Missile Boat

Missile Boat "&hellip;Admiral Thrawn has developed the trump card&hellip; the Missile Boat, which you proved in the last battle to be the ultimate starfighter in the galaxy!"

- A flight officer to Maarek Stele

The Missile Boat was an advanced Imperial starfighter designed by Grand Admiral Thrawn and built by Cygnus Spaceworks.

Designed as a countermeasure against the rogue Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin and his supply of TIE Defenders, the Missile Boat was a descendant of the Alpha-class Xg-1 Star Wing, also manufactured by Cygnus Spaceworks. The Missile Boat relied primarily on warheads for dogfighting and assaults, a notable difference from other Imperial starfighters, which relied more heavily on laser cannons. The Missile Boat also included an innovative propulsion feature known as the SubLight Acceleration Motor (SLAM).

Though they proved instrumental in the defeat of Zaarin's rogue faction and in executing Emperor Palpatine's plan to lead the Rebel Alliance to Endor, they were removed from Imperial Navy operations by the Emperor's own orders and were not seen in use after 4 ABY.

Characteristics


The Missile Boat loosely resembled the general body style of its predecessor, the Alpha-class Xg-1 Star Wing; it had a bulky profile in comparison to the Star Wing, yet both models shared a pronounced fuselage with a dorsal stabilizer, flanked by the craft's primary warhead launchers. The Missile Boat's second set of warhead launchers extended from pylons attached to the dorsal surface of the primary launchers. This secondary set rested at an angle reflexive to the lateral wings.

Extremely uncommon among Imperial starfighters, portions of the pilot's flight input displays were located on the cockpit exterior. The deflector shield configuration and beam weapon displays were attached to the port and starboard nose surfaces, outside the cockpit, just forward of the viewports.

Weapons
The Missile Boat relied primarily on warheads for dogfighting and assaults, a notable difference from other Imperial starfighters, which relied more heavily on laser cannons.

The Missile Boat was armed with two high-capacity twin warhead launchers and a single nose-mounted laser cannon. The secondary pair of warhead launchers was exclusively assigned to carry a payload of concussion missiles, while the primary could be outfitted with an array of space-borne projectiles. Each individual launcher had a concussion missile capacity of twenty missiles, affording the Missile Boat an impressive maximum load of eighty concussion missiles; the primary launchers could alternatively hold fifteen proton torpedoes, ten heavy rockets, or five heavy space bombs. This immense warhead capacity greatly overshadowed the TIE Bomber and Assault Gunboat magazines by more than sixty missiles, so the Missile Boat carried a multiple of four over those of earlier craft. By the time of its deployment, the Missile Boat was afforded the use of advanced concussion missiles and advanced proton torpedoes, these warheads being quicker and more powerful than their regular counterparts. The advanced missiles were necessarily to lock on to fast and agile craft such as the A-Wing or TIE Defender.

The most noteworthy weakness of the Missile Boat was its single laser cannon. Should the craft's warhead stores run empty, pilots were forced to dogfight with a single cannon. Dogfighting in general could be problematic due to the fact that Missile Boat pilots had only a single cannon reserve from which energy could be transferred to deflector shields. However, this single laser cannon did fire faster and could charge to full capacity in just ninety seconds, a major improvement over other laser cannons found in Imperial fighters. Many pilots often diverted energy away from the laser cannon, frequently nicknamed the "pea shooter," for shields or the SLAM system.

Missile Boats frequently carried a tractor beam system, known to Imperial pilots as the beam weapon. Developed originally for the TIE Avenger and later TIE Defender as an optional system, the tractor beam was often considered standard equipment on Missile Boats. It was used to snare enemy fighters in the craft's sights and prevent them from escaping the Missile Boat's firing arc. The tractor beam was only effective at close range and could only be used for a short period of time, as its energy reserve was quickly exhausted and required frequent recharging. That was enough for expert Missile Boat pilots to blast the enemy with a pair of warheads without the need to acquire a full missile lock, and two advanced concussion missiles were usually sufficient to destroy a TIE Defender.

The tractor beam could be replaced with the jamming beam, a weapon that disrupted the fire-control systems of targets that it "painted" on, which allowed Missile Boats safer transit on bombing runs against capital ships.

