44 minutes ago, Faerie1979 said:

And you completely missed my point.

No, I didn't, I just used it for my own ends.

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That said, for complete newbies it may be best to have them set up with generic pilots that don't have pilot abilities, without upgrades, and using ships that don't have special abilities of their own.

Agreed. Or, with 1 upgrade only so they can see that upgrades are "next level" listbuilding.

An X-wing with Marksmanship doesn't make things all that complicated, but gets the point across that there is more to the game than vanilla ships.