If you'll pardon the bad attempt at referencing an old song, I have a question. My group is wrapping up a campaign, and we're already raring to go on our next one, which will be set in the same universe, just a few years before the events of The Force Awakens. We're being sentimental and playing descendants of our current characters. I've never been the pilot/ace of our group, and want to try that role on for size. I'm thinking young, speed demon, impulsive, determined to help out and do good, and equally determined not to be left behind by her somewhat older friends/fellow PCs.

I'm absolutely in love with the parkour talent found only in Racer and Courier (and Courier isn't out yet.)

So, if I want to go with two trees total, where should I start, and what should I add? Right now, I'm thinking Racer (so minor Force user) and then I'd add Hotshot from the Ace career down the line. Racer gives me that parkour talent, and my character's mother is a Force user, so it makes sense. Am I shooting myself in the foot? Force trees mean sacrificing starting points and skills, and I would never go past the two force dice that the Racer tree would eventually end with. No lightsabers for this character. Should I consider starting with Operator or Pilot instead? I like the shortcut talents, but mostly, I want the concept of speed. She's simply faster than everyone else, or wants to be.

Seems good to me. Even if there were stronger builds (not my area of expertise), you have a strong character idea there, which means a lot. Go for it, I'd say!

If it is solely speed you want, you might consider the Explorer careers. Their signature ability allows you to take 3 maneuvers, making you very fast.

Personally I love the the ACE signature talents, so I would go Hotshot, Emergent+Exile and finish up with Racer. Alas this will bring out your parkour talents rather late.

So I think for you it would be better to start with Racer, Hotshot and finish up with whatever you like. FR2 itself is rather nice to have already, nothing major, but spending XP and force abilities instead of a third three is still solid. Influence, Sense, Misdirect come especially to mind and the intuitive Evasion talent is awesome to have. As third career tree I would actually keep it open and make that choice based on character development. Star Fighter Ace is actually quite good. Squadron Commander is super cool and the pilot/hotshot or smuggler:charmer/hothot combos are classics imho.

Though I admit, I am tempted myself to build a racer next the next time I play, would mix it with shadow and executioner most likely. Total different character concept from your own.

3 minutes ago, Edgookin said:

If it is solely speed you want, you might consider the Explorer careers. Their signature ability allows you to take 3 maneuvers, making you very fast.

Most racing should be chase scenes. Though 3 maneuvers makes you still incredible GOOD. Double Actions when combined with pilot, double evasive still an option + intuitive evasion. Someone might argue that the cybernetic which allows you to replace piloting with coordination should allow as well to use sense on top, but that's now raw.

Take a look at starfighter ace as well.
One way to figure it out. is figure out your priorities. choose the carreer that gives you your priorities.

Don't discount courier yet. It may not be out but it is coming soon...ish? We think? We hope!

Check the career skills of the different options and see what fits best then look to the specs. There are loads of awesome specs to choose from but you kinda need to know what skills you really want to have as well

This concept sounds awesome. Her personality fits Hotshot really well. It was the first one that sprang to mind reading about her. Starting as a Racer would be really cool, and having a pilot able to use Enhance would be amazing enough to overcome starting with one fewer skill ranks. She sounds like a ton of fun.

Racer is cool, if you want to be force sensitive (enhance has a piloting upgrade), I'd start with racer, then go operator and finish with a dip into squadron leader. Operator is the ONLY way to get offensive driving, the synergy between offensive and defensive driving is amazing, and it's fairly easy low cost to dip into squadron leader to get TWO ranks of defensive driving.

By the way you might want to think about getting a crippling injury (lose an arm just below the elbow) and get an agility increasing arm, then get the avionics interface (free rank to pilot space and flying planetary if you have at least one rank) and figure out 1 more, with 3 cybernetics you would take a lot less strain flying an aggressor assault fighter (it's in no disintegrations) with the limiters off, which is one of the most awesome ships in the game and it totally fits your concept.

The aggressor looks shiiiiiiny. I'd love one - but it's too expensive for our starting characters. That's fine; you want dreams and aspirations starting out. I'm pondering the Lancer class patrol craft. It's 120k, which is within our starting range, and it's often manufactured for the Black Sun. I can already hear Tika's (my character's) logic in my head: That's a nice ship - we need a ship - those are very bad people - they don't deserve that ship - therefore that is our ship as soon as I liberate it. By the end of her logic daisy chain, it would be hers. In execution, of course, things rarely go so smoothly.

