1. Is the beta available for sale anywhere still?

2. I have a friend who wants to use a pet is there anything in the rules that covers this play style?

First post btw so I apoligize if this is in the wrong section and/or has been answered in another thread.

There might be some individual retailers that have copies of the Beta book, but those are far and few between. Your best bet if you really don't want to wait until the first week of July is going to be eBay, but that could get costly.

No rules per se on "pets" of any sort, be they flesh&blood creatures or droid companions. Right now, they'd just be treated the same as any other NPC, albiet under the player's control.

Soooo, just slaves then? Can mine be a Twilek Female suffering from Vestiphobia?

The Beta rules can still be found pretty reliably on eBay, but since demand has gone up recently, so have the prices for the book.

I'm using the three-month gap (between when I had hoped for it, and when it's going to be available) to plan in my mind, making notes on google drive for situations I can toss at the players. From alot of what I've read, planning a pretty stiff adventure (over-planning for all the details) is a recipie for broken dreams (of the GM) and wasted time. Better to have a box of puzzle pieces then a poster, little pieces that I can fit together in a flexible manner as opposed to a manuscript that will get ripped up anyway.

I agree…

The adventure we're running now, I wrote with the intent of being able to shuffle bits around. One of my players actually started off "on his own", forcing me to move a small encounter (meant as a diversion) up by 3 pages!

You CAN write a manuscript, and I strongly suggest you do, to keep a great flow to the story and aid in getting the players back on track should they stray, but be prepared to be flexible!

you can also find the beta on amazon.com thats where i got mine.