Quote Originally Posted by SirKazum View Post
Oooh boy, now I feel all the time I played the old DOS game, TIE Fighter, and obsessing about the different spaceship models didn't go to waste

I don't remember the details of all the ships, but the thing is, TIE isn't a ship model, it's a whole line of ships used by the Empire (basically all of their small military craft). The bowtie-looking ones are TIE Fighters, the most basic models, and IIRC it's the only one that doesn't have shields. It's about as bare-bones as it gets. Then you have TIE Interceptor, a somewhat higher-quality fighter, TIE Bomber which has a double cockpit and heavier weaponry, I think Vader's ship was a TIE Superior or something like that... most of those have curved wings, unlike the flat ones on the TIE Fighter, which is an easy way to tell them apart. Not 100% sure which of those were made up for the games though, I'm under the impression TIE Bombers aren't in the movies. I should look those ship models up though, it's been years and I've forgotten most of it...
Vader's model is a TIE Advanced. TIE bombers make a brief appearance in ESB, dropping bombs on the asteroid that the Millennium Falcon is hiding in. TIE interceptors appear in RotJ defending the Death Star II.