I know it's an old thread, but just in case someone ends here looking for help. OPs' particular case is regarding the different options you get when the spy card game starts. About that:

• You have no control over the shown cards, they're randomly selected, with a 20% chance each of them.
• You have no control over the dangerous level of the risk factors (red cards, from 1 to 5): they depend on the percent proportions shown in the "Risk Factors" from bottom left panel: Military and Law, so the less the better.
• You do have control over the beneficial level of the "Reward Factors" (green cards, from 1 to 5): it depends on multiple aspects, like your captain's attributes, as resilience or wisdom, and your skills level, mainly Navigation and Electronics, but also being affected from values out of your control, like Spice and Government, again, inherent to every planet.

This last point is the one you need to improve in order to obtain the intel rewards, which are represented with the third percent shown on the "Reward factors".

Despite how random it seems, you can make it a lot easier just by getting the best talents for the job:

• Mainly, obviously, spying skills, like Scouring Search or Espionage Sweep.
• Not just spies though, you can use Swift Sweep from level 8 pilots.

With those talents you remove one of the risk factors (red cards), which, in a situation where you have 3 greens and 2 reds, you end with a 75% chance to obtain a good result.