Why does the tie fighter have 2 days of consumables... when the pilot has to wear a spacesuit that only lasts 3 hours?

You're thinking of the full blown utility space suit. TIE Pilots wear a limited sealed flight suit and chest mounted life support, so they probably can go 2 or 3 days.

Fun fact: Modern cosmonauts wear similar suits intended only for survival should a Soyuz module lose cabin pressure, and not suited for EVA. The suit design hasn't changed much, so today's Russian spacemen are wearing nearly identical suits to those worn when the first TIE fighter screamed across a theater screen.

You're thinking of the full blown utility space suit. TIE Pilots wear a limited sealed flight suit and chest mounted life support, so they probably can go 2 or 3 days.

Fun fact: Modern cosmonauts wear similar suits intended only for survival should a Soyuz module lose cabin pressure, and not suited for EVA. The suit design hasn't changed much, so today's Russian spacemen are wearing nearly identical suits to those worn when the first TIE fighter screamed across a theater screen.

Except the "sealed flight suit" is even worse, with an endurance of only 10 minutes! (10 min for Vaccume sealed armor, and the Wing Commander Armored flight suit from Stay on Target isnt sealed at all!)

I also feel that "consumables" covers fuel as well. Also in space the oxygen isn't gonna be your problem, without a proper space suit (or personalized mag-con field in SW) your going to freeze to death before you asphyxiate

EDIT:For sublight only, you could run the hyperdrive considerably longer (if a TIE had one) as the great Wedge Antilles said "Hyperdrives sip fuel, and sublights gulp it"

Consumables of 3 days is what's in the survival kit of fighter jets for when the pilot is shot down, ejects, and has to survive long enough for a rescue. From the Imp standpoint, I don't think they really care about their pilots being able to do that because I don't think they would mount a rescue for a downed pilot.

Consumables of 3 days is what's in the survival kit of fighter jets for when the pilot is shot down, ejects, and has to survive long enough for a rescue. From the Imp standpoint, I don't think they really care about their pilots being able to do that because I don't think they would mount a rescue for a downed pilot.

Precisely, much is made in the fluff about how the Imperials consider their pilots are a consumable and hence why the TIEs are so stripped down - cost saving.

The idea of fuel being a consumable is a good one though, if I was GMing a game where the pilot was shot down like that I would probably create an encounter where the pilot can trade fuel, parts etc. with the startled local populace for food and shelter.

There seems to be a lot of Assuming going on about TIE fighters. Where in the movies or canon books does it say that they don't have any life support? Perhaps, they only have minimal capacities. We only hear that they are a short range craft, which could mean no hyperdrive.

The databank on star wars.com doesn't seem to mention anything about lacking life support.

Was looking on Wookieepedia about this, the author suggested that the absence of shields, hyperdrive, life support was to assist maneuverability.

This caught my eye:

"TIE/lns also lacked landing gear, another mass-reducing measure. While the ships were structurally capable of "sitting" on their wings, they were not designed to land or disembark their pilots without special support. On Imperial ships, TIEs were launched from racks in the hangar bays. Other Imperial pilots considered TIE fighter pilots to be suicidal due to the how expendable the starfighters were."

Why weigh down a ship with consumables when it has no systems in place to make a safe landing outside of the carrier ship? Maybe there is space for a lunchbox or something.

Citing wookiepedia as a source of information is not the best way to make a case. It is not an official source. We have seen, in Rebels that TIEs can and often DO land and rest on their wings, even in a star destroyer.

Haha I know, that's why I started the post with it, so everyone had their pinches of salt ready. I just thought it was an interesting point of view.

You're right though, I can't find it anywhere specifically stated (in canon) that the TIEs have no shields, hyperdrive or life support, but it seems odd that so many of us think that it is. Perhaps it's anti-Imperial propaganda circulated by the blasted Rebel Alliance!

The next thing you'll see on Rebels is a TIE fighter with shields, hyperdrive, and proton torpedoes...

There's also the situation where a Tie is forced down somewhere and doesn't crash or if the pilot has to eject. Then they have 2 days worth of rations for use on the ground.

I'm of the mindset that Tie's have life support, cheap fighter or not, training a pilot is time consuming and expensive. It's easier to replace a Tie than a pilot so they should have ejection systems, life support, etc. As there is nothing in the cannon to dispute or confirm this, I'm comfortable with it.

