My players managed to capture an Arquitens-class light cruiser in our last session. I thought it would be fun to have their fledgling rebel cell assign them the task of finding a location for a secret base that can service and supply the captured ship.

I need to come up with three or four possible locations for them to scout out, each with advantages and disadvantages. The group will investigate the options and decide on one, then neutralize potential threats.

The obvious one to me is a former asteroid mine, infested with a mynock colony and/or a young exogorth (space slug).

Do you have a favorite hidden base location that has appeared in your game? Or a suggestion from the EU or your own imagination? The weirder the better.

A couple of ideas

1: Legends mentioned that before the Clone Wars the Intergalactic Banking Clan had a number of space stations in deep space outside the galaxy proper (in areas like where the rebel fleet regruped at the end of Empire Strikes Back) They were originally vaults or meeting locations but the separatists converted some of them into shipyards and I imagine they would have some leftover battle droids and security systems to cause trouble.

2: A mostly abandoned shadowport. Perhaps a much smaller Cloud City style structure in some gas giant. Have a few people trying to restore it to its glory days and some who don't want the rebels operating from it trying to drive off the party.

A base in very low orbit over a sun, with a huge 'solar shield' - like the Shieldships on Nkllon in Heir to the Empire - providing a survivable region of shade.

I had my players investigate an old CIS base that had been buried under a mountain due to orbital bombardment. There were still droids within trying to reach the surface and make contact with their command structure. Fun game, especially as the PCs can fight, sneak, or use diplomacy. In the case of my PCs, they took the command room and used a datapad to convince the tactical droid in command of what had happened over the past two decades. Fun times.

Depends on how ballsy you view the Rebellion. Imagine an Imperial refueling depot. Rebellion takes out the crew and replaces it with a Rebellion crew, hacks enough computers to have the crew be in the Imperial database. They continue servicing Imperial ships (while reporting on details and destinations), and when no one is watching, services Rebel vessels too. Since they are in charge, they have to cook the books to make sure no one notices missing parts and fuel.

How about in the heart of a massive debris field the result of some of the largest conflicts going back through the clone wars and even back to the Old Republic itself?

Clearly there are salvagers working the asteroid belt and drifting wrecks but not every ship is an uninhabitable wreck, I can see a few established to function much like the Wheel designed to help with their flourishing business of salvaging wrecks, mining the asteroids and making deals to keep the system relevant at least with the underworld.

After all the Empire is bad news for everyone and keeping their operation small enough to be considered not worth bothering with is part and parcel of their cover to insure they remain unaffected by the Empire's troubles.

So they have good reason to not want rebels drawing attention to the system!

Ice planet full of wampas and tauntauns. Nice and remote but food could be an issue

Inferno world full of volcanoes and ancient lava tubes. All sorts of monsters could lurk in the dark

Asteroid belt with mynocks and space slugs to fight off. Or leave them in place as a deterrent to Imperial spies

Derelict space station that needs to be cleaned of pirates or wildlife.

Primitive world where the local population could see the new arrivals as some sort of "god-like" group. This could be in a jungle or forest region.

Travelling Bob's Salvage Yard. A massive superhauler converted into a space tender. Looks like a flying junkyard which scavenges parts after any major battle. Not intended as a refuel/rearm point, but what the Empire doesn't see ...

Also, Bob and his family run the project. And they are all Jawas.

On 7/4/2017 at 11:37 PM, RogueCorona said:

A couple of ideas

1: Legends mentioned that before the Clone Wars the Intergalactic Banking Clan had a number of space stations in deep space outside the galaxy proper (in areas like where the rebel fleet regruped at the end of Empire Strikes Back) They were originally vaults or meeting locations but the separatists converted some of them into shipyards and I imagine they would have some leftover battle droids and security systems to cause trouble.

2: A mostly abandoned shadowport. Perhaps a much smaller Cloud City style structure in some gas giant. Have a few people trying to restore it to its glory days and some who don't want the rebels operating from it trying to drive off the party.

