Just finished running my first two sessions of our first EoE campaign and at the beginning of the next there is good chance for a ship chase/combat.

I pulled up the stats for a couple planetary authority fighters and the Imperial Corvette in orbit but then it occurred to me.. I need ship crew stats as well don't I?

Do you guys stat out your adversary ship crews or just give them generic abilities off the cuff?

I have the adversary cards, and I generally end up just using a Tie Fighter Pilot (minion) or something similar. I never give the enemy abilities, with the exception of 'Adversary'. At least in space combat anyway. There's also some rebel starfighter pilot I use the stats for all the time.

You'll only need that stats for the pilots, gunners or Commanding officer, either GGG or GYY maybe, depending on whether it's Imperials or Scum/Pirates. Don't get bogged down in looking through the books, take a look at the players' sheets and make a judgement on what would challenge the players. if you're unsure give boost or setback dice too for stress

Skills needed: Cool, vigilance, piloting, gunnery, Leadership, mechanics...

I personally start with the following:

Is the npc in question average or might be someone who wants to be there?

Meaning, a pirate or a smuggler who actively chose to be a pilot might have agility 3 or instead of 2. Agility 4,5 or above must have a story reason in my head (even if it is just the species, an agility 4 rodian is more likely than an agility 4 Trandoshan).

Then I simply take the Skill ranks into account.

Rank 1: somebody who has done this before. It will be tough to find someone actually piloting a spacecraft with below rank 1 (unless he was fleeing or had no other choice)

Rank 2: has done this regularly. rank 1 might have a drivers license, but rank 2 drives to work regularly.

Rank 3: Good professional, capable cab driver. Lower League sports player.

Rank 4: Exceptional. Champions League.

Rank 5: Legendary. Player of the Year.

Rank 4 and 5 will not be encountered regularly

Then I just go on from that with all the stats, write it down (mostly on the fly) and go from there

Remember, you don't need all the stats for the NPC's, especially not the whole crew, just the things your player might encounter engage, and when applicaple leave the rules aside and go with the flow - like initiative order, every now and then it just makes more sense for the group to be first and the other ship reacting or the other way around. Unless you and your group prefer it strictly by the rules, but even then you can eyeball what rank in cool the gunnery crew has for example.

According to the book, even 1 rank of a skill represents a significant amount of development.

I think a drivers license would be considered significant amount of development since it gives you the right to pilot a possibly very deadly multiton vehicle. But we all know someone who has a drivers license, but you still feel at least a little uneasy next to them .

To quote the book a bit, rank 1 or 2 is having an entry level job or taking part in an apprenticeship, rank 3 or 4 are indicative of a true professional and rank 5 is reserved for those who deliberately challenge themselves to perfect their expertise and have a reputation far beyond their community.

Full rundown of what the skill ranks are meant to mean is on page 102 in EotE, don't have AoR or F&D with me at the moment, maybe someone else can share to complete this thread if somebody else finds it via searchfu.