Alangriffith's page

Foundry this, Roll20 that... isn't anyone else running Starfinder games in a cobbled-together macro framework in MapTool?

I'm just running Starfinder on msn messenger. Initially by text, but now by voicechat. With a small player party you really don't need an interactive map, any more than you do for D&D.

Cloaking Field isn't even available to level 10. So you're right near the end of most APs.

Point of pedantry - The Ghost Specialisation gets Cloaking Field at level 5, as their specialisation exploit.

I agree it doesn't do much in combat (especially as trick attack doesn't require hiding and there's no massive damage attack from cover like D&D sneak attack). In my campaign the Operative's cloaking field is making her overpowered out of combat, as she solo sneaks past guards regardless of cover, to get inside ships/bases and then hack defences/gather info/steal vehicles before the rest of the party strike from outside while she supports from within.

But my campaigns barely resemble APs as they aren't dungeoncrawlish. And True Seeing negating cloaking field still does little as not only is it a level 6 spell but also it only last 1 minute per level, so its not like a caster NPC can keep it up all day in case of trouble.

It might also work for the old formation fighting trick from D&D (I say 'might' because I've not tried in my Starfinder games, and hardly played Pathfinder, so only know it from D&D. So correct me if I've missed some relevant rule difference, but I think it works in theory).

Guy A with reach (unwieldy) at 10ft from enemy, behind guy B without reach in 5ft melee. If Guy B has higher armour class/hp than A, or uses defensive tactics, it's best to make the enemy full attack B. In a narrow corridor the enemy can't get round B at all (and A and B can only both attack in this formation, or with ranged), and in a more open area the enemy can go for A but then can only make a single attack and may take an AoO (plus B could then move to flank).

Pretty niche for PC groups as you'd need multiple tanks or a non-tank with an unwieldy reach weapon (which tend to be advanced melee), but could be a good encounter with multiple enemies in a formation (second rank reach weapons, first rank non-reach - perhaps one-handed and shields?)

Yeah, formations are subject to area attacks, but that was the same in old D&D/Pathfinder (Starfinder grenades aren't up to much). There's a bit more ranged weaponry in Starfinder, but there are enemies and ways to reduce the effectiveness of ranged over melee (especially at low level, where the party may mostly be using one ranged damage type, or lasers that are subject to smoke cover).

Obviously in an outdoor space the formation gets shot to pieces before melee, but in an enclosed dungeon/ship space it could be pretty effective, also with enemies who have huge numbers and don't care about losses (such as the Swarm, some cultists, expendable mindless undead/robots etc.)

I think the main question is what you get for your unwieldy reach weapon (as a formation with non-unwieldy reach weapons in the back rank would be just as effective, and more so if the front rank fall). I can't see many direct comparisons in the CRB between reach unwieldy weapons and normal reach weapons, not got time/inclination to go through the armoury. Do you get significantly more damage or other good stuff for having an unwieldy reach weapon instead of a standard reach weapon? If not, then probably not much point bothering with unwieldy reach weapons anyway.

You forget its just not the white nissan reference, its also the license plate (transponder). And why would the wanted information just go to Absolom and not to all Pact Worlds? Sure, different worlds might be more or less zealous about how to follow up, but its pretty easy to share a general wanted list between the worlds and whenever a matching transponder is picked up a alarm goes off.

Also, its not only the craft itself, but also the owner and the pilots. There will be records about that and probably also scans of whoever checked that ship in and out a hangar.

I'm amazed nobody else brought this up, but it's *written in the scenario* that they have false identity codes (altered to disguise the fact the ships are AWOL - so they have *already been* reported and hacked their way round it). So basically they have a fake/stolen licence plate which is police/military. Do Castrovel flight control have the Computers skill to identify those codes as false? Would they believe random adventurers (PCs) over supposedly official database records? Have they been bribed/threatened to look the other way?

