Manufacturer: Kuat Systems Engineering
Designation: Eta-2 Actis
Role: Light Interceptor
Hull Size: Starfighter
Length: 5.48 meters
Crew: 1 Pilot, 1 Astromech Droid
Cargo: 60 kilograms
Life Support: 48 hours
Hyperdrive: N/A
Atmospheric Speed: 2,300 kph
Sublight Acceleration: 153 MGLT
Armor: Light
Shields: None
Equipment: 2 Laser Cannons, 2 Ion Cannons

65,760 credits

The Eta-2 Actis is famed as the Jedi Interceptor used to great success in the Clone Wars. After the war ended, the rights to production were bought out by Sienar Fleet Systems, which allowed Kuat Systems Engineering to continue producing the interceptor in limited runs, with 25% of the profits going to SFS. Throughout its time in the galaxy, the Eta-2 Actis has gained rather a reputation as a notoriously difficult ship to pilot. The Eta-2 Actis looks rather like a TIE/ln Fighter with curved radiator panels and two triangular nose fin sections extending from the craft, while there is a gap in the center of the ship so that the pilot in the tiny cockpit has a relatively unobstructed view.

The Eta-2 Actis is small. There’s no other way to put it, this ship is tiny. Even a large human would have trouble fitting in the cramped cockpit, and it is this tiny size that makes the Actis so hard to pilot. It is a true minimalist starfighter, designed to be piloted only by Jedi and Clone Troopers, who all had incredible reaction times and were all pretty much starfighter aces. This fighter is little more than a pair of ion engines, some guns and heat-sink fins. There is absolutely no shielding integrated into the ship, and the hull is about as sturdy as that of the famed TIE/ln Fighter. Also, due to the small size, the Eta-2 Actis has almost no sensors, relying on the astromech droid to provide even rudimentary sensors, far below what any normal ship, military-grade or not, would support. This is of course due to the superb reflexes and battle intuition the Clone Troopers sported, and the famed precognitive danger sense of the Jedi Order.

The Eta-2 Actis also lacks other things, such as a true life-support system or a hyperdrive. The cockpit is designed to provide the pilot a scant 48 hours of life support, and the ship itself has only 48 hours of power in its generators anyway. Of course, there is no hyperdrive either, given the tiny size of the craft, so it requires the use of a Kuat Systems Engineering Hyperdrive Ring to travel through hyperspace, and even then is limited to only 2-3 jumps using the stored coordinates on the astromech droid’s hard system. Speaking of which, the droid is held in a socket on the left nose fin of the Eta-2, which is so thin that the lower portion of the droid extends a little way into exposed space. The astromech is required to provide the rudimentary sensors and to monitor the systems of the interceptor, though it can do little to repair an Actis once the ship is damaged.

So why use the ship? Well, firstly, this ship is fast. It’s the fastest standard-run ship in production at the moment, able to outrun even the TIE Defender and the A-Wing. It also sports agility comparable to a TIE Defender, able to fly rings around most common fighters and even the specialized TIE Interceptors will have a hard time keeping such a ship in its sights. Secondly, the Eta-2 Actis has a good set of weaponry for such a small ship, sporting two laser cannons similar to those of a TIE Fighter. These cannons are located at the connector point to the radiator fin on either side of the ship. They are able to move up and down 60 degrees, and the astromech monitors the heat and power levels of the cannons. Secondly, mounted on each nose fin is a standard-strength ion cannon, excellent for disabling the droid ships of the CIS. However, due to the power constraints of the ships, the Eta-2 cannot maintain a steady and constant firing pattern with these weapons. Finally, the Actis is cheap, especially given its power. But for anyone other than the most truly experienced starfighter pilots, using one of these in combat is almost certainly suicide.