That actually raises a really interesting point: instead of different physical settings (asteroid base vs. ice planet vs. jungle, etc.), give them options that would reward different approaches:

• A jungle world where the party would have to drive off or tame the local megafauna, clear space in the jungle (either through brute force, taming the creatures for hauling, or befriending a native species like Ewoks)
• A shadowport run by a semi-friendly group of pirates; the party has to negotiate an alliance. What's the cost? Does the pirate lord in charge need the party to clear his name in Imperial records? Does he need a rival destroyed or discredited? And what do the rest of the pirates think of allying themselves with the Rebellion? Which one will be the first to try do disrupt negotiations, and how will they do it?
• A world once used by the Empire as a testing ground for bio-plagues and now devoid of life; rumor has it a scientist has the formula for an antidote. Can the party find him? Is the rumor accurate--and is the formula complete? Can the party synthesize it, or help him complete it? What rare component is needed for it, and how can they distribute it well enough to make a safe base on a plague-ridden planet? (Mechanics and Medicine would be great here with some of the atmosphere-generating equipment from the Colonist sourcebook.)
• A volcanically-active planet like Mustafar could make a great location for a secret base...but you need an army of construction droids to build a habitation capable of supporting organic life, as it's too toxic an environment to support most sentient life. Where are you going to get them? There's a massive construction firm that is willing to help, but their droids are currently working on an Imperial contract...

Look at your players' characters, and see if you can come up with a couple of approaches that might appeal to them.

On 7/6/2017 at 4:37 AM, Edgookin said:

Depends on how ballsy you view the Rebellion. Imagine an Imperial refueling depot. Rebellion takes out the crew and replaces it with a Rebellion crew, hacks enough computers to have the crew be in the Imperial database. They continue servicing Imperial ships (while reporting on details and destinations), and when no one is watching, services Rebel vessels too. Since they are in charge, they have to cook the books to make sure no one notices missing parts and fuel.

Some built-in adventure seeds, too, since you need to make sure that the Rebel ships aren't around when the Empire is. What happens when an Imperial ships drops by on an unscheduled visit? Or you get a distress call from a Rebel ship that needs emergency repairs--but there's an Imperial capital ship in orbit right now!

A wrecked seriously pre-clone wars heavy cruiser in a stable but extremely low orbit of a turbulant gas giant.

A high mountain location that's a series of carved caves and tunnels on a mountain top. The planet has no colonies or other inhabitants, and no one knows who carved the tunnels or why.

A series of small tropical islands. Who said secret bases had to be unpleasant? Hurricanes suck though...

An underground former mining facility on a planet so close to the sun daylight is over 800 degrees. Nights only around 120 though, much nicer. Did I mention the 10 hour days?

My rebels are building their base on an abandoned agricultural and mining homestead. The reason it was abandoned?

Wildlife, lot's of it and BIG!

EDIT: Also you should NEVER forget, that the players need to run Reconnaissance around the neighboring systems to their base! Or else they might get a nasty surprise. The way they do that depends on what you want them to have: sensor satellites, Recon-fitted starfighters like A-Wings (In Legends there was the Y-Wing Logprobe model, which hat the ion turret switched out for some sensor equipment, then there's of course the ARC-170, which would give your players and their NSCs quite a formidable fighting force as well), patrol boats... Perhaps a deal with pirates, or smugglers.

On 7/8/2017 at 5:13 PM, TheMOELANDER said:

EDIT: Also you should NEVER forget, that the players need to run Reconnaissance around the neighboring systems to their base! Or else they might get a nasty surprise. The way they do that depends on what you want them to have: sensor satellites, Recon-fitted starfighters like A-Wings (In Legends there was the Y-Wing Logprobe model, which hat the ion turret switched out for some sensor equipment, then there's of course the ARC-170, which would give your players and their NSCs quite a formidable fighting force as well), patrol boats... Perhaps a deal with pirates, or smugglers.

I thought the Ywing longprobe eliminated the 2nd crew slot, but kept the turret in a fixed forward position.

