Hello all. Here's a question about our favourite line of Jedi starfighters.

What is the effect of having an inbuilt R4 unit in the original mark 7?

Obviously you have an Astrogation skill-roller when connected to a hyperspace ring, but at what skill level?

Or do you? Does the droid just allow the interface but the pilot makes the roll?

Obi-Wan tells his R4 to jettison spare part canisters when chasing Slave 1, so the droid appears to have a degree of mechanical control over the ship's systems.

But can the R4 pilot the ship, make Mechanics checks to repair it etc?

I'd say an in-built astromech droid operates exactly the same as a socketed astromech droid.

7 hours ago, Scott McFarland said:

What is the effect of having an inbuilt R4 unit in the original mark 7?

You have an NPC Astromech droid permanently installed in the ship. This NPC - like any other - can perform basic tasks and assist the player.

7 hours ago, Scott McFarland said:

Obviously you have an Astrogation skill-roller when connected to a hyperspace ring, but at what skill level?

I believe that Astromechs have Intellect 2 and Astrogation 3. (Somebody call me out if that's wrong and I'll edit the post) The ful stat block for Astromechs should be in the core rule book.

7 hours ago, Scott McFarland said:

Does the droid just allow the interface but the pilot makes the roll?

It's up to the pilot. If the pilot is better at flying than the droid, there's no problem with letting them do it instead (Hence Luke's "That's alright, I'd like to keep it on 'manual' for a while." bit in Episode V with Artoo)

7 hours ago, Scott McFarland said:

the droid appears to have a degree of mechanical control over the ship's systems

Yup. They're wired into the ship, so they can perform all manner of tasks, including...

7 hours ago, Scott McFarland said:

can the R4 pilot the ship, make Mechanics checks to repair it etc

In my opinion, both of these are fine and valid. It can have some narrative flare, like "The wing is damaged, and a plate can be heard rattling somewhere on the hull. R4 redirects some coolant to the affected area and it's frozen in place. He beeps at you that it should hold until you next get to a starport." and there are several occasions in the films where the integrated droid can pilot the ship.

As with all things, the 'rule of cool' should apply. If the player wants to do something inventive and fun with the integrated droid, it should be fine as long as it's not game-breaking.

use the same rules as astromechs in SoT, with the provision that hyperspace travel is only possible when the starfighter is connected to the hyperspace ring

Maybe it cuts down on costs of needing an entire R4 unit. I imagine the built-in version is just the head portion.

The B model allows full astromech droids