If i am understanding you question correctly then the gunboats are indeed in the game for both the PA and IR (era 3-5) they are not buyable, but they are able to spawn with certain frigates.
Since when?
I think you are mistaking them with the pentastar's V-19 Torrents.
I think he is talking about these
GunboatsWhile I was falling in love with the mod, somtimes I noticed a terrible hole...
The Xg1 Assualt Gunboat (and the TIE Avenger) was missing . Is there anyway or any plan to introduce them?
The Gunboat and TIE Avenger could be what the purchase fighters are for the Republic, while beeing a bit more expensive.
Especially the Gunboat is a very iconic ship for the Empire and I think one of the most loved ones.
It could be similiar to the Y-Wing, beeing a bit faster and swaping Torpedos for C.-Missles.
The problem is that the ship would bring nothing new to the table what would not be covered by the TIE Bomber and/or the TIE Scimitar, It would just be a small variation somewhere between the two.
The TIE-Avengers would be the cheaper TIE-Defender and better TIE-Interceptor and would fill the gap between them very well. TIE-Defenders never saw high production numbers, and the TIE-Avenger was more focused on the Interceptor/Superiority Fighter role, that the "Deal with everything" Defender.
even our most beloved Sith Lord found the Avenger "Impressive".
The problem with the Avenger is the same. It brings nothing new to the table other than variation or a placeholder unit between the Defender and Interceptor, therefore nobody would buy them, since Defenders are better and Interceptors come free with the Capitals.
Also they only saw very limited deployment due to their high production cost.
And yes, Vader found them "impressive", but that was well before Endor
And now about both: There is already some discussion in the forums that the purchasable fighters are ineffective unless it is the Defender which is supposed to be overpowered, since it was in canon. Also there is so much space in the buildbars, which are starting to be overfilled either way, so another unit (which also have no real use) would just make the problem even more prominent.
And there is also the case of program size by this point. I don't know if you noticed, but 2.1 is already larger than the base game.
3.54 GB for EaW + FoC
4.85 GB for ICW 2.1
The team is actually trying to compress the size as much as possible, so it won't take a million years to load ICW 2.2
Maybe if there is a future release we will consider it for that, but for 2.2 they don't really have a place or purpose.