Depends on what you find most important. Judging by the trees and powers you listed, it looks like flying a ship and getting maximum survivability in that ship is most important to you. If that's the case, then grabbing Tricky Target and the Force Rating in Starfighter Ace is a big priority, but grabbing up the left side of Sense might take precedence. As long as you're flying the ship, the defensive upgrades of Sense take effect on the vehicle you're piloting , it's not like Intuitive Evasion where it's a maneuver to use instead of an Action, but you don't have to deal with constant strain loss, but it also has the advantage of working in personal combat too. And committing a die to Sense for attack upgrades also acts like a temporary skill rank increase by 2 if you're in a freighter with weapons you can control/starfighter/personal combat.

Beyond that, again, it's all about what you want to do. With 2 Force Ratings and all of the left side of Sense, you've got a solid boost for all of combat, offensively and defensively, and so it decreases the need for investing a significant amount in combat skills or going out of your way in Pilot for the defensive talents.

Just a thought though, you mentioned that you started in Ace/Pilot, and just have only Starfighter Ace as an additional specialization. If that's the case, you should probably grab Force-Sensitive Exile/Emergent, because technically, you don't have a Force Rating and can't even use the force talents in your Starfighter Ace tree yet.

I thought all the force specializations began FR 1?

Edit : They definitely all start out FR 1; Beta rules page 30.

And yes, you basically said exactly what I was thinking; pick up supplemental powers along with the horse power (force power?) to fuel them.
As it stands right now, I keep my one current force point committed to giving me one extra agility from the Enhance tree, which has been working out well in gun fights; I've been fighting with two heavy blaster pistols since there's no real reason not to with the 2-weapon fighting rules being so forgiving.

Careers get a Force Rating 1, not specializations. So you'd need to start in Warrior, Guardian, Mystic, etc. to get an automatic Force Rating. This is balanced out by each of the careers having 2 less career skills. Otherwise you need to go through a Force-Sensitive tree first.

Serious?

Then how do Force Sensitive Exiles / Emergents get it?

Serious?

Then how do Force Sensitive Exiles / Emergents get it?

Those two specializations get the force rating, but in Force and Destiny, it's the careers that get the force rating.

Have you given any though to Ataru Striker down the road? Move is probably the big damage dealer for Force users, but if you're going to be using Agi a lot for piloting, the Ataru Striker could work well with that.

While I'm not disagreeing with either of you, that seems wrong. It's like an XP tax to either make you invest in a useless tree (as Emegent/Exile both very much are) or to spend your entire journey down a tree without having the force points to power your abilities...since I don't see any 'must possess FR 1 to purchase this specialization' prereqs.

But I also didn't see not starting out with FR 1, either.

They aren't wrong. I think it's partly it's for game balance, but if you start with a mundane career, you have to take either the EotE or AoR Force tree to get a Force rating of 1. It might even be to prevent min/max situations like yours

If I was your GM and this misunderstanding came up I'd allow you to flip it: take the Starfighter Ace as your base career, then the Pilot as the secondary career. Of course, that changes your career skills...

While I'm not disagreeing with either of you, that seems wrong. It's like an XP tax to either make you invest in a useless tree (as Emegent/Exile both very much are) or to spend your entire journey down a tree without having the force points to power your abilities...since I don't see any 'must possess FR 1 to purchase this specialization' prereqs.

But I also didn't see not starting out with FR 1, either.

They don't have a requirement because you're still free to buy into them without a force rating, but you still can't actually use force talents without a force rating.

And nobody said getting into the Force wouldn't take some extra effort. For FaD characters, that means losing some proficiency out the gate with some skills (2 less career skills), for everyone else, it means spending extra time to develop their connection to the Force (having to grab a Force Sensitive tree first). It really isn't that big of a deal, since non-FaD characters just need to cough up an extra 30xp, which is just a drop in the bucket compared to all the other stuff FaD characters need to invest in. Besides, if the Force is that much a core component of a character, they should ideally start (or be re-rolled, if the GM is fine with it), into a FaD character.

EDIT: Also, figured I'd include the rules. Page 30: "Each career also gives the player character Force rating 1." Each career summary page for a character: "The [career name] begins with a Force rating of 1." And Sam Stewart (last question in the linked post).

