So, I'm going to be starting a new campaign soon, and one of the first locales that my group will be visiting is a barren desert planet. The idea behind the planet is that it's uncharted, due in part to an anomaly that drags ships out of hyperspace toward it, which then crash land upon it.

Apart from a large colony / "city" of surviving droids and small bands of surviving humanoids (which have taken to preying on recent starship crash sites to survive), there are no permanent settlements on the planet. It's basically a big ball of dust with starship debris littered across the planet and in orbit.

Now, aside from your regular inhospitable climate / environ survival type stuff, I'm having difficulty coming up with ideas for compelling events that might happen on a desert planet. I already plan to have my players interact with NPC survivors from the transport they crashed on (particularly tension between groups of them), as well as a duo of mechanics that will enable them to escape the planet. Aside from combat and survival, I'm just sort of blanking on some interesting things that the players could do.

I know that I could change my setting entirely (and I might), but at this point, I'm also interested partly as a mental exercise, so your ideas are welcome.

tl;dr: Other than survival and combat, are there any fun things you can think of to challenge players with on a desert planet?

What else is there? Maybe start throwing stress on them due to the sense of extreme isolation? But there's lots you can do with environmental effects...massive sand/dust storms, extreme hot and cold temperature cycle - somewhere between 0 Kelvin and Crematoria from Riddick (ok, maybe a little more survivable than that), massive-fast-moving sand dunes, quick sand...Sarlac pit monsters, crayt dragons, and any other nasty desert beasts you can throw their way.

Beyond that you could go with the long lost ancient tech civilization...(Think ancient egypt/stargate/Necron from 40k)...maybe some ancient tech structure built within the planets crust is causing the warp space anomaly that is capturing all of these ships. None of the original race are still alive (or are they? in stasis?). Part of the campaign could be trying to deactivate this device, or to stop the empire from gaining control of it, etc.

What else is there?

Aside from the droid city and a series of what are basically ship graveyards, not all that much, I guess. Although:

Beyond that you could go with the long lost ancient tech civilization...(Think ancient egypt/stargate/Necron from 40k)...maybe some ancient tech structure built within the planets crust is causing the warp space anomaly that is capturing all of these ships. None of the original race are still alive (or are they? in stasis?). Part of the campaign could be trying to deactivate this device, or to stop the empire from gaining control of it, etc.

That's a good point. I didn't get into this particular point because I didn't want to get super long winded and, as things are planned now (meaning that I could totally change it), it affects primarily the end portion of their time on the planet.

Essentially, there is a Star Temple on the planet. It's not necessarily a Kwa Star Temple (it can be, I just haven't decided that it strictly is), but the idea is mostly the same. Basically, it houses a heavily malfunctioning Infinity Gate. As such, it's creating a massive hyperspace gravity well that pulls all hyperdrive-equipped ships toward it. I figured that perhaps an individual from a past species might be kept in statis, or as a holorecording to explain some things to the players.

This is where things get weird and kind of long-winded, as this whole planet essentially serves as a setup for the rest of the campaign to cater to my players. Since it doesn't deal directly with the events on the desert planet, the below information is only worth reading if you feel like it's important.

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They're all familiar with the movies, but are generally interested in a plot that's more morally gray than the movies. (Bare with me here, because this is probably in the realm of some weird EU ****) The idea is that, once triggered, the Star Temple in effect catastrophically melts down and dramatically affects the nature of hyperspace by slowing it down. Afterward, hyperspace simply won't let you go as fast as you once could.

The goal in this is to basically cause some serious problems in the galaxy, and shatter the Empire and Rebel Alliance by killing off major canon players (either by them turning to pudding on the walls of their ships as they immediately decelerate, or by throwing off hyperspace lanes enough to dump them out in a star, etc, etc. No more two-sided civil war (instead, it's a war among lots of splinters) and no more easy good versus evil.

I know that it's kind of a big change, but I figured that a simple assassination or dozen might not really shake things up enough to splinter the two factions, and I also wanted to accomplish said splintering without the players having direct contact with canon characters ahead of time. (And, as a secondary goal, I wanted to make hyperspace travel far less convenient and quick.)

Edit: Although, if anyone can think of a better solution to this particular problem, I'm all ears. I will be the first one to admit that I overthink and think too big (part of why I'm having trouble coming up with smaller-scale events on this particular planet ). They're totally okay with me taking the game way off the canon rails, however.

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If there are multiple opposed factions of survivors, then all sorts of political twists can develop. Particularly fun if each faction has part of the solution on how to get off the planet.

For fun, throw in some Separatist holdouts that don't know (or won't accept) that the war is over.

GM Jedi-Scoundrel's set pieces. (#googlesearch)

Blam .

Page 2 is a Desert Sand Dune, very cool.

Easily have swoop races or Gladitorial matches. Big game hunting, prospecting (searching debris field for useful information) Could be a lot of Mad max stuff thrown in. Just think post apocylpse stuff and you will be set. COuld even have a horde of marauders ravaging around the area

The ship graveyards sound like a good place to start. There may still be some crazed droids operating in there. Perhaps have some in orbit that occasionally crash to the planet. Think of Defiance's arkfalls.