From the wording in the book, it feels like only PC astromechs can fire the guns. There is a list of actions: "Damage control, Plot course, etc". Gunnery is not actually on that list. However, there is then a footnote which states: "PC astromechs are allowed to make Gunnery Checks if a weapon system is available".
 
In the NPC astromechs sidebar, it notes: "the pilot may spend 3 advantage or 1 triumph to gain the benefit of one successful astromech mneuver or action from the included list."
 
It's a really weird way of wording it. But that seems to indicate to me that NPC astromechs cannot be used to score free hits with torpedoes.
 
I'd be open to alternative readings, but that seems the most balance way of approaching the problem.

From the wording in the book, it feels like only PC astromechs can fire the guns. There is a list of actions: "Damage control, Plot course, etc". Gunnery is not actually on that list. However, there is then a footnote which states: "PC astromechs are allowed to make Gunnery Checks if a weapon system is available".
 
In the NPC astromechs sidebar, it notes: "the pilot may spend 3 advantage or 1 triumph to gain the benefit of one successful astromech mneuver or action from the included list."
 
It's a really weird way of wording it. But that seems to indicate to me that NPC astromechs cannot be used to score free hits with torpedoes.
 
I'd be open to alternative readings, but that seems the most balance way of approaching the problem.

I'm withholding judgment until I see just what the Hotshot talents are. I suspect there will be a certain element of "general recklessness", an talents that may apply to more than just piloting. In that case, Coordination might fit perfectly well, letting the Hotshot be just as nimble and daring on the ground as in the air. Especially since Agility is the most important characteristic for any Ace character.
 
Besides, the three specs in the Core book all give Gunner, plus Riggers are getting it too. Plus, with Driver and Pilot both completely doubling down on their parent career skills, Aces are kinda starved for breadth. More career skills is a welcome addition in my opinion.

I'm withholding judgment until I see just what the Hotshot talents are. I suspect there will be a certain element of "general recklessness", an talents that may apply to more than just piloting. In that case, Coordination might fit perfectly well, letting the Hotshot be just as nimble and daring on the ground as in the air. Especially since Agility is the most important characteristic for any Ace character.
 
Besides, the three specs in the Core book all give Gunner, plus Riggers are getting it too. Plus, with Driver and Pilot both completely doubling down on their parent career skills, Aces are kinda starved for breadth. More career skills is a welcome addition in my opinion.

I'm withholding judgment until I see just what the Hotshot talents are. I suspect there will be a certain element of "general recklessness", an talents that may apply to more than just piloting. In that case, Coordination might fit perfectly well, letting the Hotshot be just as nimble and daring on the ground as in the air. Especially since Agility is the most important characteristic for any Ace character.
 
Besides, the three specs in the Core book all give Gunner, plus Riggers are getting it too. Plus, with Driver and Pilot both completely doubling down on their parent career skills, Aces are kinda starved for breadth. More career skills is a welcome addition in my opinion.

I'm withholding judgment until I see just what the Hotshot talents are. I suspect there will be a certain element of "general recklessness", an talents that may apply to more than just piloting. In that case, Coordination might fit perfectly well, letting the Hotshot be just as nimble and daring on the ground as in the air. Especially since Agility is the most important characteristic for any Ace character.
 
Besides, the three specs in the Core book all give Gunner, plus Riggers are getting it too. Plus, with Driver and Pilot both completely doubling down on their parent career skills, Aces are kinda starved for breadth. More career skills is a welcome addition in my opinion.

I know some people have speculated whether the Hotshot spec would make starfighters more survivable. Personally, I'm more curious about the Rigger. My guess is that it'll have some talents along the lines of "Tinkerer" (add a hardpoint) or "Jury Rigged" (pick from a list of generic bonuses), only applied to ships.
 
With an extra harpoint, PCs can increase the armour on a starfighter. I could also see a talent which increases the trauma threshold on vehicles. Together, they might not enough to make PCs feel totally secure, but it would help make starfighters more than just "vape bait".

First, I don't really see how people thought that a yellow (1d12) should be better than 2 green (2d8) on the success/failure scale alone. That seems pretty intuitive just from looking at the number of sides on the dice without even considering the weird symbols on them. Now that that's out of the way, my main arguments:
 
I ran extensive probability simulations prior to starting my campaign to make sure the dice system was reasonable compared to other systems. I concluded that not only was it reasonable, it was preferable due to exactly the "issue" the article's author describes with its propensity toward failure with advantage or success with threat on rolls that are relatively equal. However, that's not the end of the story. Starting characters get starting XP for a reason. Your characters don't solely consist of basic 2s in all characteristics. You're supposed to pick some areas you want to be better at (or a few areas where you want to be really good) and bump those characteristics up.
 
