For most people, Imperial Veterans is all about the TIE Defender enhancements. New titles that create new builds out of the air? Yes, please! New pilots for more options? Huzzah! Oh, and there's Long Range Scanners, which could be useful for several pilots, especially the TIE Bomber. The other fix to the TIE Bomber is... to turn it into a shuttle? Well, that's... different.
And a little insane. But we like insane in these parts.
The question we need to ask is this: what crew could we possibly put on a TIE Shuttle that are more at home there than on, say, a Lambda-class Shuttle? What does the TIE Shuttle offer that the more robust Lambda doesn't? Two things: maneuverability, and lower cost. That, in turn, informs what crew we should put on it. This demands a far-too-deep dive into the available crew to see what makes the most sense. Or, rather... what's the least insane.
Let's start with...
ANY CREW THAT BOOSTS THE SHIP'S COMBAT POTENTIAL
This is a really bad idea. The TIE Shuttle is still a not-too-maneuverable 2-red ship. It's not worth boosting with the available crew. The TIE Shuttle ought to specialize in support. That crosses everything from Mercenary Copilot to Ysanne Isard off the list immediately.
Insanity ranking: Appointing Jar-Jar Binks as your replacement Senator
INTELLIGENCE AGENT
Now here's something! One of the best uses for cheap low-attack ships is blocking, and Intel Agent works with that. The peak at the dial allows a Scimitar (or squadmates) to barrel roll to ideal spots for blocks if you mis-guessed your enemy. This also helps keep him alive. The cost isn't much, either-- 17 points, equivalent to a Prototype A-Wing with Autothrusters, the utility of which is well understood. The A-Wing is a lot more mobile, to be sure. Still, could be fun.
Insanity ranking: taking on AT-ATs with tow cables
MOFF JERJERROD
Best case scenario: it's a Hull Upgrade on a ship that normally isn't worth protecting. Worst case scenario: you squeeze something actually useful out of your list.
Insanity ranking: Taking your weapons with you immediately after your Jedi master tells you not to
SABOTEUR
If there ever were a ship that could make Saboteur useful, this would be it. The TIE Shuttle is cheap and expendable enough to blow actions fishing for a proc. And yet... more than anything, this just reminds us how poor Saboteur is. So much has to go right for the Saboteur to matter: you have to be able to stick to an enemy despite being low PS, *and* without the use of your action, which you need to give up to use the Saboteur. AND there has to be an enemy about with a face-down damage card, AND you have to roll well, AND the crit has to be something that's actually useful. That's demanding an awful lot. Is it worth a try? Maybe! Could it blow up in your face, almost like someone sabotaged you? Hm...
Insanity ranking: Direct, unassisted attack on a Star Destroyer with your rear deflectors down
TACTICIAN
There's some potential here. You don't have to actually deal damage to land the stress-- which is important, because you likely won't. And it's cheap enough that you can put in ships that *can* deal damage. Trying to maintain both range and arc might end up being tricky, though. The nice thing about the B-Wings in Panic Attack-style lists was that their heavy attacks meant they were useful whether they stuck the range for the stress or not. That's not the case for a TIE Shuttle-- it has no other reason to exist. Light-damage stress ships have poor precedent: the Heavy Scyk with Flechette Cannon has been around for a while now and it hasn't exactly lit the world on fire. I worry that a Tactician Shuttle would be a lot closer to the Scyk than the B-Wing.
Insanity ranking: Flying into an asteroid field because "they'd be crazy to follow us"
DARTH VADER
I don't know, does the idea of a Doom Shuttle with 40% fewer hit points appeal to you? Me neither. You're *hoping* you get to use Vader twice.
Insanity ranking: chasing a squad of stormtroopers into a hangar bay full of stormtroopers
FLEET OFFICER
Embracing the full support role, now we can feed Focus tokens to ships that can really use them. It sets up the TIE Shuttle for demise of its own, what with the stress and the lack of defensive tokens, but that's how support ships work: you almost want the enemy to shoot at a TIE Shuttle with Fleet Officer instead of the more valuable ships it's buffing. Could be fun-- Rexler Brath could always use another focus token, I hear.
Insanity ranking: Taking your transport through a planet's core because it's "faster"
SYSTEMS OFFICER
The artwork suggests that this is what you're supposed to do with a TIE Shuttle. It's not a bad idea, exactly. This is a support ship doing support things. What makes it tricky is the coordination of pilot skills between the TIE Shuttle and the ships you're trying to boost, further complicated by the good-but-not-great selection of greens on the Bomber's dial and the harsh Range 1 requirement. It can work, but it might make your life uncomfortable trying.
Insanity ranking: "Let's try spinning, that's a good trick."
MARA JADE
We've got some serious potential here. With Mara on board, you don't need to worry about arc, only range. You can bump and block freely without losing your effect-- in fact you prefer it because it extends the TIE Shuttle's lifespan. You can affect multiple ships at once. You can take defensive or positional actions and still matter. This merits testing. Note that it's not nearly as effective against PTL aces as it is against everyone else.
Insanity ranking: going to hijack an AT-ST with only a couple of ewoks for backup
REBEL CAPTIVE
This punishes the enemy for shooting at... something he doesn't actually want to shoot at. You could make a case to put Rebel Captive on a TIE Shuttle with some other, more useful crew in order to protect it. If you do that, though, the points cost comes awfully close to a Lambda's (21 vice 19). This seems like a bad idea.
Insanity ranking: entrusting the fate of the galaxy to a whiny hick teenager from a backwater planet who has never flown in combat before and has been in the Rebellion for a matter of hours... wait a minute.