Propulsion


The Missile Boat was equipped with dual ion engines and a hyperdrive. Hyperdrive capability permitted the Missile Boat to compete with the more advanced fighters of the era, and assume multiple mission roles. The Missile Boat was faster and more maneuverable than the Assault Gunboat

Its engines were also equipped with the new SubLight Acceleration Motor(s). The SLAM was an overdrive system that drained laser cannon energy reserve to boost the craft's engines to 200 percent output. Comparable to the Alliance's A-wing, the Missile Boat boasted a respectable maximum cruising speed of 125 MGLT. Provided with SLAMs and a pilot competent in energy management, this speed could be pushed beyond 250 MGLT. This enabled a Missile Boat to quickly arrive at or escape a battle zone, respond to new threats immediately, or outrun enemy advanced concussion missiles.

Shields and armor
While the defensive armor plating was nothing to brag about&mdash;comparable to that of all types of TIE fighters&mdash;the Missile Boat's deflector shields were the second strongest among Imperial starfighters, rated at 120 SBD, comparable to the Alliance's B-wing starfighter.

Space Superiority
The Missile Boat was specifically designed to counter the menacing TIE Defender, using innovative and unconventional methods. Imperial tacticians recognized that these craft had only limited opportunities to launch missiles from a safe distance. Once in a dogfight, its single laser cannon was ineffectual compared to other craft that carried two or four. However, the tractor beam would effectively negate the maneuverability of a Defender, allowing the Missile Boat pilot to blast it with a pair of advanced missiles, without the need to acquire a full missile lock, severely damaging or destroying a TIE Defender.

The tractor-beam + advanced missile tactic was not original, as it had been pioneered on the TIE Avenger, and could be executed by the Defender and Assault Gunboat (despite the latter's mediocre agility). Though it was a quick and powerful tactic, its potential was limited by their warhead magazines, and most craft were expected to resort to laser cannons for much of the dogfight. As the Missile Boat carried over four times the warheads, this made it a deadly anti-starfighter platform.

The Missile Boat was occasionally pressed into the dedicated space superiority role, equipped with only missiles, to escort assault craft. However, many pilots were able to participate beyond their anti-starfighter duties, developing unorthodox tactics to take advantage of their vast number of warheads, much to the chagrin of their commanders since Advanced Missiles were relatively expensive. On the advise of his flight officer, Maarek Stele used them as dumbfire rockets to bring down the shields of the Nami Strike-class medium cruiser Nuance. A relatively new tactic was to defend a mission-critical craft by using the missiles to intercept incoming warheads. A training mission in the combat simulation chamber tasked the pilot with fending off increasingly difficult barrages against Container Transport Silver Bull. Thrawn had his flagship Grey Wolf used as bait to lure the Rebel Carrack cruiser group Kingdom, being confident of Maarek Stele's ability to defend Grey Wolf against the expected Rebel snubfighter sorties.

The SLAM system enabled the Missile Boat a quick exit if the odds were against it in a dogfight. While retreating would normally prove fatal to other craft, as enemies would be able line up missiles on their tails, the Missile Boat could escape from a battle relatively unscathed as the SLAM system enabled it to outrun enemy advanced concussion missiles.

Heavy Assault
Considering the immense payload and deflector shield systems, the Missile Boat was also well suited as a heavy bomber, frequently inserted into enemy territory to destroy enemy capital ships. While these heavy bomber roles typically came with the assistance of fighter escorts, Missile Boats could operate autonomously in light of their dedicated missile launchers.

The Missile Boat's raw firepower enabled it to singlehandedly destroy a frigate or light cruiser from a safe distance. With the SLAM system, pilots could quickly move within firing range, unleash its payload against a carrier, and escape before defending fighters could respond.

By the time of the Missile Boat's deployment, many crucial space installations such as the X7 Factory Station were equipped with an anti-warhead defensive system, which launched missiles to take out incoming ordinance. As in the first combat chamber training system, and during the assault on the Nami TIE Defender facility, a Missile Boat could use a few salvos to overwhelm it and render the station vulnerable to upcoming warheads. Missiles have been also used to "surgically" knock out laser cannons and turbolaser turrets.

A major drawback to the assault role was the Missile Boat's lack of ion cannons. Missile Boats would be reliant on Assault Gunboats or TIE Defenders to disable mission critical craft for capture, thus making the Missile Boats responsible for the livelihood of the disabling craft.