Skills Aren't As Good As Characteristics
Well they shouldn't be. Skills are 1. comparatively cheap, 2. capable of being raised directly with XP after character creation, and 3. capable of offsetting a low characteristic if you really want to be good at a particular thing. It costs at minimum 75XP to raise a characteristic after character creation. After you buy your first dedication in your starting tree, it costs a minimum of 95XP to get another one. Of course, most trees don't even have a straight 75XP beeline to dedication so you're looking at 100XP or more, especially if you want to take a more circuitous route to get talents you prefer over the straight-route ones. A single skill can be maxed with 75XP if you want to have 5 dice on some particular thing. Sure, you're only good at that thing and not everything a characteristic covers...but if you want to be good at everything a particular characteristic covers, buy it up at character creation and pick up dedication.
 
The point is, skills are meant to augment your natural aptitudes or make up for your natural failings, not to equal or exceed the usefulness of characteristics rank-for-rank. This is true of several other games. The only difference here is that there is no hard-coded "unskilled" penalty in most situations (though your GM may add one). I personally like the idea that skills can replace a low characteristic and make you just as good as having a high characteristic but low skill. 
 
To that point, I wholly disagree with giving additional "starting XP" to raise further characteristics. I'm fine giving people more XP at the start but it should be considered post-starting XP and thus ineligible for characteristics. The whole point of being able to spend only starting XP on characteristics is that you're supposed to pick the broad areas that you want to be good at (or pick several areas where you want to be decent) right at the start. If you want to become a 5+ dice master, either 1. raise your characteristic in that area to 5 at character creation at the expense of other things or 2. keep your starting characteristics balanced at character creation and pick out a skill or two to max out later. You have to pick your specialties, you can't expect to be a jack of all trades and also master them all.
 
One thing I will say that this system does have a tendency to create bland characters starting out. It's almost universally true that the best way to make a good character for a semi-long-term campaign is to spend as much starting XP as possible on characteristics. Sure, you can spend your XP on other things, and many people advocate doing so. However, compare that character to another character with the same concept that bought only characteristics at creation after they've both gained 150, 300, 500, etc XP and see how they stand. I get around this problem in my games by letting everyone re-build their characters however they want after the first 3ish sessions. That way, they can start with some cool stuff and re-tool to an optimal build later.
 
Crit Chance is High Enough
Tell my player who started with a 4 agility and bumped it to 5 after the first 5 sessions (or a character that just started with a 5) that crits are rare. She has around a 35% crit rate. This, by the way, doesn't include boosts from aiming, assisting, or advantage from others' rolls applying boosts to this character. The author says that crits aren't auto-kills. Well, they shouldn't be with a 35% crit rate. Also, they have a pretty good chance of being auto-kills after the first 2-3 crits stack up. I'd say that crits in this game are just about as good as double-damage crits are in a d20 system on the whole - the first one may not be great but later ones start slicing arms off and auto-killing. You know how my party took down the 11 Soak, 40 Wound Threshold Mature Zakkeg with only 40XP past creation? By getting 4 crits in on 1-2 damage rolls.
 
Overall, critting and other advantage results with success are supposed to come with highly skilled or naturally gifted individuals. The basic is to either succeed with threat or fail with advantage to mitigate. Once you're good at something, that's when you start getting into crits and other advantage applications.
 
Destiny Points
They can't be too good or people would be afraid of using them. They are decent now - I don't think they need to be boosted. For the GM, adding the possibility of despair, even a 1 in 12 chance, is pretty significant considering that most rolls don't even have that possibility. The players, of course, get the added fate/deus ex machina possibility and there are numerous talents that require expenditure of destiny points. Those talents would be lower in value in direct proportion to any boost in the general usefulness of destiny points. Also, keep in mind that destiny points can be very powerful for individuals who are rolling yellow dice with no greens (characteristic equal to skill level) or red dice with no purples (short range with adversary 1, medium/melee with adversary 2, myriad other ways). Upgrading a pool when there are no dice to upgrade adds an additional green/purple to the pool. Destiny points as they currently function bring an ebb and flow of little boosts. The 1 in 12 chance of having a despair is a big deal in the minds of the players even if it's a relatively low chance. Though the effect is often relatively minor in terms of direct probability, they serve to highlight the roll's importance in the narrative.
 
 
In conclusion, I'd like to say that I love the way the dice system is now. This is not despite the skewed probabilities or the balance between characteristics and skills; it is because of them. The system is built so that you start out either getting success with threat or failure with advantage to dull the result. As you become more and more skilled, you then get into both rolling multiple advantages and successes on the easier rolls and being merely capable of tackling the harder rolls. The system is built so you have to pick your broad areas of natural talent from the start then refine them with skills as you become more experienced. These are features, not bugs. I love the way it works and will have trouble going back to binary dice systems.