The Phantom was a design originally tested in another Imperial program but never produced due to a Rebel assault infiltrating the base and destroying the prototype and the facility. A copy of the plans had been delivered to the Emperor at Coruscant and logged into the Top Secret Database which survived and was downloaded by fleeing Imperial forces after Endor and at the Research Base at Borus.
Its hull is based on an armoured TIE cockpit with cloaking projectors and Interceptor-style "dagger" wings are mounted at 120 degree intervals. The weaponry consists of a pair of heavy particle lasers built by Shadow Works.
The lasers are twice as powerful than normal, and carry a larger power storage battery. They are also fitted with radiation shielding and armour to keep them operational where other systems might fail. Because the guns are more powerful, a supercharged shot travels more slowly and takes more time to fire - a readjustment flight is recommended before combat missions. When the guns fire nominal charges, they appear to fire faster than normal TIE lasers which many pilots prefer - some are known to drain the lasers on purpose into the shields to maintain the advantage of "rapid-fire"
[GAME NOTE: Restricted to use in TIE-TC Battles #1 to #200, TIE-DB #1 to #14 and TIE-Free #1 to #200. If the lasers are damaged, you can switch to "ions" and the lasers will still work and you have 4 recharge lines to work with; you may only fire 2 guns at a time however. Since we have not isolated a "beam byte" in the hex editing of fighters, the TIE Phantom must have a Jammer beam placed on it using TMB or TIEDIT mission editors unless you are playing a mission where the beam is damaged for the game or not equipped with one.]
The cost of the TIE Phantom mainly stems from the cloaking device (whose actual cost is classified) but the basic fighter is about the same cost as a TIE Bomber - fairly economical for the performance.
Update: In the long run this craft appeared to be not only highly uneconomical, but also prone to outright failure. The weapons only appeared to have the same power as regular lasers, only ten times as slow. As such this fighter has been discontinued in favour of the regular TIE Phantom by the Science Office. All Emperor's Hammer TIE Phantoms have since been changed to the regular type. [Production Discontinued.]
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