Specifically, in situations involving entering or hiding on a ship, will Starfinder's tech hurt Stealth?
In Pathfinder, you enter a cave and hide. Sure, you might step on a string of cans or the entrance might even be magically trapped, alerting its denizens. But for the most part, you enter the cave, wait, and kill the chieftain.
In Starfinder, however, I imagine the ship's AI will sound the intruder alert like Atari's Berzerk. You'd have to defeat the AI, not something easily done at the cargo bay door despite what R2 says. And the code might be based on syntax that you're not aware of.
Even if you had a cloak that projected the background image there are multiple ways to detect your intrusion - movement, heat, ultraviolet, carbon dioxide, weight, just to name a few. You'd have to own a lot of techy coats and figure out which tech is targeting you (ignoring the fact that the AI can employ all those and more).
The Chieftain is not easily amused by your intrusion.
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It's unclear how it will function. I imagine that stealth fields (basically invisibility) as a class feature might be a thing to help get around problems of technology being very good at detecting things.
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How much does tech hurt stealth in Traveller? SWRPG? Shadowrun? Hell, how much did tech hurt stealth in Star Wars? Stargate? The Fifth Element? Ghost in the Shell? All had their caveats, and all could be eviscerated from this perspective.
All of your points would be valid in the realities of any sci-fi universe, but fortunately for Sneaky McSneak, neither Star Finder nor any of the other universes just mentioned are reality, and the arguments of reality don't need to apply. I would assume stealth still functions as stealth, just as it would in any other sci-fi setting.
Why is the AI assumed to have unlimited resources and the stealthy character is not?
Hopefully we'll only have to deal with retrograde sci-fi tech. Big ol' computer consoles, 8 bit graphics, etc. That way we only need to track the camera's (stand in for an orc on guard duty) field of vision as it moves, then stealth past it when it turns away... 'cause it will turn away.
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In space, no one can hear you make a Stealth check... that's got to be worth a circumstance bonus, right?
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Depends on the ship I imagine. Star Wars and Traveller low balled how good computers would be in the future. Eclipse Phase gives some good ideas on how to do Stealth. Thing to remember is that not every ship will have those capabilities. Especially low end military and most civilian ships.
There's also hacking. It's doubtful that ships will have super advanced sapient virtual intelligence, so you can hack the ship's computer to leave you undetected from such measures.
As for knowledge checks, the way I've seen it done and I do them is to have basic knowledge freely available, but specific stuff that requires a degree take a bit longer to find, and with a higher chance of finding misinformation. Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true :)
Also it's better to focus on using information in an age where information can be found fairly easily.
I agree with the obsolescence of knowledge skills in any setting in or post-information age. What should be abstracted for stealth should also be abstracted for knowledge, but the use of tech should be more rationalized.
As I posted elsewhere, technology-based skills should replace knowledge skills IMHO. Each character in any space opera or sci-fi story had their areas of technical expertise, and that should be translated into SF. Instead of the generic "computers" checks we saw in the playtest video, there should be "Computers: Security; Engineering; Science; Communications; Databases; AI; etc."
Again, IMO, this should be the impact of technology on game mechanics. Hell, if this isn't the case I may house rule it. It just makes sense.
I agree with the obsolescence of knowledge skills in any setting in or post-information age. What should be abstracted for stealth should also be abstracted for knowledge, but the use of tech should be more rationalized.
As I posted elsewhere, technology-based skills should replace knowledge skills IMHO. Each character in any space opera or sci-fi story had their areas of technical expertise, and that should be translated into SF. Instead of the generic "computers" checks we saw in the playtest video, there should be "Computers: Security; Engineering; Science; Communications; Databases; AI; etc."
Again, IMO, this should be the impact of technology on game mechanics. Hell, if this isn't the case I may house rule it. It just makes sense.
