So my players have decided to take up the bounty offered on an NPC they've come across previously. The NPC escaped their clutches taking samples of a particularly nasty virus (who another NPC had commissioned him to create) with him.

I'd be interested to know what kind of encounters you'd use in this kind of adventure? Tips and advice would be very much appreciated as always

EDIT: Not really sessions more like episodes over say a 3-4 hour gaming night...

Encounter/Session #1 - intel gathering: known aliases, known associates/friends/business contacts, ship name, hired goons hinder PCs

E/S #2 - travel to place of abode, hired goons hinder PCs with ship combat on the way, blackmailed port authorities/hired goons hinder PCs.

E/S #3 - mapping the area, covering all exits, dead or alive capture?, hired goons hinder PCs

E/S #4 - hired goons hinder PCs, retrieve bounty

E/S #5 - complications: the other NPC, the virus, associated of the acquisition desire revenge. hired goons hinder PCs

E/S #6+ - rinse and repeat for each Bounty

I think you also have some opportunities for some interesting twists. Why did the npc flee with the virus? What might he have learned about how the first npc would use it? Did he really flee or was he kidnapped by another bounty hunter working for a rival interest? Did he receive another, more lucrative offer from another bidder? Would the mark offer a higher compensation for helping deliver or destroy the virus?

You might also consider developing a few locations where the mark "might be", but isn't, in order to leave clues and set up potential ambushes by the mark's goons as well as drop clues about the larger plot. Maybe they discover a scheduled meeting between the mark and his/ her new buyer that your PCs could crash and provide for a climactic fight (not to mention provide an opportunity to acquire some obligation).

Essentially it runs similar to a police procedural.

You'll start by giving the players a stack of leads to track down.

Say a family member, an old friend he probably contacted recently, and a fact sheet listing known points about the character in question like hobbies, allergies, medical conditions, ect.

Each point they investigate directs them to another lead to follow up. The family member mentions a location and new girlfriend. The girlfriend identifies the address of an apartment and a type of speeder. The apartment contains a quickpass stub for a ferry to a nearby island... so on.

Toss some red herrings in there somewhere too, so the players can't just go from one lead to another, but need to corroborate a bit with another source or two before moving to the next leg of the investigation. The path to the Ferry is just a single lead. Also finding the speeder in impound for repeated parking violations near the Ferry, and an info pamphlet to a clinic on the island in the speeders glove box makes that lead actionable.

To spice up this one I suspect you could also apply another hunter, team of hunters, or third party so on and so forth who is also looking for the same guy. That'll provide some inter-adventure action to break up the hunt and peck searching of various locations.

Many thanks for the great advice... Particularly like the idea of placing red herrings, I was worried that it might feel a little too much like it's "on rails" but with a couple if those thrown in it'll mix it up nicely Sixgun387... The mark definitely did escape, having just set the self destruct sequence in the underground lab that the players were infiltrating as part of what they thought was an industrial espionage mission. They were lucky to get out of there alive

Also I forgot to mention: Things like the Allergies and Medical conditions can be a really nice low key lead that is introduced early, but doesn't come into play until later in the adventure.

Say the character has an exotic illness he picked up somewhere that stays dormant most of the time, but flares up when the body gets hot for extended periods. You can drop that right off the bat (or list the illness, but require a check for the effects). Later in the adventure the players know the target has gone to Ryloth, Tattooine, or Hoth, but they can't find any leads to corroborate which one, until they notice that illness and figure out he's probably on Hoth.

A real world example comes from a Wired Magazine article where the reporter tried to Disappear and the magazine offered a bounty to the reader that found him. The guy pulled all kinds of fancy tricks to lay low for several months, and avoided capture even when traveling by air to a soccer game. But... the last few weeks of the hunt, after he'd already been tracked down to the city, he decided to go check out a nearby pizza place. It specialized in Gluten Free Pizza, and he had a known gluten allergy. A hunter had already been there, and had cut a deal with the manager to split the bounty, and even left a book of sketches of what the reporter would look like with different hair styles. Guy got nailed in the home stretch....

Um, wait I think you guys have this wrong. Bounty hunters never, I mean never take off their armor, they walk in to bars and threaten everyone in there that if they don't give up so and so, then he will blow the place away.

Oh, yeah FFG...not Saga...my bad....

Say the character has an exotic illness he picked up somewhere that stays dormant most of the time, but flares up when the body gets hot for extended periods. You can drop that right off the bat (or list the illness, but require a check for the effects). Later in the adventure the players know the target has gone to Ryloth, Tattooine, or Hoth, but they can't find any leads to corroborate which one, until they notice that illness and figure out he's probably on Hoth.

That would be an anomaly, alright. There aren’t many people who would pass out and almost die from heat exhaustion on an ice planet like Hoth.