Am I correct in reading that the only way to increase one's force rating beyond 1 in the Core Book is to buy the "Force Rating" talent at the end of the Force Sensitive Exile Tree?

It just seems odd that your Force Rating can only ever be 0, 1, or 2.

Also, is it covered anywhere if you can spend multiple force points on the same effect? Example: When using the Influence Basic Power, if you generate two force points, can you spend both of them to inflict 2 strain damage with a single use of the power?

The GM can elect to raise a character's Force Rating for a story-based reason, too, or if she feels the player has grown in the Force.

Force Rating - Correct

Force Points - Don't quote me, but as far as I am aware you you roll your force die and then use your force points to activate the power and then buy the use of the upgrades.

Am I correct in reading that the only way to increase one's force rating beyond 1 in the Core Book is to buy the "Force Rating" talent at the end of the Force Sensitive Exile Tree?

It just seems odd that your Force Rating can only ever be 0, 1, or 2.

Also, is it covered anywhere if you can spend multiple force points on the same effect? Example: When using the Influence Basic Power, if you generate two force points, can you spend both of them to inflict 2 strain damage with a single use of the power?

FR can presumably be more when F&D is released and there are more Force specs to choose from. Technically you can currently get it to three between taking the Force path and getting the FR rating from Exile and Emergent.

I read it as though more FPs can be spent to inflict more strain with the upgrade I believe.

Am I correct in reading that the only way to increase one's force rating beyond 1 in the Core Book is to buy the "Force Rating" talent at the end of the Force Sensitive Exile Tree?

In just the Edge materials? Yes.

It just seems odd that your Force Rating can only ever be 0, 1, or 2.

You can get it to 3 if you buy into AoR's Force-Sensitive Emergent and buy the Force Rating Talent at the bottom of that tree.

But seriously what do your expect? Edge and AoR are supposed to mirror the OT; the Force powers in Edge and AoR are supposed to mirror Luke's progress. Luke ended the trilogy at a low-ish level of power, compared to his father or Obi-Wan in their primes, let alone Yoda.

If you want real Jedi power, wait for Force & Destiny. But FR 3 is nothing to sneeze at. With Sense and FR 2 you can double-upgrade 2 incoming attacks per turn and double-upgrade two of your own attacks per turn. With FR 3 and Enhance you can do that and boost your Agility by 1 on top of it. These aren't piddly effects.

Force Rating in EotE material,FR2 is the limit here.

After rolling force dice,the player determines how and where in said power these points will be spent.

Many of the upgrades can be activated multiple times if the player generated enough points.

Am I correct in reading that the only way to increase one's force rating beyond 1 in the Core Book is to buy the "Force Rating" talent at the end of the Force Sensitive Exile Tree?

It just seems odd that your Force Rating can only ever be 0, 1, or 2.

Also, is it covered anywhere if you can spend multiple force points on the same effect? Example: When using the Influence Basic Power, if you generate two force points, can you spend both of them to inflict 2 strain damage with a single use of the power?

As others have noted, the cap of Force Rating 2 only exists if you're sticking solely with EotE, in which Force users are (by design) a minor element of the campaign. Age of Rebellion has the Force Emergent, which can push a character up to Force Rating 3. Force and Destiny will open the floodgates as it were and potentially allow a character to go much higher. Then again, for all we know the design team might incorporate a "hard cap" much as they've done with Characteristic and Skill ranks (6 and 5 respectively); at this point we simply don't know.

As for Force Points, there was a whole thread/debate that I started based upon answers I got from Sam Stewart a few months ago asking that very question. Given how nasty some of the responses were, probably best to just that thread lie fallow and fade into obscurity.

According to the response I got, you can spend Force Points to trigger the same effect multiple time for any power or upgrade, but a later response to a different person said that the power or upgrade had to have the text "can be activated multiple times" or words to those effect. Personally, I'm going with the second answer as it's a good deal less worrisome from a balance perspective.

So for the Influence example you gave, if you rolled 2 Force Points, you could activate the basic effect twice to deal 2 Strain to the target (or 4 Strain if you've got the Strength Upgrade), since just above the description for the basic power's effect there's a sentence that says it can be triggered multiple times. Same is true with the Range and Magnitude Upgrades for all three Force powers, thus allowing your Force user with a single purchased Range Upgrade for Influence to potentially trigger it twice to increase the range from Engaged to Medium, though you'd still need at least one Force Point left to trigger the Influence power's base effect.

Conversely, using the Move power as an example, if you've got the base power, a Range Upgrade and a Strength Upgrade, you could trigger the Range Upgrade more than once since it has the game text that says you can do so, but not the Move basic power or the Strength Upgrade, as neither of those have any indicator that they can be triggered more than once when activating the power. So if you want to affect a Silhouette 3 object, you'd need to purchase three Strength Upgrades.

Hopefully, the whole usage and activation of Force powers will get additional clarification in Force and Destiny.