In the prequels, the Jedi fighters dock with hyperdrive rings when they need to go great distances, but otherwise are presumably limited to sublight speeds: http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/Delta7FighterHyperdriveRing.jpg. By the time of the Battle of Hoth, it appears a hyperdrive can be crammed into a spacecraft as small as an X-wing.
‘Practically flies itself.’
Personally, I think the Hoth/Degobah/Bespin hop is just sloppy writing. If the Tie fighters can’t get that far into space by themselves, and yet are a near match with the X-wings in combat, and the X-wings have FTL hyperdrives, then either the pitiful little band of rebels is a lot better funded than we’ve been led to believe, or someone just didn’t think things through when they were writing TESB.
TIEs are generally carried on larger ships, such as Star Destroyers (or Death Stars), and thus, don’t need the weight or expense of a hyperdrive.
The Rebellion had fairly few carrier-type capital ships, and also needed to have fighers which could make a strike from a base in a different system, without having a carrier to lug them around.
Cite? Or are you fanwanking?
No, it’s just that the Empire thought nothing of using throwaway pilots in cheap throwaway fighters, while the Rebels built fewer, better fighters with more of an eye to the pilot coming back. TIE fighters don’t have shields, either.
Geek out time: “Interdictor cruisers”
Fair enough, I only know the movies 
Yeah, well mine increased by 12 parsecs.
Also, with the Rebellion spreading, TIE fighters with hyperdrive might wander away from their bases piloted by someone (like Biggs) who wanted to desert for the rebellion.
With a constant thrust you can escape earths gravity. Hell if you could build a ladder to space you could just climb up it and half a mile an hour.
There’s no such thing as an X-Wing!
d&r
BTW, why were they called “S-foils” when they were obviously X-shaped? Was that dialogue written and recorded before the models were built or the sfx was done?
Not really fanwanking, but I can’t give you a particular cite…it comes from 25 years of reading Expanded Universe stuff on SW ships.
It would surprise me if that were the case, since they built a full-sized X-wing model for the actual shoot (as well as a number of 2-D “cutouts” which were used in the hangar scene).
I’m thinking they’re “Space Foils”, being designed to maximise the ship’s maneuverability in space.
But really, since the X Wings were produced a Long Long Time Ago, I would be surprised if you could find one that was in airworthy (or spaceworthy) condition anymore.
Mmmm… Zombie thread.
Anyway, some points:
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yes, the Rebel fighters all have hyperdrives; TIE fighters generally don’t. They were generally carrier-launched, and kept as lean and mean as possible. The basic TIE fighter is essentially a really, really fast blaster platform. That’s it–just guns and an engine. Whereas almost every Rebel fighter also carries a torpedo/missile weapon of some sort, plus a shield, plus life support, plus a hyperdrive. Some later variants of the TIE had shields and hyperdrives (likeVader’s fighter).
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regarding “locking S-Foils in attack position”: The S-Foilsare primarily there to radiate excess heat into space when the ships are working hard. This is why you see some of those early Clone Wars-era fighters with all of those fins sticking out. They were an early attempt to solve the problem. Later, the designers realize what others said here earlier: With cannons on the wingtips, you can spread your fire more effectively.
Which is kind of funny, considering that with wing-mounted guns, the traditional problem has usually been concentrating your fire effectively.
Depends on your mission, I suppose, one on one vs spray and pray. OTOH, am I missing something, isn’t heat dissipation on a primarily spaceborne platform independent of surface area?
IIRC from X-wing v Tie Fighter, the Empire has special ships that create an artificial gravity well to pull ships out of hyperspace. Makes sense from a story-telling point of view as it forces fleets to fight spectacular space battles at sub-luminal speeds without just “jumping” away whenever things get too tough (I’m looking at you re-imagined Battlestar Galactica).
Not to mention giving the heroes a particular ship to concentrate their firepower on (you know, just in case there isn’t a Super Star Destroyer handy).
In one of the EU books, some space pirates dragged a largeish asteroid into the flight lane of a starliner, dragging it out of hyperspace. Basically a poor man’s Interdictor (the ships that make the gravity wells). Mind you, this strategy sounds really, really stupid when you sit and think about it for a while, but it was clever enough for storytelling purposes.