Just curious--I've read through much of the rules and the GM kit book, but I haven't found much reference to any rules implications for a "flying" or repulsor-lift droid.

Examples?

The floating Imperial Interrogation droid that goes after the Princess in Ep IV

The flying droid that Darth Maul used to locate the Jedi on Tattooine

V.I.N.C.E.N.T., the flying telepathic droid in the movie The Black Hole (not a SW reference, but the one I'm basing my PC on!

Any way to make that as a PC Droid, using the Rules As Written?

There are rules for flying. I would take a look at the jetpack in the Equipment section for a guide on making maneuvers with flight.

I suppose it would be a question of whether you wanted to allow it right out of the gate, or ask your player to buy the jetpack and essentially say that it counts as repulsor parts for the droid to keep it afloat.

It does mention droids can buy weapons and gear and interpret what they mean for the droid (like a gun being attached to the droid, or armor being droid plating). I don't see why you couldn't do this with the jetpack to suggest a flying mechanism.

Do the rules mention constructing flying droids specifically? No, they do not. Should you be able to do it? In my opinion, absolutely.

If the character is always flying, you might want to make a rule about what happens when they get knocked down. Normally it's a maneuver to get up. Perhaps they have to make an Average Athletics check (which would be an action) with a Setback Die to get off the floor and back into the air again. This would counter-balance some of the benefits you may have from always being able to fly. Just an idea.

Excellent suggestions--I was thinking something closer to normal movement (just floating) using the same basic rules a humanoid (with legs or wheels) would use; if I decide to make the flight more "vehicle like" then I'll use your idea about the Jet Pack as a built-in device.

Thanks.

If you're just going to be floating at normal speed then you may not need to do any special rules, just remember that fact when you are describing what the character does.

How high can you float? That should be something you figure out. How many range bands can you move in any direction, basically. This could also be an advantage in a lot of ways.

Another idea for balancing this is to treat floating as a passive Talent--in other words, charge your character an extra 5 XP to have the feature at character creation. That would be a simple solution.

Another idea would be to treat your Droid as it's own vehicle. Assign it a max speed. So normally your droid goes at normal speed, floating around, but if you want to increase speed then you make a Piloting (Planetary) check to try to increase speed, which would allow the character to move between range bands more quickly. Or if you're uncomfortable with using Piloting for this, just create a custom skill called "Hovering" and use it in the same way. Custom skills are, after all, a part of the game.

Probably though the simplest, most streamlined way to do what you want to do is just spend 5 XP at character creation and say your Droid can hover at normal speed in all directions. So to go from Short to Medium range in the air would cost the normal amount of maneuvers and so forth. One of the obvious advantages being that enemy NPCs couldn't close the distance if they didn't fly themselves.

Perhaps create a Talent Tree for this, with upgrades? Could be a fun little project.

For stuff like this I would just play it as normal movement like its been suggested. With my players anything like that, as long as it doesn't give them a mechanical advantage, I would allow them to do. It mostly just fluff.

Typical repulsors don't let you hover that high up. So, he'd be moving basically the same way. And, since he's hovering, he probably wouldn't be affected by hindering terrain that would messes with feet (like rocks or roots or what not) but, maybe heavy winds will affect him more, and make him move as if he is in difficult terrain.

I generally play "mechanics lite" so I would be inclined to treat the hovering as normal walking for the droid. At least as long as the player didn't try to abuse it.

Plenty of scope for reigning them back in via "repulsion lift failure".