Hey folks; my group and I are really new to the role playing. We use all three core books but we did some flying the other day and it felt wrong (to me at least). I was the pilot and I didn't really end up rolling many dice in order to maneuver. My gunner on the other hand, did all of the rolling.

Can someone walk me through how this scenario would work out in game play?

My group is flying a Slave I type ship. I am the pilot. My co-pilot operates the guns. We are using planetary range scale at the moment. We start off at medium range and we see three imperial scouting droids ahead on our scanners. I fly towards them and close the distance to short range. My co-pilot shoots at the first droid. The two droids attempt to flee, I fly the ship closer to one and the ship is now engaged (planetary scale) with droid 2. Co-pilot shoots. Then I circle around the last one, and it self-destructs.

Can you wonderful people please show me the game mechanics for this sequence? I must have flown over the flying section in the rule books too quickly.

If there is no terrain to navigate through then fly/drive is very easy. In a dogfight there are 2 different styles of play.

In one pilot should be performing the Evasive Maneuvers and Stay on Target maneuvers, then the Gain The Advantage action. The gunner is then free to shoot with the primary weapon after aiming.

In the other scenario the Pilot shoots with one weapon system, then the Gunner shoots with another.

One thing I have come to realise is that the Pilot skills are indicative of your ability to move through terrain quickly, in a Chase it's the skill to have. But Gunnery is actually the skill that represents your Dogfighting abilities a lot better, and is the skill of choice if your in a straight up fight.

But like I said, put terrain in to make those pilot checks much harder. The other thing to do is use the Chase rules a lot for space combat, it gives the pilot a lot more of an effect on the outcome of an encounter.

Early in a pilot characters life they won't roll a whole lot. FFG basically assumed that everyone in Star Wars is competent enough at basic vehicle operation to "not crash" most of the time, and so ditched the usual mandatory "roll every turn or else randomly crash" mechanic that most games cling to.

In the example you give (Firepray vs probe droids in open space) there would be little-to-no rolling for the pilot because the encounter is so simple. The targets are not high performance, the opposing pilots are derp, the terrain is non existent... you're shooting sedated fish in a barrel in a vacant parking lot.

Now... as your character advances and gains talents and the encounters get more complicated you'll find yourself rolling more. Movement may require dangerous terrain checks, the terrain will apply setbacks to a lot of actions, the enemy pilots will take various maneuvers and actions you'll need to counter with actions and maneuvers of your own, and you'll need to use your talents (which often require a check) to push your vehicle to it's limits to gain a combat edge.

Take Hotshot spec, roll for Corellian Sendoff all day, laugh as your Gunner now has nothing to do.

But for real, I myself also find piloting to be a bit... lacking, if you don't have a spec that makes it exciting by giving you cool talents. Of course, terrain is always fun, as suggested above. Or atmo combat, through canyons and stuff. It doesn't even have to be combat at that point - do like they do in one of the FaD modules and have the players put in a situation where it's "make a difficult piloting check to land close without crashing the ship, or you're faced with a series of difficult and strain-inducing physical checks to hike". The group will certainly thank the pilot then!

Or, like with my GM-run piloting droid mean to replace our pilot who bailed on us, they'll enthusiastically scream "DO IT!" and fly straight into a **** canyon wall, making everyone very irate and drawing the Empire right to them.

For anything more than a passing skirmish, space battle should be planned out a little in advance. Taking on a couple fighters in wide open space... meh. The GM should try to set up chases through asteroid fields, orbital shipyards, desert canyons and planetary rings. These will give the pilot a chance to really shine, spending successes to close or widen the gap between him and his enemies, all the while spending advantages and triumphs to cause trouble. See if you can't use a Piloting Action to increase the difficulty of your enemies' shots at you, and be sure to set up your gunners with boost dice and upgrades.