Also the rest of the thread has all this talk of a suicide attack or rigging the fighters to explode, but its totally unnecessary to sacrifice the fighters if they escape the combat (or win, which is what the pilots intend). For example:
1) They could land at the official spaceport if their fake codes hold up (and claim the PCs fired first/resisted arrest).
2) They could have a drift-capable mothership in orbit that's too big to enter atmosphere, or doesn't have fake codes and needs to stay out of ground control sensor range (a GM wanting to expand the encounter could even have the fighters intended to lose and flee, drawing the PC ship in pursuit up into range of the mothership).
3) They they could just fly 'below radar' (or through the storm cover) and land at some secret ground base (which really just needs to be a clearing in the jungle, since Castrovel has those big patches of dangerous wilderness nature reserve that don't seem to be patrolled). Again, the GM could expand the secret ground base into its own encounter if the PC ship pursues (perhaps drawing inspiration from drug cartel jungle airstrips in the real world, or doing a more scifi underground secret base).

And in the interest of fairness I figured I'd lay out some scenarios where the telepathic bond would be objectively more useful;

1. The more socially inclined members of the group infiltrate a setting such as a business meeting or high society party where they're gathering information through social manipulation. The information needs to be relayed back to the other members of the group in real time, and security measures prevent the use of comms.

2. The group will be entering an area where environmental factors - weather, magnetic fields, some factor of geography - interferes with comm signals. For range, one member of the telepathic bond - perhaps an npc - remains on the ship as a rescue in case things go south.

3. A larger scale version of the above, the party is going to be exploring a new system in the Vast & has no idea what to expect there, & establish a telepathic bond with a contact in their home system as a redundant safety measure in case something happens to their ship's comm systems.

4. The group has decided to set up an ambush in a pincer maneuver with their positions outside the range of limited telepathy. Their targets are scanning airwaves for local communications, rendering even the text feature of comms too much of a liability for the mission.

I could come up with some others but they'd mostly be variations on those basic concepts.

<snip>

And all have this element of being, well... contrived is probably too harsh a word for it but certainly set up to highlight this one particular ability.

So nobody uses Signal Jammers in your setting (or anyone else's, from all the replies)? They're in the CRB, and even if your enemies don't use one, I'd think once you hit mystic level 11 you should buy one for your own ship, and then you jam all enemy comms within 12 miles while you communicate flawlessly via telepathic bond. It stops most forms of organised enemy camp/army/base/crew coordinating at all as you take them out piecemeal.

My own campaign also involves hacking/listening into comms quite a bit, but I concede this isn't explicitly supported by the rules (even though it is an action/scifi staple). But Signal Jammers are right there in the CRB.

A scenario you missed out is if PCs get captured, either as a deliberate ploy (to get inside an enemy perimeter), or as the result of a combat going bad. They'd have all their gear including comms removed, but with unlimited range telepathy could still communicate, even if in separate cells, if some weren't captured, if the operative escapes and sneaks off alone to check out the guards, etc. etc.

As to the shirren range thing, my own campaign involves the operative stealthing off ahead to do recon a lot. This can be coordinated through comms (but again, there Signal Jammers, or enemies could be listening in) but is definitely well outside shirren/lashunta range.

To all the folks that have complained that they just can't report various crimes, plots and the like to the authorities to deal with, I ask you this.

Did you or your players do this in PF1 or did they take the role of heroes?

I have never played any of the PF1 modules you throw around, in the PF1 campaign I did play I was royalty so I *was* the authorities in some cases, and in the others I got help from the local authorities

I don't ever recall seeing post complaining that their players could not report sinister doings and not be able to walk away.

Neither have I, so why are you straw-manning this? One person in this thread (RoughGalaxy) said his group quit playing OOC, and used the stewards as an IC excuse.

However RoughGalaxy also said (and multiple people including me agreed) that the existence of the stewards begs the question why they don't solve threats instead of it always being small PC groups (seriously, what do they and the other factions even *do* with their fleets? They aren't in any published scenario stuff I've heard of, yet they take up loads of starship pages in multiple books - here are the stats for more ships you can never own and will probably never fight).

The whole point of adventures if the players to be the stars of the show, not to say well the authorities should handle this.

You can be the stars of the show and still have the authorities/military show up to help. Like in Guardians of the Galaxy with the Novacorps, or in Mass Effect, or even in Star Wars, just with the rebel fleet/resistance as the 'authirities' are evil.

You know who goes and asks the authorities to solve problems?

NPCs

And I'd love to see the authorities show up in an adventure because NPCs called them in. Something like Serenity where the authorities are a thorn in your side but not actively shooting at you would be great.

