Re: LS Geo Special Mission - Vulture Droid taking too much damage
All I can say is, the random number generator for ship battles allows for a much wider range of potential damage than your standard squad battle. Did you try running it a couple more times?
Also, since the Vulture Droid is unpiloted, I find it often just doesn't stand up to other ships. Obviously it can be extremely useful if you're running a Separatist set-up with Grievous and his lovely Capital Ship, but other than that I really won't use the Vulture Droid in any situation that I can think of. However, guessing by the Geonosians and the use of the Vulture Droid that you were in fact running the Malevolence as your Capital Ship?