Other
As byproducts of the space superiority role, shield and hyperdrive systems permitted the Missile Boat to assume various other starfighter roles. Missile Boats were used on several occasions as reconnaissance scouts to inspect enemy craft in distant systems.

Missile Boats were often tasked with clearing the deadly Type C Mines, which not only had an omni-directional laser cannon, but also immediately launched a light countermeasure warhead at the attacking craft. By the time of the craft's deployment, the Type C's were armed with advanced concussion missiles, which proved extremely perilous at close range, even for fast and shielded craft. Missile Boat pilots could clear these minefields from a safe distance, using one missile to destroy the mine itself, and a second missile to take out the newly launched warhead. As proof that the craft was so effective at this, Maarek Stele ensured that every Nami structure and ship down to the last mine was eliminated during the assault on the Nami TIE Defender facility.

History
Cygnus Spaceworks developed the Missile Boat during the Galactic Civil War as a dominantly projectile-weapon-based platform to counter the most advanced starfighters of the day. The advent of the Missile Boat was the result of a chain of events put into motion by the technologically-driven Grand Admiral Zaarin, a highly respected officer in the Imperial Navy. Like many other noteworthy Imperial officers, Zaarin sought to increase his power; unlike most of those officers, he chose to stage a coup against Emperor Palpatine, pitting himself against Admiral Thrawn and the rest of the Imperial Navy. Zaarin's defection posed a great danger to the Empire, as he possessed superior Imperial starfighters like the TIE Avenger and TIE Defender. Knowing this, Thrawn collaborated with Cygnus Spaceworks to design a new starfighter to counter the threat of Zaarin's treachery; the Missile Boat was the offspring of this collaboration.

While planning the Rebel Alliance's ultimate defeat at the Battle of Endor, the Emperor ordered Thrawn to pursue and destroy Zaarin and his advanced TIE starfighters. It was at this time that Thrawn revealed his new starfighter, the Missile Boat, to the Emperor.



The Missile Boat's debut was during Thrawn's campaign to police various factions who mysteriously came into possession of TIE Defenders. The Missile Boat's first mission was to lead an assault on the Nami Strike-class cruiser Nuance, which was carrying an arms merchant who planned to sell TIE Defenders to the Rebel Alliance. Following this sortie, a lone Missile Boat was responsible for the destruction of three Carrack-class cruisers on a mission to wrest captured TIE Defenders from Thrawn's grasp. The Missile Boat accomplished this mission with only a squadron of TIE Fighters as cover. With the Rebel strike force destroyed, another solo Missile Boat was utilized to destroy a TIE Defender factory controlled by the Nami pirate Ali Tarrak.

Upon completion of a campaign to rid secondary forces of their TIE Defender possessions, Thrawn utilized the Missile Boat on a direct campaign against the rogue Zaarin. The Missile Boat was used extensively to raid Zaarin's supply convoys, and defend loyal Imperial forces against attacks by Zaarin's rogue forces. During this campaign, Missile Boats were frequently employed as bait for the technologically greedy Zaarin. Missile Boats were responsible on more than one occasion for protecting convoys carrying other Missile Boats from Zaarin's raiders. Moreover, Missile Boat pilots were specifically instructed not to permit the capture of the new Missile Boat; the Missile Boat would not even be deployed, they were told, if not for the dire circumstances facing the Empire. In addition, during this campaign, Missile Boats were instrumental in the protection of the cloaking shield project aboard the CR90 corvette Vorknkx. Research personnel were quite shocked by the arrival of only a single fighter, but stated that there were rumors about its prowess.

The Missile Boat designated Mu 1, along with two scout craft, faced off against Nebulon-B2 frigate Z-Borus and its compliment of TIE Bombers and Interceptors. As the battle progressed, Zaarin brought more of his TIE Avengers to bear down on the research facility. Failing at their initial attempt to capture the facility, Zaarin's forces followed up the previous sortie with a larger onslaught of three Carrack-class cruisers and assault transports, all the while aided by traitorous TIE Defenders. A lone Missile Boat, backed by escort transports, repelled this intense attack, while the Muurian transport Shadow docked with the Vorknkx to enable its hyperdrive. Despite all efforts by Missile Boat pilots, the research platforms were evacuated, but the Vorknkx was safeguarded and escaped to hyperspace.

