There are ways around criticals and damage. Think about how many times in a movie you saw the "bad guy" just go toe-to-toe with the "good guy" Vs the number of times the bad guy snookered the good guy with a problematic situation.

For example:

*Drop your weapons or your friend/prisoners/hostages/planet dies... (Gives the GM a chance to introduce NPCs the players care about)

*You're surrounded (GM hand wave) by 20 elite minions/droidekas/bounty hunters and need to surrender or flee

*Knock out the party with gas or other non-lethal solutions e.g. "Hey, this floor looks funny..." **zzzaaapppppp** Floor is electrified.

*Capture the group with Ray Shields. Surrender and give up your weapons. Weapons are destroyed. Great, now you need money to get more gear.

*Steal/Damage their ship - make them have to sell gear to repair it or walk around the galaxy.

*Have the encounter occur in a public area where the threat of damaging civilians is paramount. Choose between open battle or retreat and replanning the attack.

*Turn them into pariahs with merchants and traders. "Sorry pal, you're too hot to sell my gear too." Make them pay 3-4x the price for basic stuff because they are wanted fugitives around the galaxy.

If the game just revolves around one violent encounter to the next, you may as well play D&D. Fight/Gear/Level/Repeat. Star Wars needs choice and consequences as well as conflict to give it that right feel for adventure. Threats don't always have to be physical threats.

Credits are not a good way to balance the game. Take their money, their gear etc. will escalate quickly triggering the steal anything bad habit.

The problem with this game is that damage is not limited by the weapons used but by the skill of the user. So a ranged light 4Y char with 4 ranks in lethal blows - which is not uncommon for an assassin or gunslinger - will be deadly with almost any weapon - even if he throws stones.

Credits are not a good way to balance the game. Take their money, their gear etc. will escalate quickly triggering the steal anything bad habit.

The problem with this game is that damage is not limited by the weapons used but by the skill of the user. So a ranged light 4Y char with 4 ranks in lethal blows - which is not uncommon for an assassin or gunslinger - will be deadly with almost any weapon - even if he throws stones.

If you want to throw stones I strongly recommend the recruit universal spec and creative killer which reduce the crit rating of improvised weapons by two ^-^