Quote Originally Posted by Kantaki View Post
No landing gear, no life support*, no hyperdrive, no shields...
Is there anything those things do have?
One could almost think the Empire is afraid of their pilots running away at the first opportunity.
TIEs are cheap and easy to produce, and even then the Empire began experimenting with models with shields at the time of the OT (I believe Vader's TIE was essentially a next generation prototype that had them and maybe a hyperdrive). Considering that twenty years before ANH the only interstellar starfighter we see required a large external ring but X-wings have one as standard it's possible that it wasn't until the time of the OT that the tech became cheap enough.

Because a TIE is pretty much just an engine with guns and wings.

First Order TIE fighters twenty years later clearly have life support, and I believe they have shields as well, and the First Order has the resources that they just launch fighters from the SD that entered the system a few moments ago. Unless you're using them for scouting FO TIE fighters fix most of the problems OT ones had, which sounds to me like maturation of those prototypes in the OT era (although disappointingly with the original look).

Spoiler
Show
It's unclear how much resources the FO has, considering they can build a super Death Star and obscenely massive flagship at the same time, but it's implicitly less than the Empire did, we're likely looking at about Thrawn-era Imperial Remnant levels here. They apparently care more about their troops than the Empire did but can create small megastructures via converting planets if they need to, so I'd guess they possess mineral wealth and a high technological base but are short on actual bodies.