The droid tri-fighter, also known as the tri-droid fighter or simply tri-fighter, was a deadly Confederacydroid starfighter designed as a fast, agile and powerful space-superiority starfighter, built to excel in dogfighting.[5] It would be used in large numbers in the later parts of the Clone Wars.[6]
The bracing arms surrounded the fighter's battle droid pilot housed in a rotating, gyroscopic core.[5] The droid tri-fighter had three independent thrusters, providing it with great agility, and a powerful reactor and control/communications transceiver that gave the craft unusual range for a fighter drone.[5]
It was armed with one heavy laser cannon protruding from the central ball, and a light laser cannon for each of the three arms. They could fire independently or together and could slightly tilt on rails to improve its deadly aim. Two to six missiles of variable payloads were housed within each arm.[5] The nose-like cannon made the droid tri-fighter similar in appearance to the DSD1 dwarf spider droid also used by the Confederacy.
Another possible version of the droid tri-fighter.
In the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series, a sleeker, more numerous variant of droid tri-fighters appear, armed only with a central cannon. These fighters swarmed the skies of Coruscant during the battle leading up to the third film. There is still discussion amongst fans as to whether this is a different variant of the droid tri-fighter or simply a design error in the cartoon, which has come into conflict with canon in some other areas. It may also simply be a stylistic interpretation of the movie design.
Lego has also produced two models of the Droid Tri-Fighter, the first of which was released in early 2005, which held a Buzz droid in the core, where the droid brain should be, and the most recent in early 2010, with a Rocket Battle Droid in the core, the ball was used as a cockpit. In the instruction manuals and the commercial of the second model it is usually together with the 8088 ARC-170 Starfighter.