I'm planning an encounter where an ambitious Hutt is wanting access to some very very valuable resources that the Imperials are currently overseeing. The party has unwittingly volunteered themselves as employees to this Hutt. He plans to use their Citadel Freighter as an anti-fighter ship, since they recently upgraded their targeting computer & one of their 2 medium laser turrets.

I'm trying to make an encounter that wont drag on too long or get too boring either.

I was roughly planning on the Imps having a single Neublon Frigate with full TIE compliment + 1 Lamba Shuttle vs a ragtag mishmash fleet assembled by the Hutt and his allies.

I had planned on 2 Wayfayer's freighters using their 5 HP to add: 1 Light turbolaser turret & 2 hangar attachments that can bring a total of 8 Hutt starfighters.

Keep in mind the ERA is Darktimes: 15 BBY. Also the Imperials will not have ANY reinforcements whatsoever.

1. What sort other additional ships would you have the Hutts use to take out a Neublon-B and all its TIE's?
2. What Starfighters would the Hutts use?
3. Would you setup the Neublon's guns as Minions or Rivals? Base of 2 agi or 3 agi?
4. Could a medium tractor beam stop a capital ship from entering hyperspace?
5. At what rate/pace would you let the TIE's be launched from the Frigate?
6. Would you have a capital ship's destruction cause a BLAST attack on [Close]?

1 & 2. You could use Y-wings if you want or go with MandalMotors spacecraft (ala SWG).

3. Depends on your narrative I think. Sounds like you don't really want to roll for long periods of time so I'd keep it simple on the NPC side and only roll what effects your characters. That said, if the frigate is attacking your PCs, I'd use small groups or banks of guns (as minions) based on firing arcs and number of targets the frigate is fighting. So, if they are a big threat, you roll more guns and if they aren't maybe one bank during a round.

4. No. Perhaps slow it getting to an exit vector location. You could have a well placed hit disable the hyperdrive though.

5. Groups of 3 and perhaps two groups per round.

6. Close would be good. Perhaps you could base it off its size or maybe use the force dice for "random" pieces flying around.

1) Ditch the modified wayfarer carriers, replace with marauder corvettes or pair of correlian gunships.

2) cloakshapes, z-95s, one of any dozens of other starfighters available. Don't forget you can use hyperdrive sleds to make these craft jump capable of just use the marauder as the carrier.

3)minion groups, though as dharus said its really a matter of the narrative.

4) Does the GM want it to?

5) See my later note. But most will probably be out on patrol/picket duty when the players arrive.

6) no, see my later note.

Later note:

OK, one thing I notice is you are setting yourself up for some possible trouble. EotEs space combat system is best as a narrative, not a simulation system. You can try and run it as a Sim, and it can work, but you'll probably give yourself a lot of headache doing so as tracking every fighter and gunner and ships crewer can get tedious. And you said boring and dragging is what you want to avoid.

If your players job is to screen fighters, focus on that. Track the fighters your players are expected to engage, and your players and just describe roughly what's going on in the larger battle. If you want more track as needed, but until your players start involving other craft, don't track them directly, use things like triumph and despair to explain how they are effecting the players and that's it. Use terrain difficulty to represent the chances of getting a stray hit or ship collisions. Use single roll combat resolution to decide how the other ships are doing as needed.

Ok so normally you'd only roll pilot check for terrain difficulty if they were using 'fly' maneuver to change range bands. Would you have them do this EACH round while in the middle of this fight, if they are using any sort of maneuver or attack action?

I changed the Hutt ship to a Minstrel-class Yacht , which seemed more appropriate, as thats what several other powerful Hutts used. I just dont envision Hutts using Corellian type ships.

As the GM, I want the Groups actions/performance to affect the outcome and I have plans for multiple outcomes. How might I do that besides measuring how successful they are killing the fighters they're supposed to?

Why so few Imperial ships? Also, what are the exact circumstances of this encounter?

In my campaign the Imperials have a very small presence in the Outer Rim and this is a secret mining colony discovered by the Group. They told the Hutt about it and now he wants it for himself. The colony had been selling the resources to Imperials under coercion and now the Imperials are there to grab anything thats left and nuke it so noone can have it.

The resource is a new kind of spice, which is pretty concentrated so no need for heavy cargo hauler or anything. Shuttle + stormtroopers will pick it up. The Imperials dont know the Hutt is coming.

I think it depends on how you want to run the fight. I'd setup a basic location of the large ships and have the dogfighting in the general area. To keep your options open I'd use chase rules with either the group's target and/or possibly someone chasing them. Kind of a double chase to represent a dogfight. When they chase someone, they get dragged near the enemy frigate. You could have a back and forth in the skirmish area each round. If you've got an attack plan for the big ships, use that plan to move the large ships every few rounds. This way the first few rounds would be mostly starfighters then when a few rounds pass the capital ships get into the brawl.

For determining the group's action I'd probably have milestone events ready. If they kill a lot of fighters, the Imps see a danger and start moving to an exit vector. The group then needs to act because they are closest or whatever. If they don't kill enough imps, the Hutts start to flee. Give a few rounds in here for them to adjust to the battle flow. Perhaps give them a window of attack where they are clear of fighters for a round or two and they can line up for an attack on the frigate or allow the Hutt NPCs to expose a temporary weakness during an attack (like the bridge shields flickering off or some other vital component like the hyperdrive) and allow the PCs to react to take advantage. Basically, add attacks or defense options to pull into the narrative based on the ebb and flow of the fight.

Ok so normally you'd only roll pilot check for terrain difficulty if they were using 'fly' maneuver to change range bands. Would you have them do this EACH round while in the middle of this fight, if they are using any sort of maneuver or attack action?

As the GM, I want the Groups actions/performance to affect the outcome and I have plans for multiple outcomes. How might I do that besides measuring how successful they are killing the fighters they're supposed to?