I appreciate all the feedback so far. You've given me a few ideas to consider. I'll go look up the cybernetic suggested. I can't see her deliberately replacing a limb, but the planet they're from has a mandatory one year of service, and training accidents do happen.

I'll have to take another look at Operator. I like it, and I considered starting there, and adding martial artist in, but even with a Cathar character, I have a hard time resisting focusing on ranged light/heavy given the high agility I'm working with. I remember it having full throttle, which racer also has, so the next question is whether having both works out - can the duplicates be avoided? That's something I can look up. I hadn't really considered squadron leader, so I'll give that another look. I'd forgotten about intuitive evasion (and I'll feel foolish if that's in Racer and I missed it.)

Thanks, folks. Keep the suggestions coming, if you have any more, and the ones you've offered are very appreciated.

also look at what signature abilities are available to the career.

Racer then Hotshot (High-G training and Corellian Sendoff are the parkour talents of the stars).

There are a bunch of great suggestions on how to build an awesome pilot, but what do you want your character to be? Go with your gut and build the character according to your vision and what you think his origin story is. If free-running and the Force are somethings you really want for your character concept, I wouldn't worry about 1 fewer starting skill rank, which equates to 5 XP. If you start with another non-Force career, you'll have to spend 60 XP just to get to the Racer tree. Alternatively, it takes 20 XP if the Courier fits the bill as a good pilot to pick up Force Sensitive Exile or Emergent. Granted, there's a lot of cool stuff along the way, but it will take a long time to get to that concept. The thing I like about the racer tree is the mix of talents that cover starships, planetary vehicles, and physical activities instead of being focused on just starships.

7 hours ago, Pixieberry said:

I remember it having full throttle, which racer also has, so the next question is whether having both works out - can the duplicates be avoided? That's something I can look up.

Yep. From the source: "If a character is advancing through a specialization tree and reaches a talent without ranks that he has already acquired from another specialization tree, then he counts as having purchased that talent on his new talent tree for the purpose of purchasing additional talents in that tree. (This does not require him to spend any experience points.)"

From a game balance perspective, I see no reason why you can't request a homebrew cybernetic for the same credit cost that improves agility without requiring the loss of a limb. I think some of it comes down to "how do Star Wars cybernetics 'feel' to your group?"

I've got a swoop racer (Bothan Ace: Driver/Rigger) of my own. I'm also excited for the Courier specialization, hoping there's a vehicle side to it, since he's considering using his swoop's advanced avionics computer for Rebel data smuggling. For your career and specialization choices, it might be helpful to look at the signature abilities for the careers. You can always buy out-of-career specs, but you can only buy signature abilities from within your career.

11 hours ago, BronzeDog said:

From a game balance perspective, I see no reason why you can't request a homebrew cybernetic for the same credit cost that improves agility without requiring the loss of a limb. I think some of it comes down to "how do Star Wars cybernetics 'feel' to your group?"

We’ve not even home brewed them, and just had cybernetics that encase a limb (with links into nerves etc so they cannot be quickly removed again). Don’t think the rules say anything about removing limb first.

If you think this character will earn in excess of 500xp then I would start thinking of multiple specs and a Signature ability. If not then just start with the spec that has the talents you want. Hotshot for the cool flygrl or Racer for the speed daemon. How you play the character is most of it.

Personally I would start in Hotshot, it’s awesome fun and the Signature Abilities are more suited to your character if you ever get they far.

Remember that you don’t have to be Force Sensitive to buy a Force and Destiny Specialisation, and most of the talents in Racer don’t need you to be Force Sensitive either. You can get all the free running and full Throttle stuff without wasting any xp

Still waiting on the courier; for now I'm going with a Cathar Racer, because it makes sense for the background we've developed since I last posted. My group is ok with retconning if I need to when we get the courier. I still want to add the hotshot, but for some reason it just doesn't sit quite right with me for my starting tree (and I still really, really want the parkour talent.) We've pretty well settled on the HWK-1000 for our ship, and I'm excited to try that out. We've just wrapped up our previous campaign, and oh, it's going to be painful to go from a 1000+ point Jedi Guardian with all the bells and whistles to a starting character again. Fun, though - trying to make things work when you have very few skill points and limited resources is a lot of the entertainment, really.