[M4-22 - Alphabet Starfighter] Tie Jaculus

[CrappyMocMaker]

The whine of the engines powering down fills the pilot's ears as he gazes at the craft in awe. The Director strides out across the tarmac to greet him. 

A moment passes.

"Well?" The Director barks. He is impatient, overeager to hear about the fruit of his labors.

At last, the pilot turns to him, his lips twisting in a vacant smile, his eyes hundreds of miles away.

"Handles like a dream."

[TRANSMISSION START]

The Tie Jaculus is a light bomber whose design was overseen by Director Krennic. What makes this ship unique is its payload: The Tie Jaculus holds eight missiles only known by their codename, Starlight. When Starlight missiles detonate, a massive green explosion obliterates nearly everything in a perfect circle a hundred meters long. Some materials such as Beskar are able to survive the blast. Due to the high cost of Starlight missiles, the Empire opted to use the much cheaper Tie Bomber. Because of this, only one Tie Jaculus was ever manufactured, docked at the Citadel on Scarif. There, the blueprints, as well as the ship itself, were destroyed by the Death Star during the Battle of Scarif.

[TRANSMISSION END]

What makes a ship a Star Wars ship? If I made a ship that looks like a Star Wars ship but is colored grey and blue with yellow and black stripes, is it Star Wars or Classic Space? Rather than ponder such mysteries, I simplified the question to "What makes a Tie Fighter a Tie Fighter?" This was much easier: Generally, Tie fighters have vertical black wings with grey outlines, a spherical grey cockpit, and horizontal spars to connect the wings to the cockpit. As the name sort of suggests, this ship is meant to resemble the lowercase "j". I modified the cockpit from 75300 to make it more centered. On the original model the 2x2 angled bricks weren't centered in the middle, which irked me. It probably wasn't a good idea to rush this build (after all we still have several weeks left), but I hope you all like it! 

The ship looks like a "j" from the top.

I put gold 1x1 circular tiles to suggest more missiles inside the body.

Some greebles on top of the bomb compartment.

Some other views. 

 

Edited May 15, 2022 by CrappyMocMaker
forgot to add something

[Mandalorianknight]

I think this is our first starfighter submission for the contest, and a good one to start on! I like that it's a TIE, I saw alphabet-wing and just assumed everyone would do rebel starfighters. This is good, a little wacky with the single wing, but it reminds me of the old legends TIEs, and I love the missiles. The J-resemblence is great too. Most of the alphabet fighters have an overall resemblance to their letter, but aren't just flying capital letters, and I think this TIE follows that nicely. Better than the B-wing at least, seriously, why it's not called the T-wing is beyond me. (Lets me make a T-wing for my own MOC, though).

[CrappyMocMaker]

4 hours ago, Mandalorianknight said:

I think this is our first starfighter submission for the contest, and a good one to start on! I like that it's a TIE, I saw alphabet-wing and just assumed everyone would do rebel starfighters. This is good, a little wacky with the single wing, but it reminds me of the old legends TIEs, and I love the missiles. The J-resemblence is great too. Most of the alphabet fighters have an overall resemblance to their letter, but aren't just flying capital letters, and I think this TIE follows that nicely. Better than the B-wing at least, seriously, why it's not called the T-wing is beyond me. (Lets me make a T-wing for my own MOC, though).

Several billions of credits worth of Imperial research has revealed that star fighters resembling letters have a 50% chance increase in survivability during combat! Interestingly, all canon tie fighters are practically symmetrical, and if I recall correctly, almost all legends ones are, too. Good luck on your T wing!

[Mandalorianknight]

24 minutes ago, CrappyMocMaker said:

Several billions of credits worth of Imperial research has revealed that star fighters resembling letters have a 50% chance increase in survivability during combat! Interestingly, all canon tie fighters are practically symmetrical, and if I recall correctly, almost all legends ones are, too. Good luck on your T wing!

Thanks! I think you're right on the symmetry thing, I'm not sure what about your fighter specifically reminds me of the old legends ones. I will say, I like the in-universe intro you've got, I might steal that style of intro if that's alright.  Also, the ship kind of seems like an imperial answer to the b-wing, in the way that A-wings and interceptors are similar, or y-wings and bombers. I think classically the defender is considered the opposite of the B-wing, but I never liked that. A ship like this, heavily armed, with the cockpit on one side, seems like a much better anti-B-wing than the canon one.

[MKJoshA]

Great take on a TIE variant!