OK, one of the PC's in our group, being big into Corellia, piloting as well as a pretty hot mechanic made some phenomenal rolls to craft a ship. Now the characters have, through previous adventures, made several contacts all over the galaxy (one players favorite expenditure of Triumphs, lol) including a high up at CEC (Corellian Engineering Corporation, for those who don't like acronyms).

He came up with the brilliant idea to, after crafting, sell the prototype and plans to CEC (through said contact and some awesome rolls/roleplay). Now, he's willing to share with the group, but it was really all him.

How to handle in game? Already had CEC fund them with one each (group wanted to transition over to a fighter group, this seemed like the perfect way to do so) but the stats for the fighter are a bit better than most, not too powerful but significant, and cost was brought down as well, so it would be an attractive ship.

I thought about upping Duty, especially if a squadron or several get "stolen" from a CEC shipment. Also tossed up the Sound Investments talent, but I really don't want to get into buying talents outside of specs (aside from scars) if I can help it without a solid precedent/system for others to bought to. Another thought was the Entrepreneur spec with Obligation (to cut exp cost or mitigate completely). Don't really know. Open to any thoughts. Thanks

Prototypes malfunction or break down and parts would be very hard to come by unless they go back to visit CEC a lot. That might include having to run errands for CEC if you are looking for story hooks. Short-term repairs might penalize handling or speed.

If the ships are really good, that just gives you the opportunity to up the enemies to match. A special Rebel squad flying special fighters will get the same kind of attention from the Imperial Navy that rumors of Jedi would get from Inquisitors.

Also, to those whom more is given, more is expected. The Rebellion will be calling on them to assist in heavy operations.

All very good ideas and for the most part planned for (especially upping the opposition and more demands from Rebellion). However, being indebted to CEC and all the rest are going to feel like penalties, not a reward for designing ( which had no net threat or despair I might add, so technically no built-in malfunctions but I do use threat and despairs rather creatively in their fighter to represent the "working out the bugs") and selling (again, a really good series of rolls and role-play)

Any suggestions on how to balance the positives? I don't want to just drop a load of cash all at once, but looking for more low key/slower/less immediate impact but still noticeable reward for a job well done.

Thanks for the respose.

They are rebels? One impact will be potentially the Empire buying the ships in large numbers !

And maybe profit share rather than cash drop?

One thought, as you sort of mentioned, is to have CEC pay the Rebellion (rather than your PCs) as ships and parts- perhaps promised over the long run. That would impact the PCs standing with the rebellion (duty) but not require big cash payments.

Of course, this would all be done under the table.

Late addition: To up the reward to the PCs: The rebellion could put the ship program under the leadership of the PCs (specifically the hot shot pilot). They'd be responsible for training future pilots and oversight/execution of any space combat missions with said ships. You can tailor the amount of responsibility to wherever the PCs are in the campaign. Of course, you'll need a badass squadron name:)