During Thrawn's campaign against Zaarin, Darth Vader also employed Missile Boats in his campaign leading up to the Battle of Endor, involving the Bothan spies. Missile Boats were responsible for destroying a Bothan Dreadnaught-class cruiser attempting to transfer information to the Rebellion, performing raids and reconnaissance on the Rebel buildup, and wearing down the Alliance starship reserves prior to the battle. While Mon Mothma was not referring to the Missile Boat when she spoke of the Bothan sacrifice, Bothan blood was spilled at the hands of Missile Boat pilots.



The Missile Boat played a key role defending the Emperor himself, perhaps the most prominent of its accomplishments. Immediately following Darth Vader's preliminary arrangements for the impending battle at Endor, Emperor Palpatine boarded his private passenger liner Excalibur, en route to Endor. During its voyage, it came under attack by more of Zaarin's traitor forces. Maarek Stele and his Missile Boat, escorted by TIE Avengers, repelled an attack composed of the Victory-class Star Destroyer Zeplin, the Nebulon-B frigate Kimik, and a number of Assassin-class corvettes. With the Missile Boat having thwarted the bulk of the attack force, the Excalibur escaped into hyperspace.

After Darth Vader's strategic campaign against the Bothans, Admiral Zaarin became privy to the Emperor's plot to destroy the Rebels. While Zaarin too detested the Rebellion, his henchman, Namuura Din, sought to defect to the Rebellion. Missile Boats played a role in the capture of Namuura Din and his flagship, the Victory-class Star Destroyer Zeplin; moreover, Missile Boats were responsible for the inspection of a Rebel craft carrying a stolen Missile Boat, dubbed Sealion, and information concerning the operational status of the second Death Star. Upon this discovery, the Empire was faced with the perilous task of retrieving this classified information. Missile Boats led an assault on the Rebel cruiser carrying the stolen Missile Boat; although Imperial forces captured the Rebel cruiser, the captured craft escaped, but was quickly located on a Rebel platform. In what would prove to be their last sortie, Missile Boats facilitated the capture of the Rebel platform and the stolen Missile Boat. Following interrogation, it was assumed that the Rebels had insufficient time to reverse engineer the Missile Boat, exposing its secrets. Despite this fact, the Emperor deemed the loss of the Missile Boat too great a threat to his elaborate plans to crush the Rebel Alliance; thus it was ordered that all Missile Boats would be put into storage until the Rebel "problem" was solved. Imperial Missile Boats were never again seen in combat.

As an experimental craft, the Missile Boat never achieved fruition as a result of the Emperor's recall. Training facilities had begun training elite pilots to form a new Missile Boat unit, from which some anticipated impressive results; this was subsequently halted by the Emperor's command. Maarek Stele, however, was among the small number of pilots who were known to have piloted the Missile Boat.

Behind the scenes


The appearance of the Missile Boat differs significantly from Star Wars: TIE Fighter to Star Wars: X-wing Alliance. In its original appearance in the earlier game, the Missile Boat appeared sleeker and more aggressively contoured. Yet in the later display, the Missile Boat bears a stronger resemblance to the Lambda-class shuttle. The version of TIE Fighter for Windows 95, as included with X-wing Collector Series and X-wing Trilogy, seems to be the first appearance of a major change to the body style, carried on to X-wing Alliance in its later release. The reason for this inconsistency remains unknown.

Although this craft was initially left out of the multiplayer-oriented game Star Wars: X-wing vs. TIE Fighter for the sake of balance, the game data files still have an entry for the craft library which reads, "This is the King Hell God Emperor Starfighter of Death and you can't fly it yet!"

Conforming to the standard Imperial doctrine of naming starfighter flight groups by the Greek alphabet, the Missile Boat also shared the designations "Tau" and "Mu" with the Assault Gunboat, which had some of the same letters in its callsign (i.e. Tau 1, Mu 1).

Fan-created references often refer to the Missile Boat as the "XM-1 Nova Wing," but a thorough search of official, unmodified source materials revealed no such nomenclature.

Appearances



 * Star Wars: TIE Fighter
 * Star Wars: X-wing Alliance