You get eight career skills, and five bonus skills based on specialization. When one of the bonus skills is the same as the starting career skils, does this mean anything? Do you get a free rank in that skill? Or do they just sort of cancell out?

You get one free rank in any 4 of your career skills, and one additional free rank in any 2 of your spec skills. If the spec has a matching skill to the career, you can indeed take 2 ranks in said skill.

For example, Bounty Hunter/Assassin has Ranged (Heavy) in both career and spec skill list. So a Bounty Hunter Assassin can start with 2 ranks in Ranged (Heavy).

However, that also means that their career skill list is 1 "short" of cheaper skills, XP wise. A Bounty Hunter/Survivalist has 12 career skills, while the above mentioned Assassin has only 11. Not a big deal, really.

-EF

EDIT: And each spec has 4 skills, not 5.

You get free ranks in some base Career sills, and also get ranks in some Specialization skills at start. Where these skill lists overlap you can choose the skill twice for free ranks, thus starting at rank 2 in the skill without spending experience for it.

Otherwise the double up doesn't provide any bonus per se to the character. The skills just count as career skills as normal. Careful choice on non-career specialties can e a way to get some of these skills as career skills for characters of careers that don't usually offer these skills.

Thanks for the response, now I get it.

No you get nothing for a skill listed under your career AND specialization, unless you select it in both sections then you get 2 starting ranks in it which works out to FREE 5 experience.

Also, a starter skill can only be max of 2 during creation. So, if for some reason (i'm not sure if this is possible) you could somehow get 3 free ranks with a skill...you can't take all 3 in a single skill.

Free or not, you can't buy your way to rank 3 in a skill either.

Also, a starter skill can only be max of 2 during creation. So, if for some reason (i'm not sure if this is possible) you could somehow get 3 free ranks with a skill...you can't take all 3 in a single skill.

Free or not, you can't buy your way to rank 3 in a skill either.

Certain species come with a free rank in a skill (I'm looking at you Wookiee), so this could potentially come up. Either way, 2 is the cap.