Outrider/Legends

The Outrider was a heavily modified YT-2400 light freighter used by the brash smuggler Dash Rendar. Rendar held that his ship was almost as well known as the Millennium Falcon.

History
It is not known exactly how Dash Rendar acquired his ship. When asked, Rendar typically answered, "Not by clean living." Once, he cryptically responded, "let's just say I have an old and generous Twi'lek uncle who appreciates my transport services," hinting that a Twi'lek employer was impressed enough with his piloting skills to reward him with a new YT-2400. In any event, Rendar immediately began modifying the ship for smuggling duties. Most of the original modifications were done at the Byblos Starport Tower 214 by Rendar and the talented Sullustan engineer Bolabo Hujaan.

Dash and Leebo were infamous in smuggling circles well before they were hired by the Rebel Alliance to smuggle weapons and badly needed supplies to Echo Base on Hoth after the evacuation of Yavin IV. When the Battle of Hoth began, the Outrider was still berthed in Echo Base's hangar. Dash and Leebo were barely able to escape the base, and had to fly through the Hoth Asteroid Field in order to escape the orbiting Imperial Starfleet.

Soon afterwards, the Outrider accompanied the Millennium Falcon in an attempt to rescue Han Solo from the bounty hunter Boba Fett, who had set down for repairs at the Imperial Enclave on the moon of Gall. The Outrider also participated in a battle to secure the Imperial freighter Suprosa, which was carrying the plans for the second  Death Star. Rendar also piloted the Outrider during the final conflict with Black Sun leader Prince Xizor over Coruscant. In that battle it appeared that the Outrider was destroyed, and Rendar and Leebo killed, but it was a trick of timing and perspective. Rendar had decided that his time as a Rebel was over. The fate of the Outrider and its captain in later years is unknown.

Design and modifications
The Outrider started life as a stock Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-2400. Like all the ships in the YT series, the Outrider featured the trademark saucer-shaped hull, which Rendar reinforced with titanium armor and gave a dark, chrome gleam. The cockpit and main escape pod were attached to the starboard side of the saucer with two bracing arms. The docking hatch and another escape pod were on the port side.

One of the first modifications Dash made was to replace the original engines with three KonGar KGDefender military-grade ion engines stolen from the advanced engineering department of the Imperial Academy on Corulag. The factory issue hyperdrive was also replaced with a modified SoroSuub Griffyn/Y2TG hyperdrive, giving the Outrider a Class 0.75 hyperdrive rating. The backup hyperdrive engine had a Class 10 performance. Rendar also improved the Outrider's sensors and added a countermeasure/stealth package. Though these last modifications were highly illegal, they helped him to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

When Rendar could not avoid combat, the Outrider was more than capable of holding its own. The ship was armed with a pair of Dymek heavy laser cannons, mounted on dorsal and ventral turrets. The standard Corellian 1D servo mounts. provided a 360 degree range of fire both above and below the ship. These cannons were hand-modified by Rendar to improve both firepower and range, and could be fired from the gunnery wells or from the cockpit. The Outrider was also armed with a pair of forward firing concussion missile launchers built into the cockpit tube. Each launcher contained a magazine of three missiles each.

The Outrider was customized to be operated by Rendar and/or Leebo. It could carry about 75 metric tons of cargo, in addition to up to four additional passengers. When fully stocked, it could go for two standard months before needing to resupply.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Special Edition)
 * Shadows of the Empire (game, novel, and comic)
 * X-Wing Alliance

Behind the scenes
It is one of the few cases where a C-canon element is adopted in G-canon (the movies). After its appearance in Shadows of the Empire, the ship also appears in A New Hope.