I would allow the assist:

R2 helps Luke all the time. Increase power ...helps with repairing the shields...etc. This could easily be translated to a boost dice for piloting checks.

I would allow the piloting:

to an extent. Simple flying, autopilot or simple plotted course: translated to-- basically warning PCs if autopilot messes up or something is wrong in the plotted course. Anything else is for PCs.

That's the entire point of the astromech socket in X-wings, though. R2 couldn't turn off the tractor beam in the Death Star, or reverse its engines, etc. He could only access what was available on the network he was slicing and it makes sense to keep those kinds of system isolated with no way to backdoor through slicing.

If I could just take a step back for a moment to address the broader issue. The reason the OP is encountering this problem in particular is that it’s straying from one of the cardinal rules of RPG’s: keep the spotlight on the player characters. This is why DMPCs have such a horrible reputation, landing in the top tier of every “what not to do” list.

If no one is skilling-up Pilot in a meaningful way, such that the droid is better than the PC’s, then your players are telling you that they’re not particularly interested in starship encounters. So the answer is to simply have fewer, easier starship encounters where the PCs can take point, even with their meager stats, and devote more time to where they players have directed their character builds.

I realize the OP is going with "modules" here, and that’s fine, but the challenge, numerically, on every one of those can be tweaked to accommodate the party, both in difficulty and length.

I both agree and disagree with this. I think if the party is not particularly interested in starship activities (we don't know if this is true or not, they're on their first adventure - one of the players might turn around and say "that was awsome, we should do that more" but assuming they aren't interested) that's exactly where having a droid for that skill is valuable to the game.

Droids (particularly NPC) are tools of convenience. Don't like flying? get a pilot droid. Not sure what to say at formal events? get a protocol droid. Don't like cleaning your room? Get a maid-droid. If your players don't really want to deal with how they get between planetary adventures, that's all the more reason to have the droid be able to fly or copilot the ship - so you have a competent, in world way to skip over those encounters without making it feel as much like GM fiat.

Now, I'm in a group of GMs, so perhaps I can be a little more trusting with such things, but for droids under the PCs control, I let the PCs play them. I just reserve the right (as GM) to override and say "actually, they're going to do this." Although, I've almost never had to use that. Usually they're just a colorful part of the background, hand out a few blue dice or make a couple of rolls under PC supervision, and occasional get in trouble, or get the ship out of trouble so the players can focus on the story.

Because the game system doesn't have any "Limitiations" or quirks and flaws rules, There is nothing in the rules that prevents a Droid of any configuration appearance from doing Anything a Humanoid with Hands and Feat can do.

Yes, it is apparent from the movies that Astromechs should be limited to some degree physcially.

There could be an endless list of things the RAW does not cover specifically. That is what GMs are for.

But By the Rules I have read, I am not seeing Any reasonable way to enforce said Limitations than by GM Fiat. And then the PC is gaining a Limitation with no Balancing Benefit that No other PC has.

You mean like Humans being able to log directly into a dataport? Or Humans being unable to speak binary? Or Humans having to constantly breath a certain type of gas or fall over dead? Or.......

Throwing a Setback or 2 at the Astromech using manipulators in the Pilot or Gunnery pit isn't a huge penalty that needs to be compensated for in the RAW character generation.

How about a Limitation that no other driod has? I didn't read in the astromech description, or any other Droid description for that matter, any limitations.

As for Droids not having to eat or breath? they get less Experience points via stats than other races. Most races have 1 stat a (1) and the rest are at (2) with 1 hand (3) That is a difference of 5x20+1x30 = 130 expereince points and they only get an additional 75 exp to spend at creation to make up for that, So I see the remainder as account already for the Eating, breathing and Dataport access, astromech slot access.

So, by further limiting the Astromech, with out adding some other added benefit, you are basically making them less than any other droid or humanoid.

Yeah, droids being really behind in chargen has been noted since the game came out.

I have been playing an R3 unit as a PC for months. I don't fly the ships we use, but I sometimes act as a co-pilot or sensor operator. If our PC-owned ship is not set up for an astromech (whether gunning, flying, or slicing), then what am I supposed to do as a player? Limiting NPC droids is one thing, but I wouldn't play a droid PC if they are limited as in some of the suggestions above.

If you have lazy PCs that want their NPC astromech to fly the ship to them after they murder-hobo the target, then maybe the ship needs to be modified to accept SCOMP commands. I'd make them pay the 3,000 credits for a Droid Socket, but not require any Hard Points. I don't think it should require 2 HP for the full socket, which carves a significant chunk out of the standard starfighter, when all they really need is an interface. If it is a droid PC, I would just let them go.

I think the first question is "can droids who aren't made of the ship fly the ship?" The answer to that one is "some can". Indeed in the canon there are droids who are not made of the ship that we see at least once - Count Dooku's solar sail yacht is flown by a Pilot Droid.

So, having established that it is possible for a droid not made of the ship to fly the ship, we now must ask under what circumstances such a thing can be done? Does the droid not made of the ship need at least to be roughly analogous in shape, size and placement/utility of appendages to the fleshies who would otherwise fly the ship in order to fly the ship? If that's the case then, no, R2's in specific and presumably none of Industrial Automaton's R-series droids could do the job.

But there's an out to this - the droid socket. Personally I think the droid socket is little more than a slot you put the droid in that has a connector to the ship's systemry (notice that in the movies and most books, only fighters have formalized "sockets" for droids, on capital ships and freighters they just wander around and stick their widgets into strange holes as they please).

Thus I don't believe you need a specific droid socket to have an R series droid or any astromech fly a ship, you just need your droid to have the right programming and the right physical widget.

