"Go to" Starfighter upgrades

By CenterPoint, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

Looking for a good direction to take a bone stock Y wing in to make it much better/cooler/more interesting. Have ability to add hardpoints and make mods.

Currently flown by an ace hotshot, rigger, and astromech (all PC)

game is currently mostly focused on fighter combat missions against both enemy starfighters and transports

have the core book and access to others if someone can point me in the right direction

Thanks!

Are they operating as part of a larger group that includes X-Wings (or anything else with 5+ speed)? If so, and they don't have any other way to boost their own speed, the "High Output Ion Turbine" is going to be high on the list.

there is one x wing but it is controlled by a NPC. It is unlikely that the player group will be switching craft as they have specialties that work well together (pilot, gunner, mechanic)

What areas are you looking to improve? You said you'd be doing a lot of dogfighting, but does that include patrols (i.e. situations where you need sensors), bombing runs (against capital ships or ground targets), close air support, wild weasel runs, etc? Any of those could be performed by the stock loadout, but probably be done better by a vessel with a dedicated load-out.

If you want to sink enough credits into it you could improve almost every aspect of performance with just the modifications in the core book, but at that point I think it would be better to just upgrade to a bigger, better ship... something like a HWK-1000, YT-2000, or YV-929.

The HWK-290 with upgrades is a better Y-Wing than the Y-Wing with upgrades.

The HWK-290 with upgrades is a better Y-Wing than the Y-Wing with upgrades.

Seconded. HWK-290 with upgrades is probably the best Starfighter out there.

The PIG sucks. But the HWK searies kicks a$$.

With the limited number of hard points, might want to point to a reinforced shield generator, as it will be upgradable multiple times and make the ship a beast to hit, and adding the electronic countermeasures suite will make it tougher for non-starfighter opponents to target them. The Rigger's talents should take care of the maneuverability and hull.

Aside from that, having the Alliance swap out weapons now and again for specific missions will keep things feeling fresh, especially if they're the ones responsible for stealing the new weapons system. It could even be something like the ANQ 3.6 targeting computer in Enter the Unknown (pg. 60) to give the droid some more to do in the fight.