I'm having a hard time figuring out NPC stats and how they line up with Starship stuff.
I have both the core book and the alien archive, but I'm having difficulty figuring out how the crews of the ships listed in Sample Ships in core are created.
Skill levels are easy enough, seems to be equal to tier. (Side note I find that a little off, unless we're going for a setting where the player heroes aren't really that special, since everyone else fighting against them will always be equal to their scores, if not better).
But then i can't figure out where the rest of the bonuses come from.
For example the crew of the tier 14 Omenbringer:
Captain Diplomacy +25 (14 ranks), gunnery +25,
Intimidate +30 (14 ranks), Piloting +25 (14 ranks)
Engineers (3 officers, 35 crew each) Engineering +25 (14 ranks)
Gunners (5 officers, 15 crew each) gunnery +25
Pilot (1 officer, 5 crew) Piloting +32 (14 ranks)
Science Officer (1 officer, 4 crew) Computers +29 (14 ranks)
Where are those other bonuses of +11 to +15 coming from?
For that ship it has +4 computers and +2 Pilot listed as the only bonuses. Near as I can tell the +2 comes from its slower max speed. So is that +2 included in the +18 it adds to its 14 skill ranks?
Are the pilots in this case using an NPC combatant array? Expert? I can sorta see that the numbers line up roughly with the CR 14 master/good skill ratings but I'm not getting the overlap. An expert gets 3 30s and 2 25s, a combatant gets 1 30 and 2 25s. Gunnery score isn't a skill so doesn't fall under that stuff...
I guess I'm wondering how the choice of how many 30s and 25s get directed to the crew in this case. Are NPC crews considered 1 NPC total for purposes of determining skill spread (since they don't have anything other than starship appropriate skills in this case), as multiple? Like the captain as 1 and the other 4 as one? Something else? In this case was it simply, CR 14 equals master skills at 30, good at 25s, fill in as needed, ignore the normal expert/combatant distribution?
edit: *sigh*
Crew Level
Most starship combat encounters are between characters of
roughly equal level and skill, regardless of the tier of the starships
they are aboard. If there is a large level discrepancy between the
combatants, adjust the difficulty of the encounter up or down a
tier to compensate. In any case, combats between crews that are
more than 4 levels apart should be avoided.
In general, the skill ranks of an NPC crew member are equal to
the CR of the NPC or the tier of the enemy starship (minimum 1). To
determine the skill modifiers of an NPC crew member, first decide
whether the NPC has mastered the skill or is simply good at the
skill. Usually, one crew member will be a master at one skill; the
rest of the crew will have good skills. The skill modifier for a master
skill is equal to 9 + 1-1/2 × the NPC’s ranks in the skill. The skill
modifier for a good skill is equal to 4 + 1-1/2 × the NPC’s ranks in the
skill. Alternatively, you can determine NPC skill ranks and modifiers
using the master and good skill modifiers for the combatant array
from the monster building rules in the Starfinder Alien Archive. Of
course, if you have full stat blocks for the NPC crew members, you
should use their actual skill ranks and modifiers.
This is what I get for not reading. Nevermind all.
If you want your NPC crews to have bonuses based on being members of PC classes, their bonuses will depend on their race, due to some races having racial bonuses (one of the major reasons the Lashunta are so good at fielding an incredible fleet all by themselves), but unlike the master and good skill progressions, their progressions will be fairly scattered. However, Starfinder has some very strange assumptions going on about PC progression, such that NPCs tend to scale faster than PCs do for a lot of things.
Here are the PC bonus progression rates, assuming you don't get personal upgrades until your level equals the item's level, and ignoring racial and theme bonuses, and Skill Focus; I assume the relevant stat is the one you care the most about, so it always gets your best personal upgrade, is always included when you advance to a level which is a multiple of 5, and so on:
Soldier:
[8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32]
Operative:
[9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38]
Mechanic, Bypass:
[9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38]
Mystic, Channel Skill, assuming non-Akashic:
[8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 39]
Technomancer, Techlore:
[8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38]
Envoy, average bonus, Skill Expertise:
[11.5, 12.5, 14.5, 15.5, 17.5, 18.5, 20.5, 21.5, 23.5, 25.5, 26.5, 27.5, 29.5, 31.5, 32.5, 33.5, 35.5, 36.5, 37.5, 41]
Envoy, average bonus, Skill Expertise, Convincing Liar (Bluff)/Inspired Medic (Medicine)/Slick Customer (Diplomacy), Unknown DC:
[11.5, 12.5, 15.55, 16.55, 18.25, 19.25, 21.25, 22.25, 24.0, 26.0, 27.0, 28.0, 29.8, 31.8, 32.8, 33.8, 35.65, 36.65, 37.65, 41.03]
Solarian, average bonus, Sidereal Influence:
[8, 9, 14.5, 15.5, 16.5, 17.5, 19.5, 20.5, 21.5, 23.5, 24.5, 25.5, 26.5, 28.5, 29.5, 30.5, 31.5, 32.5, 33.5, 35.5]
**Solarians can't keep their skill buffs in combat, so this isn't relevant during Starship Combat - they'll otherwise match Soldiers.
Note that for non-Soldiers, every class provides an Insight bonus; only Operatives and Envoys glean any benefit from combining this with Skill Focus once the bonus reaches +3, and Operatives gain a drastically better benefit than Envoys do. However, because the Solarian bonus doesn't scale, Skill Focus will always help, raising the average Insight bonus provided to an overlapped skill from 3.5 to 4.
Races with Racial Bonuses relevant to Starships; an asterisk (*) means the race takes a stat penalty to the buffed skill, so you need 10 points to maintain focus, while a carat (^) means the race takes a +2, so you need 6:
Lashunta: Piloting, Bluff^, Diplomacy^, Intimidate^, Computers^, Engineering^
Half-Orc: Intimidate^
Nuar: Piloting*
Shirren: Diplomacy*
Space Goblin: Engineering
Witchwyrd: Bluff^, Diplomacy^
Ysoki: Engineering^
Note that the only Bluff check Captains can make can instead be an Intimidate check, so in practice, a Captain can dump-skill Bluff. Racial Bonuses are always +2.
The only relevant Theme bonus is Ace Pilot, currently.