1 hour ago, Edgookin said:

I thought the Ywing longprobe eliminated the 2nd crew slot, but kept the turret in a fixed forward position.

Hmm maybe... though wasn't the Longprobe an A4? That would be the singleseat version anyway.. gonna Wookiee it

Have you looked at Strongholds of the Resistance? It is full of cool bases! https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-age-of-rebellion/products/strongholds-resistance/

What I quite like too is that some of the bases has a timeline of how it develops from discovered site through to fully developed Rebel base. It is a great story line tool to get the players involved in building the base.

I recall running across some maps of a Rebel base in a tropical resort archipelago. Lots of cool opportunities there for stealing information from Imperial visitors, as well as all kinds of spycraft & subterfuge.

If you want something to maintain the ship I would be it somewhere in space as the ship actually had performance issues in atmosphere this is cannon, so I would say in an asteroid field or an old abandoned reputation space station in the outer rim as the imperial precense is minimal at best also means you could have encounters with pirates who come across the base and the rebels either need to negotiate with them or defeat them

Lone black body planetoid on the outskirts of any shipping lanes or populated systems. And I'm talking the DARK of space here. Sure, galaxies are big, but there's a LOT of darkness between the stars, and a lot of stuff moving around in that darkness. Finding an asteroid and re-purposing as a hidden base would be very good in my opinion.

Pros: Near perfect secrecy. They are so out of the way, that almost nobody should even remotely come across them. If they take steps to insure their spectrum signature is non-existent (no outgoing transmissions, all power sources are inside the planetoid, and shielded, etc), it would further go to giving them almost complete safety out there. This could be ideal for the Rebellion too, if they have any sensitive projects that can't be disturbed, the NPC's could be on staff, working there, secure in the fact that they won't have to pack up and run for their lives at a moment's notice, because the Empire found out their hiding spot.

Cons: Totally isolated. Given the remote location, if anything goes wrong (and a good GM would make sure something does ) , they won't be able to send out an SOS. If you've ever watched Firefly, and remember the episode Out of Gas, you have an idea on the type of situation the PC could end up in. Alone, without power, limited atmosphere, and few ways to try and call for help...and that help might not be "helpful" when it shows up.


I can probably think of a few others given time, however today is turning out to be a hectic one, so that's all for now.

On 7/10/2017 at 9:59 AM, TheMOELANDER said:

Hmm maybe... though wasn't the Longprobe an A4? That would be the singleseat version anyway.. gonna Wookiee it

Depends on your source.

The "normal" Y-wing had 2 variants. One with a turret, one with them fixed forward.

The Long probe originally was identical to the normal 1-seater but with slightly better sensor range and a full navigation computer, not just a reliance on the 10 preprogrammed coordinates the astromech carried.

Later it mophed, gaining and losing weapons and capable as required by the story/game it appeared in, and even getting some noticable cosmetic work done as well to help differentiate it visually.

On 7/21/2017 at 10:40 AM, KungFuFerret said:

Lone black body planetoid on the outskirts of any shipping lanes or populated systems. And I'm talking the DARK of space here. Sure, galaxies are big, but there's a LOT of darkness between the stars, and a lot of stuff moving around in that darkness. Finding an asteroid and re-purposing as a hidden base would be very good in my opinion.

Pros: Near perfect secrecy. They are so out of the way, that almost nobody should even remotely come across them. If they take steps to insure their spectrum signature is non-existent (no outgoing transmissions, all power sources are inside the planetoid, and shielded, etc), it would further go to giving them almost complete safety out there. This could be ideal for the Rebellion too, if they have any sensitive projects that can't be disturbed, the NPC's could be on staff, working there, secure in the fact that they won't have to pack up and run for their lives at a moment's notice, because the Empire found out their hiding spot.

Cons: Totally isolated. Given the remote location, if anything goes wrong (and a good GM would make sure something does ) , they won't be able to send out an SOS. If you've ever watched Firefly, and remember the episode Out of Gas, you have an idea on the type of situation the PC could end up in. Alone, without power, limited atmosphere, and few ways to try and call for help...and that help might not be "helpful" when it shows up.


