Some people have expressed some discontent with the Explorer's Fringer specialization. I don't necessarily agree, entirely, as I think Fringer presents a very unique character concept, but I can see where they are coming from; Fringer feels very general, offering a mix of talents but not focusing on any particular role well, with the exception of Astrogation. Either way, I started playing around with Fringer to see how it could be improved, mostly by swapping out some talents with others, but I changed so many things, I basically created a totally different specialization.

So, that's what I did, ending up with the Spacer. The general concept of Spacer is an Explorer who spends most of their time in a starship of some kind, traveling and exploring space. Fringer offered Astrogation, Coordination, Negotiation, and Streetwise; Spacer only maintains Astrogation, replacing the others with Computers, Perception, and Piloting (Space). For a full list of talent changes:

• Removed: Both ranks of Street Smarts, Durable, Jump Up, Knockdown, and both ranks of Dodge.
• Added: 1 rank of Galaxy Mapper, 1 rank of Skilled Jockey, Natural Programmer, Full Throttle (not the Improved or Supreme versions), 2 ranks of Shortcut, Shortcut (Improved).
• Moved some talents to different spots.
• The entire Fringer talent tree layout has been mirrored.

What's different from the Smuggler/Pilot, you might ask? I would compare Pilot to a RL military fighter pilot, while the Spacer would be a commercial pilot, or a private pilot.

There is also some obvious things to consider, seeing as I added Shortcut, while Scout already has 2 ranks in Shortcut. I also made some tweaks to Scout that would be complimentary, but that's a different topic.

Spacer

1 | 2 | 1 | 3

4 - 5 | 3 - 3

6 | 2 | 7 - 8

9 | 5 - 10 - 2

10 - 10a | 4 - 11

• 1: Skilled Jockey
• 2: Rapid Recovery
• 3: Galaxy Mapper
• 4: Toughened
• 5: Grit
• 6: Defensive Driving
• 7: Natural Programmer
• 8: Master Starhopper
• 9: Full Throttle
• 10: Shortcut
• 10a: Shortcut (Improved)
• 11: Dedication

I really like this. It would be great if you could provide a custom .xml for use in Oggdude's character generator.

Try here.

29 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Try here.

That's a PDF of what the spec looks like in Oggdude's app. How about uploading the XML file itself? Please?

Spacer.xml

Overall this looks pretty good, though I wonder if maybe you want a bit too heavy on Galaxy Mapper. Maybe put back in one of the ranks of Street Smarts?

I'd also recommend putting the second Skilled Jockey further in the specialization tree, perhaps swapping it out with the Row 4 instance of Grit, as that will cut down on the temptation for pilot-based PCs to just do a quick dip for two easy-to-acquire ranks of Skilled Jockey.

Also thinking that maybe you could swap the placement of Full Throttle and Defensive Driving in the tree.

Skillwise, still thinking they should have Streetwise as a bonus career skill as it's a good way to quickly dig up local info (namely, jobs) and that you could drop either Computers or Perception to make room for it.

1 hour ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Overall this looks pretty good, though I wonder if maybe you want a bit too heavy on Galaxy Mapper. Maybe put back in one of the ranks of Street Smarts?

I'd also recommend putting the second Skilled Jockey further in the specialization tree, perhaps swapping it out with the Row 4 instance of Grit, as that will cut down on the temptation for pilot-based PCs to just do a quick dip for two easy-to-acquire ranks of Skilled Jockey.

Also thinking that maybe you could swap the placement of Full Throttle and Defensive Driving in the tree.

Skillwise, still thinking they should have Streetwise as a bonus career skill as it's a good way to quickly dig up local info (namely, jobs) and that you could drop either Computers or Perception to make room for it.

As far as Skilled Jockey, Defensive Driving, and Full Throttle, those are fair assessments.

As far as Galaxy Mapper, it's a valid thought, but more a matter of preference. Navigator has two Force talents that make it a far better astrogator, and Commodore has a few other roles it fills. I considered it an acceptable trade off, as there are a few specializations that delve into 3 ranks of a particular talent. Same general thought with regards to the skill selection; I decided to take the Spacer into a more specialist role, rather than a generalist (which is one criticism leveled at Fringer). If anything, you could maybe replace that third Galaxy Mapper with Let's Ride, to show a character that can quickly get to the cockpit in an emergency (I know Scout also has that, but that's not too unusual for careers).

5 hours ago, Blackbird888 said:

Spacer.xml

Bad link, no permission to download: "The page you are trying to access is not available for your account."

I've seen this before. The forum file attach system is broken. You need to upload to a cloud site.

8 minutes ago, ShadoWarrior said:

Bad link, no permission to download: "The page you are trying to access is not available for your account."

I've seen this before. The forum file attach system is broken. You need to upload to a cloud site.

Try this, then.

2 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

Try this, then.

Thank you very much! And I forgot to say earlier: great job on this spec.

Yeah, I'd say swapping out a rank of Galaxy Mapper for Let's Ride works. A pilot of a freighter (the type of vessel a Spacer is most likely to operate) is still going to find it handy to be able to get to other stations in a hurry in case of an emergency.

As for comparison to the Navigator spec, being able to navigate hyperspace is that spec's principle focus, and frankly doesn't offer a whole lot of anything in terms of piloting ability beyond the Seeker career having both Piloting skills as career skills. While your intent for Spacer may be that it's not as combat-focused as the Pilot spec, it's already got a fairly narrow focus in that it's built around piloting ships, and with two ranks of Galaxy Mapper and Master Starhopper it's already very good at plotting hyperspace routes.

