ive been looking at this for a while now but my gaming group at the moment is only me and a friend. is it easy to gear the game towards one PC or is there quite a lot of tweaking needed?

Get the AoR GameMaster's Kit. In it you'll find rules regarding squads and squadrons that are led by PCs. This could help your single player feel like he doesn't have to take on everything you throw at him by himself.

You can also create a bunch of NPCs that are Rival-types that are played by you. For example a senior infiltrator needs your PC to assist him on a sabotage mission. That Senior Infiltrator could be built as a PC would be built but played by you or created from a Rival template from the Adversarys section.

You could also tailor the sessions to your PC's build but throw him a curveball (not an impossible one though) every now and then.

Don't overload on the enemies when creating combat encounters. Usually 2-3 Minions in a group are enough to make a challenge. Also consider spacing out several groups of Minions too.

These are what I can think of and have been considering for my own PC group. One of my players is a Smuggler/Force Emergent who wants to get a Lightsaber and eventually develop into a full-fledged Jedi. For some of that we have been discussing solo sessions to get the Lightsaber and maybe train with some hidden Jedi or some such element. I'm sure others on the forum will have suggestions and ideas as well.

Edit: Deleted accidental repost

Was just going to ask a similar question about playing with my son. Would they're be any real issue with my creating a PC to run alongside him? It's not like there would be hardcore rules adherence (though I haven't played yet, just looking).

I wouldn't bother. What I would consider adding is a loyal droid (or 2) to fill out missing niche skills and provide a little bit of a foil for the player. Particularly if the player makes a well rounded character, one can go a long way on Ability dice.

NPC's, Squad Rules and maybe other options could help you with that. Actually I'm playing a 1+1 game too and I haven't seen any problems.

The only different thing I do is that at the beginnig of each session I make him roll 2 Force Dices to create Destiny Pool to compensate because that the game designers seems that they created this rules thinking on a party group of +2.

So, rolling 2 dices instead one and using NPC's and Squads, you will have no problems mate

Yeah ive been thinking of adding a droid or two. what would be the best. im thinking maybe a astromech and maybe another type depending on what class my mate chooses

Yeah ive been thinking of adding a droid or two. is there any ules in the corebook for R2 units. i couldnt find any.

The Age of Rebellion corebook has an Astromech Droid(the type of droid R2 is) listed as a Rival Adversary. You could use that template or use the template as a guideline to building an Astromech PC.

In my main game we have above 60 not-so-important NPC's, 30 important NPC's and 11 really important NPC's. So, don't be afraid to use NPC's to recreate a fully alive universe

PS: Note them in a document or you will have tons of problems XD