I am working on some more elaborate rules (which I will eventually post) for sensor reading and I am curious if you have any ideas for neat options for threats and despairs for sensor readings: let me see what you got.

This hearkens all the way back to the good ol' days of WEG Star Wars and talking about complications -

"A character is doing a routine sensor scan of a planet and either picks up something completely erroneous or misses something absolutely vital. In the first instance, the character may believe that the planet has a small Imperial outpost, while in the latter, the character may completely overlook said outpost and land on the planet, thinking it is a safe haven."

Additionally, they could calibrate the sensors the wrong way, providing a setback die or two (depending on the severity of the threat/despair generated) until they are fixed via a Computers/Mechanics check (difficulty again determined by how badly the PC flubbed the roll). Perhaps they even overload the system entirely and cause it to crash, requiring the tech to crack the case and get in there to fix things.

Threat would definitely be a single missed piece of information. For instance, while fleeing an imperial customs frigate into an asteroid belt pursued by the frigate and a pair of TIE fighters, I would use the threat to add an extra pair of TIE's lurking in the asteroid field on minimal power. They are at speed 0 to start off with, this was only threat, not despair after all.

As for despair. Lets see, how about the sensor signals get picked up by a passing bounty hunter who analyses them and realises that they match the signature of a ship with some valuable bounties on board. Not wanting to get involved in a fight between the empire and fleeing fugitives he hangs back at extreme range in his modified Incom A-36 (super-modified-sensors for the win!) and tracks the parties hyper-jump to figure out where they are going. Taking advantage of his ships faster hyperdrive (also modified down to 0.5), he gets there first and prepares a "welcoming committee" for the party just after they land.

Yes, I did just make up a ship mod for extended sensor range off the cuff, but that is what we are meant to do isn't it?

Threat could mean missing some pieces of debris in the vicinity, giving a proportional amount of setback dice to any Piloting checks to follow. Or maybe the impacts inflict some system strain.

Despair should be more serious. Like Cyril said above, the players miss something important that will get them into trouble later. Could be enemies lurking ahead, of if they're approaching a planet it could mean they're about to fly into an ion storm in the atmosphere that fries their ship, or fail to notice that the atmosphere is saturated with pollen or some such that clogs the air filters and grounds their ship. Or maybe they think a good landing zone turns out to be filled with dangerous creatures or terrain.

Threat could be you overtax the sensors and the ship suffers strain, or while you do find what you are looking for you have to land farther away. Despair could be what you are looking for is buried deep underground or you encounter a hostile party/force also looking for the item.

Failure with despair and advantage could be that the item is missing but you see tell tale signs that the local pirates (or imps, etc.) Have taken the macguffen to their base.

We ran into this while running Beyond the Rim the other day. They rolled a Despair on a sensor sweep.

I told them it bricked the Computer- Blue Screen of Death baby! It was fun.

Good stuff! Thanks for the ideas!

If you have more throw them at me.

I am looking at building a table or 3 for this. =)