Marksmanship seems so expensive for something that you can basically already do with a focus.

I realized the other day that it takes and action, but I don't think I have an action token to show that the ship has used the Marksmanship durring the action phase.

What if Marksmaship didn't require an action. That would make it really good. Probably too good. What does every one else think.

(Please note: I know this is not how the rules say to use the card)

It works especially well in situations where you might be making more than one attack in a round. (Cluster Missiles)

I think not requiring it to be an action would be extremely overpowered.

Essentially you are trading the defensive side of the Focus action for the ability to inflict another critical hit on your target.

If you have a ship with a high pilot skill and will likely be shooting (and killing) before you get shot at then this could be worthwhile since you won't get the defensive benefits of Focus anyays. If you have a ship with a high agility and/or shields and can survive a couple shots than the extra critical hit might be worth the sacrifice. Also if you have an effect like Biggs as an ally improving your defense drastically, the defensive side of Focus becomes less relevant in those turns.

If you could come up with a strategy that minimized defensive liability then you wouldn't need the defensive side of Focus as much and Marksmanship can lead to some crippling attacks for sure.

It's a very powerful ability on Vader, who doesn't need to sacrifice defense or positioning in order to use it, and it helps offset his low attack dice. It's good on Luke for similar reasons: he already has a free Focus-like ability, so he can use Marksmanship to boost his offense (and give your opponent a reason to bother shooting at him).

Making it free would be substantially overpowered--but a free ability that turned one focus result into a crit wouldn't surprise me on an elite pilot someday.

Personally I think increasing your odds of rolling hits from 3/8 to 5/8 and crits from 1/8 to 3/8 is always worth the look at. In a game where probability already plays a huge roll(see what I did there) any time you can increase your probability is a huge win. Thus why howlrunner and dutch are starting to see so much action.