I can probably think of a few others given time, however today is turning out to be a hectic one, so that's all for now.

I can agree with this one. Astronomers have postulated that in our universe there are rogue planets, so why not in the EU?

Although these planets are more than likely going to be nothing more than deep frozen ice-balls, with the possibility of a couple of them being volcanic, but unlikely due to the lack of gravity from other celestial bodies.

26 minutes ago, ThreeBFour said:

I can agree with this one. Astronomers have postulated that in our universe there are rogue planets, so why not in the EU?

Although these planets are more than likely going to be nothing more than deep frozen ice-balls, with the possibility of a couple of them being volcanic, but unlikely due to the lack of gravity from other celestial bodies.

Yeah, but im sure one could find a floating rock (actual rock planetoid) and convert it into a base. Or, just hurl one out there. The scale of equipment in star wars is insane, so that's not outside of the possible.

I always thought a great location would be beneath the ice in a sea of some sort of different liquid, like Jupiter's one moon is postulated as having. Can't remember if it's liquid methane or something. Anyways, the ice layer and submerged station/ship/facility would be well hidden and make for a combination of Hoth/Mon Cala style base.

In our current game we took over an abandoned island resort that had once been converted to a republic hospital during the clone wars. The CIS forces found it and slaughtered everyone. So it has that decaying beauty/natural beauty and this tragic, haunted past. Plus, the old service entrance was behind an artificial waterfall so guests didn't need to see the shipments.

15 hours ago, Khazadune said:

I always thought a great location would be beneath the ice in a sea of some sort of different liquid, like Jupiter's one moon is postulated as having. Can't remember if it's liquid methane or something. Anyways, the ice layer and submerged station/ship/facility would be well hidden and make for a combination of Hoth/Mon Cala style base.

I could see an effective attack on a base in a methane sea. Use a liquid oxygen canister with an igniter as a depth charge. Might have to use a turbolaser to crack the ice open.

On 7/4/2017 at 8:07 PM, O the Owl said:

My players managed to capture an Arquitens-class light cruiser in our last session. I thought it would be fun to have their fledgling rebel cell assign them the task of finding a location for a secret base that can service and supply the captured ship.

I need to come up with three or four possible locations for them to scout out, each with advantages and disadvantages. The group will investigate the options and decide on one, then neutralize potential threats.

The obvious one to me is a former asteroid mine, infested with a mynock colony and/or a young exogorth (space slug).

Do you have a favorite hidden base location that has appeared in your game? Or a suggestion from the EU or your own imagination? The weirder the better.

Perhaps they find old Clone Wars records of a crashed Venator in old memory on the Aquitens..

On 7/4/2017 at 8:07 PM, O the Owl said:

Do you have a favorite hidden base location that has appeared in your game? Or a suggestion from the EU or your own imagination? The weirder the better.

A race of giant space faring creatures, that simply fly through the vacuum of space, leave giant turds of a rare mineral, that are sometimes found floating in space. The party finds one, not knowing it's a literal ball of crap, and hollow it out to make as a base. They are amazed at how well any plantlife they bring on grows, thriving in the facility.

This one isn't mine, but I loved it when I heard it from Sam Whitwer. Slightly altered from what he did.
The party finds either an abandoned amusement park, or a derelict pleasure ship, that's completely populated by deactivated droids, who had been rigged into the machinery in some twisted Disneyesque parody of their animatronic rides like Pirates of the Caribbean. Droids with only a torso, jerk around like puppets when the power is turned back on, and the party has to 1. Not freak the bleep out at seeing this creepy scene. 2. Decide how to liberate the droids (if they want to). 3. Turn the facility, complete with staff, to their own advantage.

You could have several missions that involve them having to conquer the various portions of the Funville theme park, and you can introduce your favorite animatronic horrors for high octane nightmare fuel purposes.

The party comes across the floating, petrified corpse of an exogorth, and turn it into a base.