A look at Vader outside of his black armor bathing in a vat of liquid goo that was probably designed to help him with the burns he suffered in his battle with Obi-Wan in Episode III. A reminder that the Sith lord, despite being all powerful, is always in constant pain, and not just of the broken heart variety.
In Star Wars Legends, elements of the Expanded Universe contain a history of Vader's bacta use in which he spends extended amounts of time in a bacta tank in the vain hope that the practice will repair the extensive damage to his lungs from the lava rivers on Mustafar.
A bacta tank was located in Darth Vader's castle on Mustafar, where the Dark Lord would relax and meditate outside of his life support armor with a modicum of comfort. A portable format of the bacta tank was also available, called the bacta pod.
Because Palpatine didn't want him healed. He wanted Vader injured and suffering to give him pain to anchor him to the Dark Side but most importantly to 'make sure' Vader would never be able to be physically powerful enough to overthrow him.
Additionally, most bacta patients felt as if they were being swallowed alive upon being submerged in the substance. As such, most doctors injected sedatives first, while subsequent waves of relaxation would slowly overcome the patient, sending them into a meditative state.
Darth Vader's Bacta Tank addiction
Darth Vader's story also reveals the limits of this fictional technology. Despite using a Bacta Tank for over 20 years, his body never fully healed. As revealed at the end of Return of the Jedi, his skin remained gray and deformed.
Vader's mask was one of the most important pieces of Vader's armor, and was vital to his survival. Without it, he would die unless in the pressurized, controlled atmosphere of one of his specially-made meditation chambers.
Shared as a simple image and title on reddit,one fan theorizes that, late in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader prevents Boba Fett from firing on a frenzied Chewbacca in Cloud City's carbon-freezing chamber because he feared a stray shot would hit C-3PO, who was strapped to the Wookiee's back.
In The Book of Boba Fett, Boba seems to be meditating when he is in the Bacta Tank. He appears to be in a dream-like state and has flashbacks about his time on Tatooine. We get a sense that he is restoring his mind along with his body. Darth Vader also used a Bacta Tank for this dual purpose.
Boba was one of several bounty hunters recruited by Darth Vader to track down the Millennium Falcon after the Battle of Hoth, and was the only one to prove successful.
Because of the healing properties of the Bacta Fluid, Lord Vader would feel rejuvenated while in the tank. Lord Vader would have been known to use the tanks after every battle to heal his superficial wounds and maintain his organs.
A black-cloaked attendant to Darth Vader, Vaneé interrupts the Sith Lord's meditation in his rejuvenation chamber on Mustafar to announce Orson Krennic's arrival. After Krennic's audience with Vader was over, Vaneé advises the director that it would be wise to say nothing of what he's seen in the Sith sanctum.
In a Vanity Fair interview from 2005, George Lucas went deeper into why Anakin became much weaker as Vader. In the interview, he explained that because Anakin's limbs were severed and replaced by robotics, it was harder for him to use the Force than it was before his battle with Obi-Wan.
Darth Vader can not use force lighting, because of his severed arms. Robotic hands can't summon the force lighting. However Darth Vader can still use other forms of the force, such as force choke.
If he were to take his mask off, the Sith Lord would soon suffocate. So it's the most crucial part of his armor. The only time he can breathe without the need for his mask is when he is in one of his meditation chambers seen in A New Hope.
It was easy to believe that Darth Vader had kind intentions or a simple code of honor for the Sith, but his plans were much more strategic. Instead, Darth Vader wanted to keep Chewbacca alive because he wanted the Rebels to collectively suffer even more. He wanted them to be weak.
However, because he saw their dynamic as a source of weakness, he opted to spare them. Now that the Empire had gained the upper hand against the rebels, their survival didn't mean much to him in the grand scope of the galactic conflict at hand.
Vader held respect for Tarkin which is clearly shown and the only case in which Tarkin outranked Vader would be the case in which Vader was in the Death Star or within Tarkin's Oversector which he likely was as Tarkin was Grand Moff of the Outer Rim Oversector, the largest one.
The main story of Vader Immortal only lasts about 30-45 minutes, depending on how quickly you move through it. After you complete the story, there is little reason to return to it other than to relive the same story again.
Darth Vader's Suit Embeds Needles In His Skin
Inside his suit and mask, Vader has a series of needles in his skin. Unfortunately, these needles, which transmit neurological data throughout his body and allow him to control his limbs, also cause him constant pain.
Purpose. Darth Vader's meditation chamber was a life support pod that allowed the Sith Lord to survive for extended periods without the helmet and mask of his suit. The injuries Vader sustained during his duel against Obi-Wan Kenobi on Mustafar normally made this impossible.
Bacta was invented by the Vratix on the planet Thyferra in antiquity, with the galaxy at large learning of its properties around 4100 BBY. The Vratix were willing to share the technology, but the substance could only be made on their homeworld, where the needed resources were abundant.
Darth Vader wore the armor for over two decades, until his redemption and death. He initially hated the armor, but after living with it for five years, he embraced how it isolated him from the rest of the galaxy, allowing him to concentrate on becoming a pure instrument of the dark side.