This just occured to me....

In Space Combat, can an Astromech grant a Skilled Assist to a Pilot (Pilot has better Agilty, Droid has Better piloting skill) as their Manoeuvre.

Or would the Droid have to take the Copilot action instead?

Are Skilled Assist rolls excluded from Combat?

Skilled Assist is allowed in combat. However, it does raise questions of when each participant goes in Initiative and whether it uses Actions/Maneuvers from both participants equally.

On p26 EotE and p33 AoR there is a sub heading "Assistance and Timing"

Under that it explains that during combat or structured encounters (ie initiative is being used) then the only way to provide assistance is using the Assist Maneuver, then refers you to chapter 4 Combat and conflict.

Then in that chapter (on p201 EotE and p214 AoR) the description for the assist manouver says that in exchange for a manouver a character may grant a boost die to an engaged ally on their next check.

Therefore I would say RAW is that a character can not provide skilled assistance during structured play... The co-pilot action is an exception to this and it's benefits can be quite high considering the fixed difficulty. It's also worth noting a copilot could technically perform an assist maneuver and do a copilot action in a single round, thus downgrading difficulty and providing a boost to the pilots next check, good value if you ask me.