomber Pilots don't need fully sealed suits because they actually get to have atmospheres in their cockpits. I would imagine the TiE Boarding Shuttles work the same. Sienar loooooves to re-use and recycle, and who can blame them?

With the new Rebels series, we may find out that having no life support may be nothing more than legends.

The TIE fighter omits life support (along with shield generators and hyperdrives) to save mass, making them cheaper and easier to accelerate.

I don't really think saving mass, and easier acceleration had anything to do with the design decisions made IMO. The whole point of the design was to be as cheap as possible while not being totally useless against another fighter. The fact that cheap in this case meant quick and agile was just a nice bonus not an actual goal of the design IMO. Otherwise I think the basic TIE Fighter would have been much closer to the TIE Interceptor in performance.

I'm pretty sure a 19 BBY TIE Design with two lasers could match the agility, acceleration and speed of an Interceptor if that was really a project goal but it would have cost a bit more, probably somewhere around 61,000.based on the cost difference between a TIE Fighter and a TIE Interceptor and the cost of the Interceptor's extra lasers.

The TIE fighter omits life support (along with shield generators and hyperdrives) to save mass, making them cheaper and easier to accelerate.

I don't really think saving mass, and easier acceleration had anything to do with the design decisions made IMO. The whole point of the design was to be as cheap as possible while not being totally useless against another fighter. The fact that cheap in this case meant quick and agile was just a nice bonus not an actual goal of the design IMO. Otherwise I think the basic TIE Fighter would have been much closer to the TIE Interceptor in performance.

I'm pretty sure a 19 BBY TIE Design with two lasers could match the agility, acceleration and speed of an Interceptor if that was really a project goal but it would have cost a bit more, probably somewhere around 61,000.based on the cost difference between a TIE Fighter and a TIE Interceptor and the cost of the Interceptor's extra lasers.

Another thing to keep in mind about the TiE Interceptor is that most literature depicts it as the sort of vehicle that - if you're not the best pilot imaginable - you'll quickly find that it's flying you instead of you flying it. It was literally designed to deal with a specific problem in the form of a specific fighter (the T-65) that was ripping Line TiEs to shreds. But with the current base TiE design Sienar had left themselves little room to maneuver. They had to up-gun the fighter - that was simply a given considering the X-Wing had twice as many guns as a Line TiE and they were more powerful. The X-Wing also had shields, so, if the new anti-X-Wing was to have any hope it needed more guns.

But Rogue Corona is right, Sienar was worried about keeping costs down, and while more guns weren't too terribly expensive a per-unit proposition, shields and a hyperdrive would have been. So they did the only thing they could. They cranked up the sublight engines' raw power and made the design inherently unstable (which you actually want in a fighter, as long as it's not so unstable nobody can fly it) - which leads back to my first point.

I just sorta learned a long time ago that the correct way to spell TiE was with the lower case i because Twin Ion Engine was a crude acronym but the I from Ion wasn't what was carried. Not sure where I heard that from. So whenever possible I try and do that.

It's definitely TIE.

I don't really think saving mass, and easier acceleration had anything to do with the design decisions made IMO.

Comes from lore.

Just because the TIE pilots wear flight suits doesn't mean the TIE fighter doesn't have life support. Those things tend to get holes in them during battle. Modern astronaughts wear pressured flight suits in the space shuttle during risky operations, for example.

Just because the TIE pilots wear flight suits doesn't mean the TIE fighter doesn't have life support. Those things tend to get holes in them during battle. Modern astronaughts wear pressured flight suits in the space shuttle during risky operations, for example.

Yeah, but anything powerful enough to put a hole in most low end TiE models is also likely to blow it to pieces entirely. You don't hear about many damaged TiE's limping back to base. So, I think that what's been said before about them - that pilots bring pressure and air in their suits and anything else is incidental capture from wherever they were launched from still stands.

Rebels did confirm no shields on TIEs still, so no intrinsic life support is quite likely to be in also. I could buy pressurization being true just to prevent some of the issues vacuum can cause with electronics (which can be avoided, but it's probably more expensive overall to design for that) but without the O2 recycling or whatever to make it a breathable atmosphere for long. Game-wise I'd probably take a page from the Vacuum Sealed mod for armor and let it give them 10 min breathable air without a flight suit; it's cheap enough for a suit that it can't be too bad to do it to a vehicle, it avoids the vacuum effects on the TIE itself mentioned, and it is a reasonable backup for suit malfunctions to give a pilot time to make repairs or return to base (the Empire may be ludicrously cheap about the lives of their troops, but I doubt Imperial designers avoid ALL safety features).