Need some ideas and advice.

In the session I'm putting together the PC's are sent by Yerro the Hutt to recover the cargo from one of his ship's. The ship experienced a catastrophic failure on Quason-12, a kessel-like planet in wild-space, while harvesting a rare tuber that grows there. This tuber is highly prized the Hutts because when it is processed it is a very potent Hutt aphrodisiac. As a result, all information regarding this biological his intensely guarded by the few Hutt's that know about it.

the PC's may potentially get enough information to decide that bringing empty biological cargo crates could be very profitable. However, there is a similar specimen with very similar physical characteristic except when it "blooms" it emits a very dangerous acidic gas. Harvesting this variety is what caused Yerro's ship to crash back to the surface as the hull was breached by the acidic spray.

Fortunately the PC's have a Dr. and that doctor may or may have the foresight to run some basic analysis of a few specimens to see if she can differentiate between the two varieties and determine to what specs their bio-crates need to simulate to insure viability during transport.

I'm thinking that analysis will be an average difficulty medicine check, the lack of a fully functioning lab adds just a little difficulty.

But what about threat, advantage and despair? I'm trying to jot a few notes to have in my pocket.

For example. On a success with despair would it be "fair" to say something like "well, your scanner returned a pretty in-depth analysis that seems like it would make differentiating the two species fairly easy but a few glitches in the scanner leaves you less than confident in its accuracy," essentially saying that yes, you successfully scanned the specimen but the information is wrong and has the potential to cause huge problems.

I like your story idea. It sounds similar to something I might run. I would note that Medicine is typically an "action" skill in this game that uses applied knowledge while mentally playing with the sciences themselves is typically Knowledge (Education or Xenology).

Your despair isn't severe enough. If you're throwing red dice at a problem it needs to to SHTF. On a success with threat use something wonky. With depair something terrible is to happen, eg while studying the thing (success), it blooms and causes <blank damage> (despair) roll: resiliance, coordination, skullduggery, to avoid taking damage. Roll coodination to contain the problem/activate a way to contain the problem.

I like your story idea. It sounds similar to something I might run. I would note that Medicine is typically an "action" skill in this game that uses applied knowledge while mentally playing with the sciences themselves is typically Knowledge (Education or Xenology).

Right! I was actually thinking of education, but had Medical on the brain from another scenario I was thinking about. Thanks for the Xenology suggestion. I think that will apply quite a bit this session considering the main antagonist is a plant!

Your despair isn't severe enough. If you're throwing red dice at a problem it needs to to SHTF. On a success with threat use something wonky. With depair something terrible is to happen, eg while studying the thing (success), it blooms and causes <blank damage> (despair) roll: resiliance, coordination, skullduggery, to avoid taking damage. Roll coodination to contain the problem/activate a way to contain the problem.

Yes... I see what my problem was now. I had predetermined if the specimen being analyzed was dangerous or now and then trying to fit the dice to the scenario... d20 syndrome. It makes much more sense and does't railroad the players to allow the dice to determine what kind of specimen it is.

Thanks for the responses HappyDaze and ASCIB Blue. That was great feedback. I think the first few session are going to be all about breaking the d20 mindset.

Happy to help, I had to break my group of D20 syndrome as well. All of my players have done more with D&D than any other system with a couple who had done some d6 and d10 stuff.

Getting used to 'opposed' rolls is my next step. I think I screwed up early on and hadn't really stepped back in to say how they're properly done. Then I caught a friend who ran a session doing an opposed roll, which in FFG's system is incorrect. One person rolls dice based off what the situation is.

Yeah, most of my experience is D&D but I started out with the old Role Master and M.E.R.P. systems. Then played a lot of Vampire and Mage in college, where we hardly ever used dice, it was mostly narrative, haha.