I mean, I'm already GMing Starfinder games where this happens, where the authorities and various factions help/hinder the PCs, where the PCs can talk them into helping (like in Guardians with the Ravagers) or deliberately try to avoid their attention, but where these things exist and matter. But the setting as written has overwhelmingly powerful authorities/factions (look at their ship tiers) who seem to do nothing at all. So in my games I move the setting to nearspace with weaker factions, but its clear others give up completely (RoughGalaxy, Ixal) or feel they need to defend the Stewards doing nothing, which presumably extends to their games (but maybe thats just a forum argument thing.

RoughGalaxy wrote:

My group trudged through the 3rd book of Dead suns and decided the best idea, once they had the intel, was to report it to the space police (the stewards) and let them do their jobs in dealing with the cult.

Your group should've rolled "heroes" to fit in the AP theme. Someone who delegates their troubles away is definitely a bad match.

I recommend watching Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy for inspiration.

In Star Wars the space police are the enemy (The Empire - Han Solo references smuggling past Imperial ships, they aren't just the military but also the police)

In Guardians of the Galaxy they literally call the space police (Novacorp) as well as Bluffing another faction (Ravagers) to deal with the world ending threat.

*That's* what I want to see in AP, or at least AP which have a galactic threat. Have calling in help be part of the plot. Have all those Steward/Starfinder Society/Hellknight ships turn up and fight the corpse/cult/dominion/azlanti fleet, while the PCs in their small ship have to fly through the space battle as cover to try and board the enemy flagship (Guardians of the Galaxy), or attack it through a vulnerable point only a small ship can reach (Star Wars), or land on the planet to do the plot thing there (Star Wars again, also Serenity - in their setting the space police are also the enemy).

Then you can use the cool ship pictures taking up the main book (and at least a couple of stats, if only as description of what firepower they are throwing at each other), and have an epic battle as backdrop, but most importantly it feels like a real living setting, rather than one where the Stewards have battleships and an ultranought but you never see them *do* anything (except that one steward ship the evil cult somehow stole, so it could actually have its stats be used in Dead Suns).

Answering the OP question - my experience of Starfinder? Pretty great, but I made my own adventure without any APs*, and deliberately set it in a backwater bit of nearspace where the Stewards have no authority (as not Pact worlds), the other big powers and groups have no interest, and the local law have hardly any ships (none of them larger than a destroyer), and rely mostly on bounty hunters.

So my PCs actually are the best people to deal with threats, can fight off law enforcement if they want to go criminal (and be targetted by false charges and corrupt bounty hunters if they go hero), and when I do finally have a larger power turn up it will be a 'brown trousers' moment for the PCs, not just 'about time we saw them' or 'them again... oh wait this time they're bothering to get involved'.

I also made sure none of the PCs can be members of the big groups themselves, so if they do find a threat to the wider galaxy it's harder to immediately get support/resources as they aren't trusted (the Starfinder Society have their own fleet and are building an ultranought according to SFS scenarios.... explorers are building an ultranought! Yet none of that shows up to help Society members in good standing when they find a doomsday weapon in Dead Suns)

(*I did buy a couple of SFS scenarios, loot them for ideas/creatures and repurpose them to relate to my plot and not involve the Starfinder Society)

I’d like to know this too. Currently using pdf and pocket paperback for exactly this reason.

Still think they should have given it an edition number or put the printing in the name if they’re going to make big changes, so it’s easy to tell what you’re buying.

According to google, Improved Demoralize originated in an AP (Signal of Screams, Heart of Night). Has it made it into any actual books?

If not, I can see the writers of the COM not considering AP feats when balancing frightening injection. Don’t know how many GMs allow feats from APs nowadays (you can find the full wording online easily enough so don’t have to own it), but it could be a factor if you have a “books only” type GM.

I feel like there are some planning to be done if you want a Carrier...

- It offers 10 bays... but you have to pick a Hanger Bay, which takes 4 bay slots. (-4 bays/6 remaining)
- You can add a second Hanger Bay. (-4 bays/2 remaining)

Why would you add a second bay? One Hanger Bay fits 8 tiny ships, so that's a fighter per PC even for a group of 8 (and in a more normal group of 4 or 6 you can fit some NPC fighters to protect the ship, or just leave it unused)

- You might need workshops to repair the ships. (-1 bays/1 remaining)

I guess - not sure there are any rules for that though.