You're thinking of the full blown utility space suit. TIE Pilots wear a limited sealed flight suit and chest mounted life support, so they probably can go 2 or 3 days.

Fun fact: Modern cosmonauts wear similar suits intended only for survival should a Soyuz module lose cabin pressure, and not suited for EVA. The suit design hasn't changed much, so today's Russian spacemen are wearing nearly identical suits to those worn when the first TIE fighter screamed across a theater screen.

Except the "sealed flight suit" is even worse, with an endurance of only 10 minutes! (10 min for Vaccume sealed armor, and the Wing Commander Armored flight suit from Stay on Target isnt sealed at all!)

Now you're thinking of the attachment, which is also not right.

It's like a how a Marauder corvette can carry way more fighters and shuttles then a CR90 with the Hanger attachment because the marauder was built from day one to carry those fighter. Same thing with the sealed flightsuits.

And if you read the item description the wing commander suit is specifically identified as being sealed, with a life support package, and the ability to be used as a space suit when needed.

The only trouble you've really got at the end of the day is that none of the flight suits specify how long their life support package can hold out. As a dumb guess it's probably safe to assume that the life support package is at least good for a few days, with the real survival limitation being everything else like radiation and micrometeor protection, water stores, urine recycling, and all the other things that can go horribly wrong when you're floating free in open space without a proper space suit.

In the EU books, Rebel flight suits (which the KT suit is basically an armored version going by the picture) come with a personal mag-con field, which would protect them from the radiation, micrometeors and other small debris, but not the temperatures in space apparently, it also traps enough oxygen to last for I think a day or so?

In the EU books, Rebel flight suits (which the KT suit is basically an armored version going by the picture) come with a personal mag-con field, which would protect them from the radiation, micrometeors and other small debris, but not the temperatures in space apparently, it also traps enough oxygen to last for I think a day or so?

Pretty sure Truce at Bakura had Wedge's flight suit good for maybie an hour when he's EVA keeping the probe from self destructing.

The pilot is the consumable. Ewoks looove TIE food.

Why does the tie fighter have 2 days of consumables... when the pilot has to wear a spacesuit that only lasts 3 hours?

Ok, in all seriousness now... the 3 hour period could be narrated as the canned life support system only lasts for three hours, at which point you would need to replace the canned life support system.

Now I know its Legends material, I recall reading somewhere that the life support packs attached to the TIE pilot suit were easily replaceable by the pilot and that multiples were carried on board in case of emergency situations. 2 days of total life support would be roughly 16 replacements. Of course, crashing onto a moon or an asteroid could damage several and reduce that number.

X-Wing Iron Fist though I don't know if carrying several is normal or if it is just done for long missions.

In the EU books, Rebel flight suits (which the KT suit is basically an armored version going by the picture) come with a personal mag-con field, which would protect them from the radiation, micrometeors and other small debris, but not the temperatures in space apparently, it also traps enough oxygen to last for I think a day or so?

Pretty sure Truce at Bakura had Wedge's flight suit good for maybie an hour when he's EVA keeping the probe from self destructing.

There seems to be a lot of Assuming going on about TIE fighters. Where in the movies or canon books does it say that they don't have any life support? Perhaps, they only have minimal capacities. We only hear that they are a short range craft, which could mean no hyperdrive.

The databank on star wars.com doesn't seem to mention anything about lacking life support.

I think it mostly started from the fact that TIE pilots are always in sealed flight suits, rather than the open helmeted things worn by Rebel pilots.

But yeah, I imagine consumables is mostly fuel - so a TIE can fly a 3 hour flight, land, change pilot if needs be, etc, etc, and only needs to be refuelled when it's taken off the line for maintenance. One thing that does get mentioned in the books is that TIE fighters are supposed to be identical - unlike rebel fighters, and interceptors, it's not "your fighter" - you get whichever one is next on the racks when you're sent to the launch bay.

A true story from a F-16 Crew Chief

Pilot shows up to the aircraft carrying his helmet and his pressure demand O2 mask, the pilot does his walk around of the aircraft and climbs up to the cockpit, and climbs in. Crew Chief follows pilot up and while the pilot does his lap belt and connects his mask to the O2 hose on the aircraft, the crew Crew Chief is connecting the G-suit to the the hose that controls the G-suit to prevent blackouts of the pilot while making high maneuvers.

