I hate to ask this, I really, really do, but my group just lost to a bunch of dark troopers and I fudged it to have them get locked up by the Empire. Can I please ask for some ideas on how I could bust them out?

If they haven't been introduced to the Rebellion yet, now might be a good time.

Rebel troops attack the Imperial base in hopes of saving some of their own, the PCs get rescued along the way.

Ask them how they'd like to break out. Get them to give you ideas. Then you can do some skill checks, improv, and boom. See what happens!

Or maybe they don't want to break out, maybe they want to stay prisoners, gather intel, cosy up to a guard, THEN stir the pot?

Tbh, what were they even doing to fight a bunch of dark troopers? Without background, seems hard to gauge.

Have them meet someone planning a breakout, or have one happen, space pirates, boom new employer that they owe stacks of obligation to. Or the alliance.

Or, if you want to get really inventive, get the chiss to bust them out. Why? Because they want to know what is going on with the empire at large.

Have the dungeon ship transporting them to a penal colony get struck by an uncharted asteroid storm. They players must suit up and EVA across what's left of the ship to get the the shuttle bay, liberate a shuttle, and then crash land on a nearby planet.The locals are just ordinary settlers content to stay out of the galaxy at large, and when the players arrive, they have to convince the locals not to turn them over to the Imperials at a sleepy comm relay station several km away.

Hutts. Give them a huge Obligation to a Hutt in exchange for breaking them out

1) During a routine prisoner exchange the prison transport is intercepted because another prisoner turns out to be a rebel operative misidentified by the Empire.

2) A mysterious black garbed imperial gathers them together.

"I have a mission for you, if you complete it any record of your incarceration will be " misfiled" that's bureaucracies for you.

Now you can say no I wouldn't recommend it as only a rebel is THAT idiotic and frankly I'm looking for some freelance troubleshooters with an interest in earning money AND staying under the radar.

Now I can help you with that last bit but I need convincing... so fancy getting a very early parole, a sizeable bonus along with a monetary reward if you fulfil my request?"

3) They survived a fight with imperial darktroopers?

Do THEY know what they were?

I suspect the Empire might want to dispose of them quietly or worse look to transfer them somewhere they can have a very fatal rematch with those darktroopers...

4) Does the Empire know they survived an encounter with the Darktroopers?

Maybe whoever arrested them didn't know so now they have a limited time to escape before someone imperial notices...

5) Jail break!

Doesn't involve them though... but maybe they can take advantage of the confusion?

I had a similar thing happen in an AoR adventure I ran. The PCs were captured and shipped off the ISB HQ on Coruscant because one of them was a Force-sensitive. One thing that my PCs really enjoyed was running an interrogation scene. Beforehand I had them all come up with some deeper background on the missions the group had run (the conceit was that they operated together for a while before the campaign) as well as their home base, commander, etc. I then had them rotate in and out so I dealt with them one at a time, with an ISB agent coming and asking them questions. It's a great opportunity for social skills, as well as Discipline and Resilience, to shine, seeing how well they hold up, what and how much they reveal, and how they generally react. Especially once you have the agent mention that someone revealed something, but later nobody knows who talked and who stayed silent.

Eventually to get them out of it I had them all set up for a public execution that got busted up by a Rebel spec-ops unit stationed in the undercity. Great foot chase sequence with the rebel captain and two of the PCs trying to keep an Inquisitor from catching up while the other PCs had to fight their way off the execution platform and through a crowd. Also segued really nicely into the Under a Black Sun adventure, with some modifications.

I hope some of that is helpful to you and doesn't just come off as rambling about my old game . I guess the tl;dr is use it as an opportunity to throw a curveball into the direction of the campaign. Introduce new characters, new themes, and new situations to keep your players on their toes through what should be a really rough time for their characters.

If they haven't been introduced to the Rebellion yet, now might be a good time.

Rebel troops attack the Imperial base in hopes of saving some of their own, the PCs get rescued along the way.

...and they all have to work together with Captain Randomname to defeat the Imperial reinforcements (under the command of Colonel Badguy) to make their escape. Even if they don't immediately join the Rebellion, they make both a powerful ally and enemy along the way for later use.

Disillusioned prison guard/warden/technician/hooligan grows weary of working for the Empire anymore (they cut the dental benefits), offers the players a way out if they take care of some dirty work and take them along during the escape.

They get resqued by a blonde farmboy, a smuggler and a wookie who where actualy trying to find a princess.

Do the PCs owe Obligation to someone else? They can't pay that off if they're prisoners. The person they owe arranges a break out. And now the PCs owe that guy even more...

1. Bust out yourself

2. Bust out with help of criminals

3. Bust out with help of rebels

4. Play 'The dirty dozen'

5. Create new characters. May sound harsh, but for finding certain secrets and getting caught execution is the way to go.

6. Be "allowed" to bust out by some officer/ISB agent/moff who wants to track them back to bigger fish.

The Ravagers bust open the prison to recover a few captured but important minions how do your players feel about owing Yondu the Chiss Pirate?

If they haven't been introduced to the Rebellion yet, now might be a good time.

Rebel troops attack the Imperial base in hopes of saving some of their own, the PCs get rescued along the way.

Heh, that's actually how my campaign is going to start.

The PC's in the local (but still Imperial) jail for different charges, don't know eachother, and the Rebels hit the jail to free their captured operatives.

The PC's get to benefit from the escape (with a stern "don't even think about following us" from a heavily armed republic trooper), but they have to get off-planet on their own with no equipment other than their clothes.

No weapons in the local milita jail (rebels swooped those up right quick), so they'll head out in the opposite direction of the rebels.

Starport is under heavy lockdown, so no chance of getting off the planet that way.

My thoughts were that they'll find an ancient ship in a museum nearby. (the Smugglers ship from SW:TOR)

Ship is out of power, no weapons and no navicomputer, but they could get it running with some effort and blast off the planet.

Thinking they might get a hyperspace jump out of a stolen astromech or something.

Point is, they'll be out of money and down on their luck at the start of the campaign.

I started a game once where the PCs were former cops, framed and sentenced to hard labour. The ship was transporting several dozen other prisoners, one of whom was a technical genius who'd worked out how to unlock the cell doors. During the mayhem between the guards and prisoners, the ship hit an asteroid so there was a mad scramble for the escape pods and some unexpected alliances. Only one pod made it (the one with the PCs of course) with a mix of convicts and soldiers led by the ship captain, and they crash landed on a hostile planet. Balancing the dynamic between the convicts, the soldiers, and the PCs (...as former cops, welcome in neither camp...) made for some fun roleplaying. One of the tricks was a solid cast of NPCs with their own motivations and flavours.

Unfortunately this was pre-Skype, and since I was living in a different city we never got to finish it.