Extra Edit: I think this covers the loss of skills/extra time to develop force power side of things nicely:

Yes, if it comes up I'll flip it to starfighter ace first. This whole thing started when I rolled the character concept as a someone who was a padawan during order #66, so my incomplete understanding of the Force manifested through my piloting skills. Then I found the f&d beta and starfighter ace fit the concept perfectly.

You are quite right that 30 xp isn't the end of the world...but does that mean that buying FS emergent and exile is the shortest possible route to FR 2? I did mention I'm a min/maxer, right?

In all seriousness, I put so much thought into this because if I fail and we get shot down the whole group dies. No sir, not on my watch!

But, although I appreciate the build advice since there are clearly things I've overlooked, I do want to pose the initial question again:
All things being equal, and knowing it's not possible to do it all, what is mechanically more desirable: High skills, high force points, or diving deep into talent trees?

My solution was dive deep into talent trees that grant 2 force ratings and investing in Battle Meditation that lets you borrow other people's skills.

Keep in mind that the Force rating granted through purchasing the Force Sensitive: Emergent and Force Sensitive: Exile or the Force Rating granted through starting out with any of the Force and Destiny careers do not stack with one another. They grant you a force rating of one, they do not add +1 to your Force Rating. The only way to increase your Force Rating is through the Force Rating talent. Beyond that, Seer and Sage may be your best bet if your looking for the fast track in raising your Force Rating.

You are quite right that 30 xp isn't the end of the world...but does that mean that buying FS emergent and exile is the shortest possible route to FR 2?

Not exactly, taking those you "Gain a FR of 1" not +1, so if you already have an FR of 1, you don't automatically get 2. You have to buy down to the +1 talent (cheapest is 75 XP on the Emergent tree). The Consular:Sage and Mystic:Seer tree has +1FR a smidge cheaper. But if you would be buy those as out of career Specs then yes, the Emergent is the fastest by way of also being the cheapest.

In all seriousness, I put so much thought into this because if I fail and we get shot down the whole group dies. No sir, not on my watch!

OK, here's the part where I might ruin it for you... If you don't want to get shot down, worry about knowing the system, and what craft you are in first, and your character second.

Vehicular combat is nasty, so you can't afford to make many mistakes, lots of skill and talents and force powers will help a lot, no question, but if you still Zig when you should have Zagged, you'll be just as dead as a solo minion. A lot of player get splashed when they dump everything into Piloting:Space and then take a Z-95 solo against a dozen TIE Fighters. The skill ranks and talents were great... but the player was still dumb enough to try and take on 12:1 odds.

So might want to take the whole "Oh I want to Min/Max my character" back to the drawing board and factor in the craft you'll be flying the most often, the Attachments it can take, what tactics to use against different opponents and so on. Then come back and try again. All the dice in the world won't help ya if you don't know that Gaining the Advantage on a TIE Fighter is usually not a good idea...

But, although I appreciate the build advice since there are clearly things I've overlooked, I do want to pose the initial question again:

All things being equal, and knowing it's not possible to do it all, what is mechanically more desirable: High skills, high force points, or diving deep into talent trees?

My solution was dive deep into talent trees that grant 2 force ratings and investing in Battle Meditation that lets you borrow other people's skills.

For Pilots.... it depends, but usually decent skills and deep into the talent trees are worth the time to calculate.

Remember that to get Mastery in Battle Meditation you're talking something like 85 XP+ the FR2 costs. That's a lot of points to invest in one trick, especially when you start looking at other talents... Tricky Target, Defensive Driving, Uncanny Reactions... all gonna be hella useful if you want to be PilotGuy....

We're flying in an Incom A-36 Pathfinder-Class Force Reconnaissance Vessel: http://swrpg.viluppo.net/transportation/starships/468/

We have a mechanic in the crew that's tricking it out as we go along, and I'll find my way into Rigger at some point to help beef her up as well.

Yeah I've already dove pretty deep into the maneuver rules, including things the rest of the group can do while we're fighting; jam sensors, offensive slicing,angling shields, the whole 9 yards; I don't want their eyes to glaze over every time we head out into space. If it's not fun for everyone, it's fun for no one. And since I have the 'Space Superiority' duty, I play him in such a way that I would in fact engage 12 tie fighters...but the goal is to win!