- You will need a powerful core, or 2 with a Housing (-1 bay/0 remaining)
- You might need weapons for each mount, hence the 2nd core.

As Garretmander said, you can only have a single light weapon. Also if the PCs are all in fighters you wouldn't want them to be overshadowed by the firepower of their HQ anyway. You can use the normal rules to have higher-level PCs run a carrier as their ship if it would be the main focus (and have NPC fighter pilots), not the squadron HQ rules in SOM.

- You can add External Expansion Bays... or you need 4 to convert into a 3rd Hanger Bay.

- The Carrier's turn modifier would increase to 4, because you have "3 extra bays".

A *Third* Hanger Bay? Are you confusing Hangers Bays and shuttle bays? You can fit 8 tiny craft in a single bay, 3 bays would be 24 craft!

- Cargo holds are still valuable to carry whatever you need for the ships' maintenance.

There are no rules on needing anything for ship maintenance, plus I'd rather assume that this is covered in the other bays (hanger bay contains refuelling and rearming for fighters, tech workshop contains spare parts if you're using it for maintenance). Might want cargo bays anyway for loot if you're playing pirates, or for vehicles if you want to do ground missions.

So I was just mucking around with orbital weapons (not really used them) and I think you could devestate a planet with them if this is per the rules.

1) Put an orbital weapon on the weapon mount say a super orbital particle canon.
2) Upgrade it to array (2 weapon mounts).
3) Park ship at long range (100,000 miles) so the planet is in your forward arc.
3) Shoot EVERY target on that side of the planet (every city, every town, every gas station on rural route 9) at -4 penalty.

You'll be doing (2d10 x 10) x 10 to every inanimate structure in a circle nearly a mile across. That's 20 - 200 damage to every person in the area and 200 - 2000 to buildings, cars, roads, infrastructure. Then 10 minutes later you do it again and again and again as the planet slowly rotates.

Am I missing something or would this actually work?

You are missing that Array and its rules apply in Starship Combat, and bombarding a planet isn't Starship Combat. The description for the Orbital weapon property has a paragraph starting "During Starship combat" and then starts a new paragraph to talk about firing at a large stationary target (also, the word 'stationary' here invalidates your statement of "do it again... as the planet slowly rotates", the target won't be stationary if the planet is rotating, so your orbit must be geo-stationery for the target to be stationary - then the planet doesn't rotate relative to you).

So its pretty clear to me that putting Array on your orbital weapon just means that it can fire at every starship target during Starship Combat (with the -4 on top of its normal penalties for targeting certain sizes of ship), but still only fires once at one target in bombardment mode, which is out of Starship Combat.

I appreciate that you could argue a paragraph break isn't enough to make this distinction, and nothing specifically states orbital weapons cannot be used to bombard during Starship Combat. However it's pretty clear they don't work together because they throw up unanswerable questions the minute you try. These force your GM to houserule answers, at which point you are in the territory you are trying to deny BigNorsewolf, of the GM making decisions outside of RAW.

Short version of these rules issues:

You don't have a 'forward arc' for array to work except in Starship Combat, as it is defined by hexes, not angles or real distances. Your bombardment range is in miles, not hexes (and time is in minutes, not rounds). Also, the bombardment rule doesn't mention any attack roll (you just damage an area), but array only lets you fire at every target with a penalty on attack rolls (no ACs/TLs are given for ground targets either).

Also, these orbital weapons have a specific range (and for missile versions, speed) listed in their statblock. IF the array Starship Combat rules apply, shouldn't all the starship combat rules apply, including the range listed? Which would limit your bombardment range to a max of 100 hexes (maybe these represent 10000 miles?) at an additional hit penalty beyond 20 hexes - now you're definitely in range of any defensive starship orbiting, and so close to the planet that only a small section of it fits in your forward arc.