As for the Commodore, that spec is pretty much built around the PC being a specialist in one of three categories (mechanic, officer, or navigator) with each talent chain being completely separate from the others until you get to the top row. So yes it does have one column with 3 ranks of Galaxy Mapper, but for that row being a navigator is all it does, and one of those three ranks is set at 25 XP, where your initial tree arrangement allows for getting all three ranks that Spacer offers for the same amount.

Tier 1 is a little bit uninspiring with 2 times Skilled Jockey + Galaxy Mapper, tier 5 seems depressingly unexciting. It is basically a spec no one wants to start with. It worse than even commando in a field which does not forgive as easy as infantry combat.
3 ranks of Galaxy Mapper might be one too much, because it takes away space for more interesting talents or at least more useful ones like a third rank in Skilled Jockey for flying those bulk heavy freighters. In general the tree is full with stuff which makes your rolls slightly better, but literally nothing which changes the game. No brilliant evasion, no hold together, no showboat, not a single thing which makes this spec more than just a minor numeric improvement on a few skill checks. It's all filler without any meat. Especially Tier 5 lacks something, but even the middle could need at least one more big talent. Why I don't make suggestions for the big talent? Because I am not sure that the existing ones really fit the theme of your spacer. Improved shortcut is decent enough, but having Shortcut itself at 25 is a major pain. Master Starhopper is a lot less exciting without One with the Universe too and the talent is not very exciting to begin with.

The navigator itself is not the most exciting spec and you took away the force powers and made it imho a little bit more bland. Some form of kicker talent is missing imho, something which makes players look at this spec and take note of it. Brilliant evasion would be the classic. So I would suggest to remove one shortcut and the tier 5 toughened for brilliant evasion and hold together and maybe one galaxy mapper for familiar suns or careful planning or intense focus. Actually intense focus sounds like something very fitting to the theme.

Otherwise I like the idea and distribution of the spec for the most part.


BTW, how do you import those custom xml files for a spec?

6 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

BTW, how do you import those custom xml files for a spec?

Open Oggdude's Character Generator launcher app, click on the the Data Folder, go do Data Custom (or vise versa), and then Specializations. It has the .xml files.

15 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

Tier 1 is a little bit uninspiring with 2 times Skilled Jockey + Galaxy Mapper...
3 ranks of Galaxy Mapper might be one too much...

This is one of those cases if you read the other comments in the thread, the subject has been covered already.

15 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

...because it takes away space for more interesting talents or at least more useful ones like a third rank in Skilled Jockey for flying those bulk heavy freighters. In general the tree is full with stuff which makes your rolls slightly better, but literally nothing which changes the game. No brilliant evasion, no hold together, no showboat, not a single thing which makes this spec more than just a minor numeric improvement on a few skill checks. It's all filler without any meat. Especially Tier 5 lacks something, but even the middle could need at least one more big talent. Why I don't make suggestions for the big talent? Because I am not sure that the existing ones really fit the theme of your spacer. Improved shortcut is decent enough, but having Shortcut itself at 25 is a major pain. Master Starhopper is a lot less exciting without One with the Universe too and the talent is not very exciting to begin with.

The navigator itself is not the most exciting spec and you took away the force powers and made it imho a little bit more bland. Some form of kicker talent is missing imho, something which makes players look at this spec and take note of it. Brilliant evasion would be the classic. So I would suggest to remove one shortcut and the tier 5 toughened for brilliant evasion and hold together and maybe one galaxy mapper for familiar suns or careful planning or intense focus. Actually intense focus sounds like something very fitting to the theme.

First (at the risk of repeating myself), the motivation for making Spacer was in response to the criticisms of Fringer. To some, Fringer is lackluster as a specialization; other than Astrogation, it has a variety of general utility talents, which are all useful but don't further the character as a concept. Any spec it gets paired with will overshadow it - at least that's what the critics say, so obviously YMMV. And then, some groups gloss over the use of Astrogation all together, rendering a several of Fringer's talents useless. Generally, I kind of like Fringer because it's general like this, but my interpretation of the spec is pretty singular, as in you can get exactly 1 character type, so its still pretty limited.

Second, believe me when I say I evaluated the talent options (particularly regards to Astrogation). Astrogation gets little attention; or, rather, the only attention its gotten are all Force talents (One with the Universe, Intuitive Navigation, Holistic Navigation). The only other thing I could find is Natural Programmer, as it allows for the re-roll of Astrogation. As regards to the others (Brilliant Evasion, Showboat), they don't fit the concept (see point 3). I suppose the only exception to this is maybe Hold Together, but that's iffy; I don't like it, but others might.

Third, I approached the build more from the perspective of building a character type rather than designing a mechanical list of talents and abilities. What is a Spacer, and how does what they are relate to Explorer? How does it compare to other specializations (both in role and mechanically), especially Driver and Pilot? The end result is that Spacer is really good with Astrogation, and decent with piloting (but not to the extent).

Lastly, when you have 36 specializations for a single game line (this case being Edge of the Empire), I think expecting all of them to have some special super talent is A) faulty, and B) doomed to failure and/or disappointment. Some specializations aren't going to be flashy, but they get the job done, and that's good enough.

So, you're probably not going to agree with me on this, but you have a "special" ability to argue with people who agree with you, so, what have you. That's my reasoning on the subject.