As for "can an astromech droid in general and an R Series droid in particular fly a vehicle by itself?" I cite the lines of conversation when Luke first wants to go to Dagobah and R2 thinks poor Luke might have hurt his noggin and thus offers to take the controls over from Luke.

R series droids - and particularly R-2 series droids are enormously helpful. I don't see why you'd want to nerf that. If the PC's want the droid to fly the ship, let the droid fly the ship. If the droid doesn't have the skills then the PC's'll learn right quick not to let the droid take the ship into combat (which I don't think most R-series droids would be inclined to do anyhow).

I think any droid properly equipped could pilot a starship if they could functionally fit into the ship and access the controls.

As mentioned Count Dooku's ship as well as the recent Star Wars:Rebels series the droid Chopper was a pilot. I think Chopper has some kind of control arms which allowed him to pilot that ship, perhaps Count Dooku's ship has a special droid control seat built into it? Honestly if you feel if it would be impossible, just say "Yes, But.. it will be more difficult as the controls are made for organic lifeforms" say one extra difficulty dice, perhaps two for really strange cockpit controls. You can also add in some setback dice. The rules are here to you to allow your players a chance rather than saying "NO". I'm sure Chopper had a harder time piloting the ship than any of the other crew in in Star Wars:Rebels. If you recall someone else piloted it back in that last AWESOME episode of season 1. If you other gamers haven't watched it, GO! GO NOW!

KSW

I would agree that the ship is not designed to accept digital flight commands. It's designed to be flown from the pilots seat. I personally would require that they would have to install an astromech slot, or get the 'call circuits' upgrade from one of the splat books floating out there (that upgrade is basically designed to allow basic fly-by-data). Even still I would limit it to flying - make sure the guns aren't attached to the system.

What having an R4 along for the ride is great for is your Astronavegation checks, and computer-related combat support actions. If you have a smart character is can make a great skilled assistance bank.

In Starwars Episode V R2 appears to be moving the ship and asks look if Luke wants him to fly. In the Clone Wars Cartoon we see R2 fly the ship on several occasions including I believe flying Anakin's freighter.

I think the real answer here is highly subject to what works for your group and game. I believe we see plenty of examples of droids being able to activate and control weapons and even pilot the ship to at least a limited degree, even just from a dataport in the cockpit, both in canon materials and legends.

As was previously mentioned this shouldn't take away from the player spotlights and should likely be handwaved in the background. The players need a quick get-away.. R4 shows up with the ship just in time as the players hold off the approaching forces, they jump on and the ship flies off... it helps the narrative but isn't all about the droid and rolls for it. Perhaps in higher tension situations, like trying to flee pursuing forces, throw in some setback dice since it's not really intended to be piloting from the dataport, or encourage one of the players to get behind the stick and let the droid assist to give them the chance to find out if they do find these parts of the scenario fun and want to start putting some points into it.

The key factors would be, there shouldn't be a bog down of time spent rolling for the droid while the players do very little themselves. The players should still feel like the heroes and the center of the story. The actions the droid can take should be fairly limited and more to push forward the narrative of the story.

I could really see IG-88 calling a space taxi everytime he needs to go to planet X to catch a bounty. All the organic bounty hunters fly away, IG-88 starts to digitally cry as it looks at its tentacles, I can't pilot a spaceship with these.... good times.

Use a few of those 6 points of cyber implants and let the droid install a suitable appendage.

KSW

in my game the Astromech droid is only really skilled in Astrogation, Mechanics, and computers. That is about it. it is 3 skills my players are not good at.

But I used a neat little NPC generator and created some quirks for the droid that allows for a personality and sometimes a flaw the players can exploit, or be hindered by. Sometimes it has been a great plot device, which is what i think a NPC using by the players should do

I think most people are focused on the droid socket --- there's also the slave circuit (pg 65 Stay on Target). That links all the features of the ship through a single point --- including piloting and weapons with the optional mods.

Any droid with access to the slave circuit would have no problem flying a ship - including firing the weapons if need be. They may lose Dex - I don't have Stay on Target to read the description - but it's a 1HP attachment that says it can be flown/fired remotely using the pilots skill. I could also see it being Pilot(Int) since the droid is bypassing physical controls & it's litteraly manipulating the ships controls as fast as it can think.

r2 managed to fly a whole squadron, plus, in legends they can thanks to a special plug UNDER the console though i would say r units can only fly vehicles whose silhouette was equal or lower than their pilot skill, for example: r5 has a pilot skill of 3, it can fly an x-wing but not an yt-1300, another option is: r units dice pool is decided by this equation: pilot skill = (pilot skill - silhouette) if pilot skill is lower than 0 then it is increased difficulty, hope it helps

The players in my SWTOR-era campaign have a shipboard droid. I made it clear to them from the outset that they can ask the droid to perform minor tasks and trivial/tedious non-combat activities, but if they try to exploit its presence, the Living Force (me) will be displeased. I'd allow a droid to assist in any skill in which it was actually trained, or pilot the ship in a non-combat situation (like "bring the ship to us, we're ready to go"), but I strongly encourage players to do things for themselves, even if they're not really good at it. I'd rather they assist each other than have an NPC do it.

Astromechs can fly from the droid socket. Several astromechs do it in Clone wars.

In my interpretation of the Star Wars universe, it would seem odd for a freighter to NOT have a port where an R2 (or similar droid) would could access the ships flight functions. It would make sense for that to be pretty commonplace for emergencies, testing, maintenance, etc.

In light of that assumption, I think allowing *any* droid with the appropriate interface (Class 2 droids and maybe even Class 1s) to fly a ship regardless of it's ranks in piloting, so long as it can access the ship's port. The maneuvers may be pretty limited, e.g. no effective dogfigthing, but taking a ship from point A to point B through clear skies would be reasonable.

Or make the droid get one of the cybernetics that allow you to pilot a vehicle and call it good.