As I sit here trying to make squads on one of the many squad building sites, I can't help but wonder when making a list, how detrimental would it be to just take the points, instead of investing more? What pilots would you consider? What Faction? A few off the top of my head are mostly Imperial however outside of Biggs I can't think of many rebel or skum pilots I'd fly

vanilla named pilot as in no upgrades? apart from named Ties (not FOs, apart from Epsilon Ace and Epsilon Leader), you basically want to outfit them for them to be at all worth it

hell, I don't even take vanilla generics anymore, let alone aces

dice mods are life

**** it, 42 point Chewy naked and 58 point Dash. That seems pretty good.

I've taken Howlrunner Naked. Biggs Naked. Can't really think of any others. These are pilots that are more useful for their aura effects than any arc dodging or shenanigans that are enabled with upgrades.

Oh yeah, most named TIEs or FO's are decent without upgrades. So add those in addition to Howlrunner.

Blue Ace has a pretty nifty ability (boost using the hard 1). Allows for some pretty good re-positioning and can catch people off guard, who think they're safe from a boost into arc.

vanilla named pilot as in no upgrades? apart from named Ties (not FOs, apart from Epsilon Ace and Epsilon Leader), you basically want to outfit them for them to be at all worth it

hell, I don't even take vanilla generics anymore, let alone aces

dice mods are life

I've actually used vanilla Turr Phennir, and well. Definitely have to fly him more cautiously.

Apart from TIE fighters, F/Os and Biggs, Cracken is the one that springs to mind. He's useful without upgrades, and adding more onto a fairly fragile ship tends to run into the law of diminishing returns.

Escalation also encourages running un-upgraded named pilots, at least in the earlier rounds. I came across a naked Chiraneau escorted by a single TIE fighter at the 60 point level in a tournament last week.