I'm in preliminary stages of designing a new, high level, campaign. It will start with "Onslaught on Arda I", but in the final stages of the battle the PCs will receive a call from the base's commander telling them that there is another super-secret facility on the planet.

A prototype starship is being built there (it's based on the tech recovered by my players' previous characters). The PCs will recover the ship and fly away in it.

Now, the campaign is supposed to resemble the A-team series. They will be flying from system to system, choosing their own missions and the Empire will be always not far - because the ship will have a unique quantum-tri-polar ( ) signature, making it easy to track. The Main Villain will be always jumping in his (her?) ISD into the system they're in, if they spend too much time doing their mission, they may risk capturing. The Rebel Command doesn't know how to mask the signal and on the other hand they don't want to loose this precious ship, so they help the PCs whenever they can, but not too much. The PC's main goal is to find the way to mask the signal while spreading the rebellion across the Galaxy. All right, I hope you get the picture.

Now I need your help with two things:

a) The Ship

b) The Villains

a) The Ship - I think a big corvette will be enough. It will have two X-Wings in fast-launch tubes, skeleton but highly trained crew and a super cannon (among other armaments). The cannon should be something special - obviously not a game-breaking power, but - I don't know - perhaps a beefed up turbolaser (damage 15?) that also deals ion damage. It would need several rounds to spool (so when the time comes the Commander can dramatically say 'Charge the main cannon!' '2 minutes, sir!'... Any other ideas?

b) I need one main Villain, someone sinister, who knows their way around technology, preferably not a force-user. Not a cyborg. I also need ideas for the Villains lieutenants who would (with minions - troopies are ok here, expected even) often clash with the PCs.

I'm sure you'll have some great ideas for me! Thanks in advance!

a) I recommend a modified Marauder . The base stats are already in the book, it's got enough firepower to handle most things it's size, but couldn't stand against an ISD, It has a hanger bay, and it has those two big looking guns on the wings that could be your "Secret Weapon". Also, as a slightly older but still used pattern, it doesn't scream "I'm a secret weapon" every time you jump into a system.

You might consider making the secret weapon a "crit device" something that deals low damage, but has a low critical rating and high breach.

b) Admiral ___, ISB. He/She is a rising member of the Imperial Security Bureau, and after the failure of <person in charge of secret base> has been tasked to recover the ship and minimize the damage done by this crack team of rebellion commandos.

Start with your basic Imperial Minions (Storm Troopers, etc.) Then as time goes on he/she could request additional resources, gaining Compforce assault troops, dark troopers, Tie-Advances and others as necessary to keep up the pressure.

Make good use of probe droids to track where they're going, or message pods/holonet calls to warn the local imperial garrison ahead of time.

I'm concerned about the premise... If the ship is that easy to track as well as that important, I find it hard to believe that only a single ISD would be tasked to find it. The Empire has the resources to calculate "every possible destination on their last known course" and send ships to each of them.

Perhaps make it so recognizable that it's impossible to keep its arrival a secret. That way they're not actually tracking the ship, so much as the reports of the ship. This would give the party a window during which they could accomplish their mission and exfil without imminent Imperial reinforcements that are already on their way. This window could be bigger or smaller based upon the strength of the Rebel presence in the system, the strength of the Imperial presence in the system and how well they tried to hide the ship itself.

Also consider the possibility that the ship is an off-the-books project by the main antagonist. So they can't call in the big guns themselves, otherwise they get in just as much trouble for having the ship in the first place, rather than merely losing it.

As for super-weapon, consider either a shield-sapping weapon on the order of the Keldabe or a kinetic driver (low damage, high breech, low crit threshold). If you want to be particularly devious, how about a micro-black hole generator that takes minutes to target and build. If it reaches critical mass, it causes an implosion big enough to swallow a Sil 7 ship and cripple anything bigger. Consider it a prototype planet-killer.

This may be a bit out there but perhaps a hyperspace missile launcher. A device that will send a missile (or other explosive) through hyperspace and have it end up inside of the target ship. You could make it so it is only useable against capital ships and they have to make an astrogation or computers check to target each time it is used. The advantage would be that the explosive detonates inside the ship ignoring Armor shields etc.. doing massive damage. The build up to using the weapons would be arming the missile and programing the hyperspace coordinates (heaven forbid you accidentally send it into an allied ship).

This weapon could have to be powered up every so often as part of routine maintenance and when it is powered up it sends out a signal that can be tracked by the empire.

As for a secondary villain you may think about throwing in the head of a large corporation that wishes the technology so they can make and sell ships with it to the empire. Or possibly a hutt who wants the device for his own reasons. Either one one of these could easily be manipulating the Imperial who is chasing them down.

All great ideas, thanks!

As for the ship I think I'll base something on the DZM Destroyer found in F&D - exchange ions with turbolasters, more crew (100), 3 fighters.

The special weapon - I really like the idea of hyperspace missile, especially that something like that did appear in the previous campaign and, as I said, the weapon is based on ancient alien tech.

I really like the idea that the Bad Guy, at least initially, is trying to hide his failure from his bosses. And it nicely links with the idea of scaling the conflict up - first only TiE/lns and troopers, eventually oppressors and storm commandos.

I still think though, that the weapon must be fairly easy to track - if the Imps were only to follow reports the Rebels would stash the ship in a hole somewhere and that would be it.

Still thinking about the BBG and his right and left hands...

Does it have to be a weapon in the conventional sense?

A miniature gravity well generator could allow the ship to act like an interdictor despite being too small for that kind of technology. The unusual gravity waves would make the ship easier to track whenever it strays too close to an imperial outpost.

That would allow the party to strike at smaller imperial ships that regular rebel troops would be unable to hit.

Why would the ship have xwings? An imperial ship should come equipped with imperial fighters, possibly prototypes.

If you want the a-team feel they should be pursued by rebels, possibly under the command of a corrupt commander in league with the empire. They could be running from both the imperials and rebels while trying to clear their names.

And here I was going to suggest a Gree Siege cannon that was nasty but left the shooter without turbolasers or something for the remainder of the encounter.

Yeah, I forgot to write about it, but the Weapon will have a serious drawback - using it will require re-routing all the power from either shields or weapons (I think both would be too much). Moreover, it will need special ammo - the PCs will start will 10 rounds.

If you want a good character to use from the Legends (EU) line, go with Admiral Daala. She ran the Maw Installation and worked on experimental tech. It could be one of her servants that go out and try to "acquire" the tech from your players.

You may want to look at the Operation Shadowpoint PDF under the Age of Rebellion beginner game under the Support tab.

the have official stats for the moff his bodyguard and several different NPCs which you could easily use as minions and rework a little bit. This Moff is trying to recover a secret base so the storyline is not too far from what you are planning to do. you may be able to glean a few ideas from the PDF.