Long version examples of some of these rules issues:

Your ship is parked 100,000 miles away - how far away is that in hexes? SOM page 51 gives some hex to miles conversions, but they are on 3 different scales, while ranges and speed remain unchanged. Put you on the medium/standard one, and a hex is 10 miles, so you are 10,000 hexes away (impractical on any map, but lets say your GM allows it anyway as a thought exercise). But your sensor range is a maximum of 150 hexes (long-range 20, Dejet-infusion adds 50%, x5 for active scan) so how can you even detect the planet, yet alone what you need to target? Still at least it puts the whole planet in your forward arc. If you move in within sensor range on any scale but the biggest (for multiship fleet battles, which you aren't doing), you are now so close to a big planet that your forward arc covers only a tiny slice of the surface, and your array fire is only bombarding a small area.

Lets ignore distance for a moment and consider time - your orbital weapons fires every ten minutes, but starship combat works in rounds, There is specifically no conversion given of rounds to time, and a lot of debate as to how long rounds are. So how long does any defence fleet have to respond between shots? How many times can they fire back (if they are even in range and can detect you, see above)?

Speed of responding ships (or you repositioning to target a different part/side of the planet) are even worse, as they involve both time (undefined rounds/minutes) and distance (3 possible different conversions of speed to miles depending on scale) at the same time.

And then there's the actual weapon, of course. Beam weapons may be okay, but are you telling me an orbital nuclear silo doesn't have to reroll TL every turn as it moves its speed? Starship Combat rules clearly state that for missiles, just like they state how Array works. All or nothing by RAW, right?
Nuclear silo has a listed speed for starship combat of 5 hexes per turn, so even at fleet range (100 miles per hex) it travels your 100,000 mile range in 20,000 turns (we don't know what this is in time, but certainly its slower than the response craft with speed higher than 5 rushing towards you - if you drift out does the missile lose guidance?) and has to make 20,000 rolls against TL - and what even is TL for this stationary target? And can it be shot down by point defence weapons on ships (CRB rules on point defence say you can only shoot down weapons targeting yourself, BUT SOM page 88 describes the Idaran Keris being famous for shooting down projectiles aimed at other ships it is escorting).

It's definitely everyone I've seen so far is reading it as letting you draw a weapon as you move, which is something operatives couldn't do before. So its a definite change from trick attack being a full round action that just happened to have a move baked into it to that movement being a move action to move your speed. What that changes besides letting operatives draw on the move....

I always assumed you could draw a weapon as part of trick attack, as trick attack said 'you can move up to your speed', and draw a weapon says 'combine drawing or sheathing...with moving up to your speed'. Is it the 'as a single move action' wording on the end that was the issue? (because that's still there in the errata'd wording)

Was there a FAQ or ruling that banned drawing as part of trick attack (maybe an SFS thing)? Or was it just a consensus that it was "something operatives couldn't do before"? It certainly does seem to be the consensus from other posters on this thread, I just don't get why (or why its a big deal, for that matter - the operative in my game has all weapons concealed so can't draw as a swift anyway, and I'd assume more combat groups would have weapons drawn most of the time).

Will make puppy dog eyes for FAQ clicks?

I've never done this before, could you explain it? There's a FAQ button on every post, should I click it on your original post? My post? All the posts in the thread?

I'm having trouble seeing this as a rules change. The text is identical except for trick attack being listed as an example of a non-move action that lets you move (which it already was before, as described under trick attack) so what has actually changed?

Was there some FAQ/argument previously that trick attack didn't count as 'move your speed' despite saying the words 'move up to your speed' in its description?

Neither the text you quoted nor the two page references within it list tumble as a movement mode or an example. The actual description of Tumbling under Acrobatics says tumble is a move action and you move at half speed, not that it is part of movement nor even that you can switch between normal movement and tumbling mid action (as you can in D&D 3.5 and I assume Pathfinder 1, which I've hardly played but I'm told shared 95% of its rules with D&D 3.5).

Considering Starfinder already removed the free 5 foot step, restricting movement further by making tumble an either/or with 'move your speed' fits with that theme (I'm not sure I agree with that theme, but that's a different topic, although....

I'm still not sure why the initial design decision was made to have trick attack be 'a full round action that gives you a move' in the first place, and not just a swift action affecting your next attack same round - which would be standard action. You could then combine trick attack with a move action as you saw fit without all this weirdness. Yes then you could guarded step and tumble, but is that really a gamebreaker? You can trick attack at range anyway, you no longer need to be in a flanking melee position to do it when not hidden... where's the harm?)