I don't know if you happen to see the build I posted, but I tend to finish the 75% or so of the Starfighter Ace tree that I want before moving into the Force powers or the Seer tree. The campaign will probably have wound down before I get around to picking up Battle Meditation, but considering the beta errata added a planetary scale for the power, as long as you have friendly NPC contacts that seems like picking up free skills like relative clockwork. Need to fly like Han? No problem. Need Luke's Lightsaber skill? Here it is. Since there's nothing in the rules that says 'affected characters' can't be non-player characters. And dare I say based on the extreme cost involved in hooking that up, I take it as implied. 200 xp and 3 FP is way too much to invest to share skills your teammates already posses.

All things being equal, and knowing it's not possible to do it all, what is mechanically more desirable: High skills, high force points, or diving deep into talent trees?

Mechanically? High skills. Because there is a narrative axis to the dice (in addition to the simple success/failure axis), you can do a lot of interesting things if you can generate those Triumphs and Advantages. Plus, you can play the whole game without Talents, and if you're willing to spend Strain and take on Conflict, you will always have at least one pip to work with when rolling a Force die. Skills are the foundation, Talents just add flavour. Just MHO of course.

All things being equal, and knowing it's not possible to do it all, what is mechanically more desirable: High skills, high force points, or diving deep into talent trees?

Mechanically? High skills. Because there is a narrative axis to the dice (in addition to the simple success/failure axis), you can do a lot of interesting things if you can generate those Triumphs and Advantages. Plus, you can play the whole game without Talents, and if you're willing to spend Strain and take on Conflict, you will always have at least one pip to work with when rolling a Force die. Skills are the foundation, Talents just add flavour. Just MHO of course.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Skills give triumphs, and attributes have no drawbacks; when I had to choose how to spend my one force die it made more sense to commit it to agility than roll it to add to skills with a less than 50% chance of getting a light side pip. Of course, I can see how that's a different story when you have 3+ force dice, but there really seems to be no drawback to investing in skills. Except the eternal possibility of over-specializing, of course.

Yes, once your dice pool hits YYYGG in a Skill you pretty much own most situations. And no need to make a beeline to that, picking up Talents along the way adds flavour and dynamism.

For the Force, I'd also agree. If I ever got to actually play (rather than GM) I'd be buying Force powers and upgrades that allow the dice commit option. Once I get FR2 I'd think about others.

If you want to min-max being a good pilot, just stick with ace, buy down to force senstivity and pick up the left side of the sense tree. From there you can commit to the defensive applications of sense and take a rank of intutiive evasion to increase the difficulty of hitting you by 3 (which at close is about 2 red and a purple against two attacks a day at your weakest range band. Not too shabby.)

This can be improved with Tricky pilot and electronic countermeasures, both of which together adds an additional purple against ships the same size as you.

It also largely depends on what your piloting. Often reducing the silu of a Frieghter sized ship (Sil 4) is often fairly pointless unless your also taking the electronic countermeasures and is often squaring off against other Freighters. For a fighter sized vessel however; reducing your sil by two increases the difficulty against pretty much every other fighter. So it's a decent but expensive investment to get triple red at the closest range band. Of course there is no substitute for having wingmen around or a mother ship to bring you in if you roll blanks.

If it's a Freighter then you don't quite need to be as good defensively; Freigthers are often fairly bulky and can take a few good hits before shutting down unless your talking one of the smaller ones. A good DM should always be prepared for the alternative however; I once lost a freighter against a merc group, but as we all had access to vaccum sealed armour (with the exclusion of one guy, who died) we were able to board their vessel when we docked and was able to sieze their vessel instead.

As for pilot skill: To be honest if you got 4 dice your good for a good while, if you got 5 dice your great. Having yellows in there always helps but at the same notice a DM shouldn't just stop the entire chase just for failing a check; the price of failing a check could be a minor/ collosion for example if racing down the valleys of a dessert planet.

In most cases though it's the talents that provide surviablity; the pilot skill just allows you to preform extremely well at getting A to B or avoiding crisis situations.