Now nothing states in anywhere as to whether or not the TiE has life support on it, and the pilot does look like he is carrying it, but to an untrained eye that has never seen a F-16 pilot walking around with his helmet, O2 mask, and weird G-suite with 2 hoses hanging off of the suit would think the same thing. The F-16 carries O2, and the system to prevent blackouts. The cockpit is also pressurized, so why the mask and the G-suit? Because high G maneuvers cause physiological issues with the human body that makes it hard to function during said maneuvers. Yes I have flown in the F-16, at the max ceiling that was allowed for my flight, I did not have to wear my O2 mask until we made our "high G maneuvers", I was only allowed 6.5g due to the configuration of the jet and yes the pilot was talking to me during his very determined attempts at making me puke just like we were sitting at the dinner table.

The personnel that take care of all the equipment and the survival kit (a bag under the seat that ejects with the pilot) are called life support technicians. So with that, you could say that the life support is set up almost the same way or another variation of whatever you want. As far as consumables on the TiE are concerned, the rules do not cover fuel and O2 separately from consumables, and if you want to track fuel and O2 then the best way to do it, is lump it all under consumables. 3 days of fuel, 3 days of food and water, 3 days of O2, doesn't seem unreasonable.

I've always considered Consumables (besides fuel) to less about quantity and more about how effective the recyclers operate.

Was looking on Wookieepedia about this, the author suggested that the absence of shields, hyperdrive, life support was to assist maneuverability.

This caught my eye:

"TIE/lns also lacked landing gear, another mass-reducing measure. While the ships were structurally capable of "sitting" on their wings, they were not designed to land or disembark their pilots without special support. On Imperial ships, TIEs were launched from racks in the hangar bays. Other Imperial pilots considered TIE fighter pilots to be suicidal due to the how expendable the starfighters were."

Why weigh down a ship with consumables when it has no systems in place to make a safe landing outside of the carrier ship? Maybe there is space for a lunchbox or something.

Reread what you quoted. If something has gone wrong, the pilot doesn't give a rat's a** if it is normal to land on the wings. He'll do it anyways. As the quote says, they are capable of sitting on their wings, just weren't designed to do so as part of normal operations (yet Star Wars Rebels shows them sitting on the ground all the time in various shots of Lothal).

Was looking on Wookieepedia about this, the author suggested that the absence of shields, hyperdrive, life support was to assist maneuverability.

This caught my eye:

"TIE/lns also lacked landing gear, another mass-reducing measure. While the ships were structurally capable of "sitting" on their wings, they were not designed to land or disembark their pilots without special support. On Imperial ships, TIEs were launched from racks in the hangar bays. Other Imperial pilots considered TIE fighter pilots to be suicidal due to the how expendable the starfighters were."

Why weigh down a ship with consumables when it has no systems in place to make a safe landing outside of the carrier ship? Maybe there is space for a lunchbox or something.

Reread what you quoted. If something has gone wrong, the pilot doesn't give a rat's a** if it is normal to land on the wings. He'll do it anyways. As the quote says, they are capable of sitting on their wings, just weren't designed to do so as part of normal operations (yet Star Wars Rebels shows them sitting on the ground all the time in various shots of Lothal).

You're right, I could have phrased that much better. I was thinking more of it terms of "If the Empire consider the TIEs (and therefore their pilots) expendable, and designed them as such, why would they bother to put a survival kit for the pilot in there?", rather than that the ships wouldn't able to make an emergency landing if required. The Empire wouldn't mount a rescue mission for one downed TIE, so it seems illogical to prolong the pilot's life a few days.

I think the whole topic rests on your definition of 'consumables'.

I think the whole topic is tainted by WEG's make-it-up-as-we-go-along-itis.

Just because you don't put sheilds on it doesn't mean that you don't give a crap about the ship or it's pilot. It's designed to be an extremely fast, extremely agile fighter. Knowing a bit about aircraft, that's something that you need a decently trained pilot to use and training pilots is expensive as heck. So the idea that they wouldn't have life support or supplies is laughable to me. Even if, for the sake of argument, they didn't; no sane person would pilot them. Imperial pilots would bail and disapear left and right. The only way they would be able to keep enough pilots around is they were all fanatics that were willing to throw their lives away.