A Light Freighter can get a Shuttle bay for two expansion slots which would otherwise give you two cargo bays, but now you can fit a shuttle in it.

The shuttle itself has three slots that can be turned into cargo bays.

So your two slots can now fit a whole shuttle that has THREE slots on its own. shuttleception

You mean a Bulk Freighter (huge), not a Light Freighter (medium). A Shuttle Bay can only be installed in a Huge or larger starship (Pocket CRB pg 299)

Shuttleception is still an issue - personally I think they should scale cargo capacity based on size of ship, or just give huge ships far more expansion bays (this would also solve the 'not enough escape pods for the crew' problem). Weirdly some expansion bays have hard limits (such as cargo bays, escape pods and guest quarters) but others don't and could be assumed to scale up on a bigger ship (such as recreation suite for a 50 crew bulk freighter instead of a 6 crew shuttle). It would be more consistent if the rules picked one option for all bays and ran with it (and less complicated than adding a sliding scale for capacities by ship size).

Whilst you can fit a 3 cargo bayed shuttle in the space, if it was a cargo bay instead of a shuttle bay you could only get a large sized object in it.

No, you can fit any number of large-sized objects in as long as their total weight is less than 50 tonnes (for the 2 cargo bay 'space'). You just can't fit any one object bigger than Large (so no Huge objects) without 4 cargo bays, although the rule does say 'usually', and specifically says it can be overidden at GM discretion (Pocket CRB pg 299).

I'm not denying the rules have issues, but they aren't as bad as you made out.

There was a discussion on the rules forum about the Biohacker class completely invalidating large chunks of Threefold Conspiracy if a biohacker PC uses the Identify creature feature (even if a disguise check can oppose, which is disputed, the biohacker usually beats it with their automatic nat 20).

I’ve not played/read the scenarios myself so can’t say if it does for definite, certainly a level 1 biohacker sees through the CR1 reptoid disguise check in Alien Archive (the gray in alien archive doesn’t have a disguise power/skill at all).

Honestly, at least as far as the ammo goes, I would almost be inclined to create a new Engineer action, called 'Reload' or some such. Basically, if the Engineer is willing to spend an action and make a suitably scaled check, success restocks a new set of missiles ( or possibly just one, with more on a good roll ).

Personally I'd like an expansion bay or ship upgrade full of missiles, to increase limited fire to 10/20 (or remove the property entirely) at a cost. Then all the 'missiles always run out' guys can compensate and still build missile ships, and the 'missiles never run out' guys can save the BP on the missile bays (could even be a special material on weapon mounts making missiles lighter or supercharging the missile replication system). Pity there isn't anything like that in the SOM.

Currently everyone* in my game is just using the light missile launcher, which still has no 'limited fire' property listed after the revisions, and is still quite cheap.

*When I say 'everyone' I mean both the PCs and most of the NPCs, mainly due to this making it easier for me to restat their ships with the new costs (downgrade tacnukes and high-ex missiles to light missiles as the BP deficit is a lot easier to manage with minor changes). If my party level were higher (currently 3) then I'd consider increasing the tier of ships like the BMC Mauler instead and keeping their nukes.

So if I order a print copy of the CRB, is it the new version now? What if I get it on Amazon.uk? How do I know if I’m buying the newest version or not?

(I already own a print copy of the old version and the new pdf , but want the new print copy with the revisions. I live in UK so would rather not pay shipping from US via the Paizo site if possible)

Higher drift engines can allow a faster shift cutting the 10 minute wait down to a potential 2 for class 5 engines. Maybe reduce the radius they pull things from so class 5 can shift from a planet without trying to rip a chunk out of it?

It’s 1 minute, not 10. I’ve checked the errata’d pdf as well as the printed copy, both say 1 minute. Cutting down 1 minute by drift rating might be worth something if you rule space combat rounds are 6 seconds (combat round length is not defined in book) as it makes drifting out of combat easier, though that raises its own questions. Probably not worth the high costs as written though.

As to how drift currently works, it’s been discussed before and one idea was that drift engines navigate, so higher level ones can detect more drift beacons/navigate better.

An idea I had since that discussion is that Drift Engines might shield you from certain drift tides/hazards or even warp drift space around you (mutable nature/impossible physics from the description) so a higher value drift engine lets you take a more direct route with your conventional thrusters.

