So i am getting ready to start a game when i finally get my hands on force and destiny beta and it will be just me and my 2 friends. While i would love to play i am not a huge fan of GMing and playing a character at the same time. So my big question is this. How can i balance the 2 players so they can be effective in the campaign. I plan to use the modules written by FFG for the most part to help me save some time in prep. Any help would be appreciated.

Work closely with them to ensure their characters are complementary in skill sets and personal goals, etc. Brains and brawn, pilot and gunner, someone who can hit & one who can take a hit, etc. Astromech droids make a great fill-in / comic sidekick without stealing the spotlight. Since you have F&D, consider giving them the HWK-290, assuming that as wannabe-jedi they ain't looking to smuggle 20 head of nerf anywhere...

The game is fairly forgiving. 'haven't run a lot of modules, but I've read some, and some give advice for scaling encounters. If not, just cut the number of opponents in half -- that should get you in the ballpark.

Allow them to run multiple characters perhaps? Hirelings? Hangers on?

All good suggestions. A nicely appointed droid with either a good intellect or some skill ranks to perform some functions for them. Back in the day a couple friends and I ran a D&D campaign that way, with 2 of us playing and we ran a magic user as the anonymous sidekick. Another idea is to give them some bonus xp at chargen to give them a step up and make them more effective.

When our current campaign originally started, we didn't have enough players for a doctor so I was going to run a GM PC Medical Droid, which would basically just stay on the ship and provide healing for critical hits and the like.

We got a player to play a Doctor so it didn't prove necessary, but I think that's a great option, especially as a droid character can naturally be subservient to the PCs.

droid is good. Also the modules come with starter characters you can use as NPCs to help round out the group. I also like bonus char to make them stronger compared to the NPCs.

I would give them a minor skills-focused character to assist them for certain. Someone they will have to protect during those Mechanics and Computers type checks. To add drama, I might even make certain these checks happen during combat, and span more than a single round. But giving each of the two players an additional minor character should give you a decent enough party size to cover the various skill requirements to have a somewhat rounded party.

A droid and an apprentice might be good options. Otherwise a droid and a smuggler-type friend maybe? So you have one who does the flying, knowledge, and ranged stuff, and one who does the knowledge and technical stuff. Leaving the majority of combat and social checks to split between the Jedi. Maybe one is more martial with lightsabers, coerce, and medicine, and the other is more force power-y, with the other social checks and force powers.

Otherwise, just use the two PCs they create, and as you run an adventure, scale back the combats by subtracting 2 minions from every minion group, and 1 rank of adversary from any rivals or nemeses. Also, do not give nemeses multiple actions per round (as per Edge GM Kit optional rules). If a skill check of Average or greater is required in a skill neither of your players has ranks in, reduce the difficulty of the check by one. You should make it fine through most adventures that way. As the characters gain 100+ XP, you might not even have to do much of that.

all good ideas i am thinking of either going the 2 pc per player route or giving them maybe 50 xp after creation to spend on advancing themselves what do you guys think. Thinking of starting them with the beginner game from one of the two (haven't picked which one yet) running the online add on then doing the 2nd beginning game and add an and going from there what do you guys thing about it?

I'm in a three player game where myself and another player (Venthrac) co-GM as well. So our characters are basically NPCs when we run an episode, and a regular PC when we're playing. I'd suggest adding an NPC character and/or a droid to the duo to help balance out the party.

Small groups are, in my opinion, the most fun. An R2 droid is a great and easy to run addition, good for making up skills and knowledge, a protocol Droid is good as well. I've run it where the Players don't ever see the stats but instead give me orders as to what they want the droid to do through their PCs, then I do it to the best of the Droid's ability. It can, and has, lead to some humorous situations

Our group generally runs with a GM and 3 players, and I really enjoy it. I could see going up to 4, but the small number allows us to really get to know our characters and have time for everybody to get some good roleplaying in.

We actually rotate the GM. One of us runs a story arc while thir character mostly stays in the background, and then we swap. It works out pretty well.