I disagree to a point. As we've seen in today's world, there is a great deal of misinformation on the internet. And that having the information to do something doesn't actually mean you can use it effectively. If I ready a WikiHow on doing brain surgery, that doesn't mean I can suddenly do it. Or that the WikiHow was even correct.
I think knowledge skills still have a place in sci fi games, both as a way to do specialized things and as a way to spot misinformation.
I agree with the obsolescence of knowledge skills in any setting in or post-information age. What should be abstracted for stealth should also be abstracted for knowledge, but the use of tech should be more rationalized.
As I posted elsewhere, technology-based skills should replace knowledge skills IMHO. Each character in any space opera or sci-fi story had their areas of technical expertise, and that should be translated into SF. Instead of the generic "computers" checks we saw in the playtest video, there should be "Computers: Security; Engineering; Science; Communications; Databases; AI; etc."
Again, IMO, this should be the impact of technology on game mechanics. Hell, if this isn't the case I may house rule it. It just makes sense.
I disagree to a point. As we've seen in today's world, there is a great deal of misinformation on the internet. And that having the information to do something doesn't actually mean you can use it effectively. If I ready a WikiHow on doing brain surgery, that doesn't mean I can suddenly do it. Or that the WikiHow was even correct.
I think knowledge skills still have a place in sci fi games, both as a way to do specialized things and as a way to spot misinformation.
I can't disagree. Perhaps there could be room for something like the "etiquette" mechanic in Shadowrun to deal with that particular issue, where a character specializes in particular social/cultural/academic areas. It's used in Shadowrun for social interactions, but it could be applied to reflect the kind of refined knowledge required as it pertains here. It'd be more of a feat than a skill, which in our conversation also seems to make sense.
How much does tech hurt stealth in Traveller? SWRPG? Shadowrun? Hell, how much did tech hurt stealth in Star Wars? Stargate? The Fifth Element? Ghost in the Shell? All had their caveats, and all could be eviscerated from this perspective.
All of your points would be valid in the realities of any sci-fi universe, but fortunately for Sneaky McSneak, neither Star Finder nor any of the other universes just mentioned are reality, and the arguments of reality don't need to apply. I would assume stealth still functions as stealth, just as it would in any other sci-fi setting.
Different games and approaches to the science fiction often yield different results. Games that want to incorporate an element of sensor technology often break stealth into a multiple skills - one for actually being sneaky around people and one for disabling the security devices that might notice you. For MegaTraveller, there was Stealth and Intrusion (or possibly Computer, Electronics, or even Robotic Ops depending on the nature of the obstacle) and for Mutants and Masterminds 3, there's Stealth and Technology to disable sensors. The stealth skills are usually based on some form of the character's gracefulness (Dex for MegaTrav, Agility for M&M), the technical aspects of defeating sensors usually ends up being an intelligence/intellect-based check.
Different games and approaches to the science fiction often yield different results. Games that want to incorporate an element of sensor technology often break stealth into a multiple skills - one for actually being sneaky around people and one for disabling the security devices that might notice you. For MegaTraveller, there was Stealth and Intrusion (or possibly Computer, Electronics, or even Robotic Ops depending on the nature of the obstacle) and for Mutants and Masterminds 3, there's Stealth and Technology to disable sensors. The stealth skills are usually based on some form of the character's gracefulness (Dex for MegaTrav, Agility for M&M), the technical aspects of defeating sensors usually ends up being an intelligence/intellect-based check.How much does tech hurt stealth in Traveller? SWRPG? Shadowrun? Hell, how much did tech hurt stealth in Star Wars? Stargate? The Fifth Element? Ghost in the Shell? All had their caveats, and all could be eviscerated from this perspective.
All of your points would be valid in the realities of any sci-fi universe, but fortunately for Sneaky McSneak, neither Star Finder nor any of the other universes just mentioned are reality, and the arguments of reality don't need to apply. I would assume stealth still functions as stealth, just as it would in any other sci-fi setting.
Another argument for separate tech skills, this time directly applied to the thread topic.