...Furthermore, I have a player who has an amazing gun, it is his favourite thing ever in the game to be able to shoot and do 18+ damage to any adversary I throw at him. Yet whenever I even hint at the idea of a despair or two causing the gun to fail or even be destroyed, I am criticised and made to be the bad guy citing that he spent so much money and time on the weapon that it makes all that time pointless and it's a '**** move'. Thoughts?

I break the **** out of weapons like that.

IS the weapon superior quality??? IS the weapon something special or simply a Swis army knife of attachments?

3-4 threat or 1 despair.. and i will slag that gun!

I'm a big fan of doing shopping in down time. We just wrapping up the session and people are packing up? Waiting for people to arrive to start the game? Have time to talk with or email the GM between sessions? Ask the GM quick if you can buy stuff.

You can even do "future" shopping. What I mean about that is this example, during the middle of a mission the players might come across some cash. The playing session might end with some loose ends to tie up quick during the next session then jump into the next mission quick, but the characters aren't in a natural down time between game sessions. Instead of waiting for the mission to end and taking up playing time shopping between missions, the player could ask the GM, "Can I go shopping for X gun the next time we have free time?" during down time between sessions. Then roll the dice and have them spend the money. Hold them to the results, good or bad. Then, the next time the party has adequate down time, the GM can narriate the player going out to pick up their new gear.

As for the gun, well, gear is always a tricky situation. I can imagine a lot of players being upset if their prize gear was broken or stolen. However, it could set up a fun adventure. Gotta go track town the thief or find a mechanic who can fix it. In combat, you can disarm with a few advantages as well. Spend a couple more to have the weapon fall away from him so he has to spend time going after it. As the GM, you'll have to gauge the player's maturity levels. I don't mean that with any disrespect. What I mean to say is a novice player is more prone to never want their expensive gear to be messed with while a veteran player understands it's all part of the story. Do what you think is right for you and the play group to maximise fun.

In early sessions of my campaign, the shopping mandalorians would bog down sessions with half hour shopping adventures every few sessions. If was really boring for me and the other players so I off-loaded it all to downtime between game sessions. Basically, no more shop talk about which odds or ends to buy take place at the group table. That's what the campaign forums are for. Stuff that is Rarity 5 or less and not Restricted, they can easily find and acquire during downtime unless there's something going on in the campaign to affect that (with the Galactic Civil War now in full swing in my campaign's timeline, medical supplies are at a premium now as are munitions).

Stuff that is Restricted or Rarity 6+ they need to make the checks to find the markets to acquire said items. But now they've decided what they're going after before the sessions instead of having rolling discussions over it at the table where it bores the crap out of 2/3 of the people there. Since I made these changes, personal character shopping has never taken more than 10 minutes tops and the rest of us at the table are a lot happier.

As for wrecking their toys... I whole-heartedly support wrecking their gear once in awhile with Despair. There are damage levels for gear, so popping an occasional Despair most of the time just puts their favorite toy at Minor damage. That adds all of a Setback die until repaired. Any player that cries about that needs to grow up. On the off chance you get to pop two Despairs on their favourite gun it would go to Moderate (still works but adds a Difficulty die until repaired). That's a complication that their character has to deal with but can be addressed after the combat with repair checks that are not hard . Again, nothing so dire that they should be whining over. It will cost them some credits but otherwise is inconsequential beyond adding dramatic interest to a particular encounter or two.

In my last session our group was exploring the wreck of a Separatist warship floating in space. Our mechanic (with her brand new Int-implant) was having a ball with all the useable junk. In the end they ran into a few wrecked B1s and as the highlight of the evening into a pair of working and alerted Droidekas.

Our mechanic tried to slice the wardroids every turn to shut them down or otherwise hinder them. She rolled well enough to at least stun one of them. Every time when she had threats left i let her test Resiliance or suffer strain damage. But on the last roll she had both a Triumph and a Despair. So she both managed to stun the droids for 2 rounds, but blew a fuse in her Implant (damaged but salvageable).

Of course she had to roll Resilience but in the end failed and was knocked unconcious.

Nice, she may have to talk to the technician and see why she got defective goods, maybe it was on purpose, the power was shunted to a transmitter, was someone monitoring? So many unanswered guestions. Good table decision, btw.

@Highbone: It was a simply backlash with an overload which you risk when you try to slice into military security protocols (on which such droids run).

I try to treat my campaign like a video game. What kind of unique, cool loot can they get?

Defeating enemies or getting through hairy moments may yield the finding of a neat item related to that moment...for instance:

If a slicer breaks into a security area, they may find a slicer-pad that gives two boost dice to computer checks, but sometimes goes haywire and creates super visibility in the system (depending on total threat generated, authorities may be immediately alerted to your presence).

I do it so often, and there's always so much interesting gear that players are more interested in earning it then buying. I mean, we buy, but it's to cover small gaps.

And because it's not an video game RPG, I am always tailoring items to interests/needs, to keep the game exciting.