So, how do you determine the "starting positions" when running one-shot missions? Starting XP, Threat Level, Equipment, Agenda Cards, all that stuff? Twin Shadows/Bespin Gambit-style or some other way? And how do you scale Threat Level and XP/Equipment? I haven't tried it yet, but while we're waiting for Jabba's Realm, it might come up..

The easiest way for one-off missions is to use the Twin Shadows / Bespin Gambit setup instructions.

Also, you can play the missions at other 'levels' by adjusting the threat level, XP and credits/influence depending on what the average or 'good' values are at different points of the regular campaign.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1525523/rules-or-best-way-play-one-missions

There should be another thread, but it seems I wasn't able to think of the correct keywords to find it.

Thanks a1bert, but I was thinking more just one-shot mission on its own than shoehorning it into a campaign. For instance, if we want to play one of the side missions that would have granted allies or villains in a regular campaign, just to try them out (because no one ever really chooses them during campaigns), and the Rebels choose four Heroes, how would the balance be between basic Heroes, fully equipped Heroes or somewhere in between? Like say they want to try out some combination of class cards, equaling 4-6 XP, what Threat Level would suit that "advancement"? TL 4? And should the IP also get to buy class cards for that many XP, or fewer or more? And what about Agenda Cards?

Stuff like that. I guess the answer would be "try it out and experiment with it", but we will probably only play each mission once, so we'd like to get a better understanding of the balance beforehand, to avoid blowouts.

But thats what a1bert explained? From the link he posted, in your example, best would be to try the following setup:

Threat Level 3, rebels: 4 XP, 400cr per hero, tier I & II, imperial: 3 XP, 5 influence.

Or

Threat Level 4, rebels: 6 XP, 700cr per hero, tier I & II, imperial: 5 XP, 9 influence.

And then just muck with the numbers according to personal taste.

Great! Sorry if I misunderstood you guys. I guess I could have spent more than a minute glancing over the thread.. thanks, neosmagus.

Just wanted to necro this thread (which I bookmarked a while ago because it was so helpful for setting up a one-shot mission) to say:

I recently played a 1-shot side mission with a friend to test out some of the HoTE stuff, and I felt like the setup we had felt pretty good for a simple one-shot mission.

I gave each side 2XP, 250 credits per hero (+50-100 credits on top of that, if they're a little short to get the items they want), 1 Influence to the Imperial player. The item draws are 1/2 the Tier I deck, and the Imperial player can pick any 1-cost, single-use agenda card (if you don't feel like looking through your whole pile, just draw from the deck randomly until you've drawn 3 agenda cards meeting those requirements, and pick one). The Threat Level was 3.

• The 2XP felt good, I thought, because that allowed for just 3 choices for class cards (both 1s or one of the 2s). This helped get a feel for the character, without overwhelming the players with too many options.
• The Threat Level of 3 was nice because it allowed the Imperial to bring in some interesting units, and to give the rebels a decent challenge.
• The amount of credits seemed to work well too because it let the Rebels pick up ~1 cheap item per hero, or forgo giving a hero an item to give one hero a better item.
• The 1-influence agenda card helps to give the Imperial an extra surprise, especially if any of the Rebels have played the mission before.

Overall, I thought it was a good way to test out some new characters and items without too serious of a time investment for setup. I also used one of the hero's reward side missions, because those tend to be pretty exciting and usually also feature that hero in some way. I thought it might be helpful to anyone who wants to do an easy one-shot mission setup.

Setup Summary:
Side mission (recommend one of the hero reward missions)
Threat Level 3
2XP for each player
250 credits per hero (+50-100 credits shared, if needed)
1/2 the Tier I Item deck for shop
1 single-mission, 1-cost Agenda card for the Imperials