Thank you all for the excellent feedback; I'm glad to hear I wasn't too terribly off base. As it stands now, I'm rolling YYGG on piloting checks and seem to be getting by

Let me ask one last question: Does anyone see any glaring drawbacks with this character progression? Again, the concept is Order #66 survivor who's Force skill manifests primarily through piloting:

This One is Mine (finish)

Personally I would probably start out as;

Ace/Pilot for the signature skill as you can only choose them from your starting career

Ace/Rigger for second signature skill, as above

then;

Force Sensitive Exile for the initial Force Rating(if Starfighter Ace is your primary focus) or Force Sensitive Emergent(if a more Willpower focused force-user is your goal) or both if your ultimate goal is getting more +1 Force Rating and Dedication talents taking the second universal tree does allow you to avoid paying for for as many talents as you automatically receive any of the non ranked talents you acquired from the previous universal specialization and save on the out of career new specialization XP tax, at this point you are already at a FR of 3 and +4 ranks dedication that way

then finish with grabbing your Force and Destiny careers like Startfighter Ace and since you likely will be taking advantage of alot of Agility/Cunning/Intellect related skills I'd probably go with a Lightsaber form that specializes in one of those like Ataru

If you want you could go back and grab Squadron Commander for some leadership talents as well later

Answer to your original question though I'd say Abilities>Skills>Talents>Force Powers>Force Rating

Consular: Sage (Finish) <------for the +2 force rating

Awful lot of XP to spend on an out of career spec and questionably useful talents all for only +2 FR. Why don't you try doing some roll check to see if you really need those dice. I think you'll find you don't, or that getting a Universal Spec like emergent will be more worthwhile as it will be cheaper, still get you +1FR, but also has more generally useful other talents that will be more valuable in the bigger picture.

Force Power: Battle Meditation <------Primarily to be able to share skills; very expensive, but worth it, I think

Run the numbers before you commit. For that 80-something points you can buy a lot of skill ranks that don't require Force Dice to work. Unless your party is composed of a single Soldier and a bunch of noncombatants this is probably not that great, or at least something you can push to the bottom of the list.

Ace: Pilot (finish)

I'd push this one higher on the priority if Pilot is your thing.

Ace: Rigger (finish) <------for the 'Not Today' special ability, essentially an extra life! And free ship upgrades will be helpful if we make it this far.

This One is Mine (finish)

If you have a Tech in the party, have them take Rigger instead. The vehicle bonuses apply to any vehicle they designate. They don't have to be the pilot. Plus it gives them bonuses on repairs and modifications, and adds Gunnery as a Career Skill. They become better at keeping your ship in the air, you get to skip all that XP and spend it one something else.

You haven't talked much about you ship. The Pathfinder isn't bad by any means (awful nice of the GM t give you a rarity 7 craft) but it's rather flimsy. If you aren't thinking of your ship the way a Jedi thinks of his lightsaber, you may be in for a rough ride.

Personally I would probably start out as;

Ace/Pilot for the signature skill as you can only choose them from your starting career

Ace/Rigger for second signature skill, as above....

Answer to your original question though I'd say Abilities>Skills>Talents>Force Powers>Force Rating

Excellent points, thank you.

Consular: Sage (Finish) <------for the +2 force rating

Awful lot of XP to spend on an out of career spec and questionably useful talents all for only +2 FR. Why don't you try doing some roll check to see if you really need those dice. I think you'll find you don't, or that getting a Universal Spec like emergent will be more worthwhile as it will be cheaper, still get you +1FR, but also has more generally useful other talents that will be more valuable in the bigger picture.

Quite right; I am somewhat underwhelmed by the talents relative to how I am envisioning the character. Emergent/Exile may in fact make more sense.

Force Power: Battle Meditation <------Primarily to be able to share skills; very expensive, but worth it, I think

Run the numbers before you commit. For that 80-something points you can buy a lot of skill ranks that don't require Force Dice to work. Unless your party is composed of a single Soldier and a bunch of noncombatants this is probably not that great, or at least something you can push to the bottom of the list.

Again, you make several compelling points. Part of the reason why I'm pushing Rigger is we may in fact get a better ship somewhere down the road; if not we'll have to breathe plenty of life into the old girl.

After taking all this into account, what does this look like:

If you go the route of Emergent/Exile, start with Exile(as it saves you XP later in the form of unranked talents costing 15 on one tree and 20 on the other)

If you go the route of Emergent/Exile, start with Exile(as it saves you XP later in the form of unranked talents costing 15 on one tree and 20 on the other)

I'm not sure that I follow you.

Edit : Oh, yeah now I understand. And Exile fits the background better than Emergent does, anyways.