The rules say engines need to be shut down for 10 minutes before entering the drift.

It’s 1 minute, not 10. I’ve checked the errata’d pdf as well as the printed copy, both say 1 minute.

I can't find what happens if they aren't (do you fail to enter the drift, do you blow up, do you become an episode of voyager seeking to get home). Is there a rule on this written anywhere or is it up to GM discretion?

The book wording is “for a ship to activate its drift engines to either enter or exit the droft”. So the rule is there, the engines can’t be activated. No boom, no jump, nothing.

I've been skimming through the new CRB revision. There are quite a few changes that are entirely new to this printing that hadn't previously been covered in FAQ/Errata. As far as I can tell, all the errata from the FAQ page made it in to the new revision.

Just skimming through the equipment section, I've seen:

A bunch of basic melee weapons picked up the thrown property

Some weapons picked up the analog property that were missing it before

Grenades got massive price reductions (some up to 60% off) and the stagger inflicted by cryo grenades was clarified to be 1 round

Explode weapons can now only critically hit one creature within their explosion.

Injection property has been expanded to allow other types of poisons, not just injury poisons.

Armor temperature protections have been changed from protect only from temps between -20 and 140F, rather than the previous wording that protected against all temps.

A bunch of armor descriptions now use the term "energy field" instead of "force field".

The Venom spur was given a description that makes it a basic melee weapon, rather than the weird undefined state it had before.

Clarifications on which magic items are worn and which are not have been added, which helps work out if you've hit your 2 magic items limit. They also removed restrictions of wearing two of the same "slot", so you can have both of your magic items be hats if you'd like.

Ring of Whispers got a range on its sense through (hearing).

Medicinals and poisons both got a lot cheaper. Some item levels changed for poisons too.

For those of us who like physical books and don't have experience with other Paizo stuff like Pathfinder (i.e. Me), is there precedent for a printed version 2 to follow a pdf alteration?

I'd greatly prefer a physical book to having to use pdf only or cross reference physical book with uber-errata all the time. My preference is certainly enough for me to pay for a new CRB. Don't know about anyone else.

Telok wrote:

Let me see if I have this right. The party decides to go squadron. Lets say they're level 7 and 5 pcs, 4 want to do the individual little ships and the last pc will run the hq.

They look up on the table how many points each individual combat ship gets for 4 level 7s. Each pc builds their own fighter with those points.

Then to build the hq ship they get 180/4=45 points. Heavy freighter costs 40/10=4 points, same with the hangers. Then you buy thrusters, sensors, pcu, drift drive, etc., using the remaining 37 points. So 4 for thrusters, 8 for drift, 1 for terrible sensors, and because we're up to 180 power we need a 20 build point pcu. 37-33=4 points left over for anything else.

That sound about right?

Except that you cannot do that. You cannot use a Heavy Freighter as an HQ option. It can't support the hanger or shuttle bays.

CRB pg 299 wrote:

A hangar bay can be installed only in a Gargantuan or larger starship...

CRB pg 299 wrote:

A shuttle bay can be installed only in a Huge or larger...

So the minimum frame you can acquire is a BULK FREIGHTER.Which means the earliest you can acquire an HQ is 4th level as I already stated.

The solution to that problem is launch tubes, from the Pact Worlds book page 153. "Designed to fit on Medium and large vessels", they allow the launch and retrieval of tiny ships (we're all in fighters anyway, right?).

They are 5BP and 2 expansion bays each, for one fighter, but you don't actually need one for every PC ship. As long as your fighters are drift-capable, you only need to have one or two docked at a time, with the other PCs staying in their fighters while one or two on the HQ ship use the tech lab etc. Even if the GM rules that you can't sleep in your fighter as it has no crew quarters, you can do a 3 or 4 shift rotation to sleep in shifts during downtime, which also means someone is out there on fighter perimeter at all times for when space encounters show up.

So then we decide to exclude the whole fact that our HQ ship can't be "Stolen" or "Destroyed". So until you get more BP at higher levels you have to choose to I add some security to help defend my ship from being stolen while in the battle or even when we are docked.

When docked, leaving someone to guard the ship is also an option. Either PCs (half of my party never want to do much shopping/investigation, and happily stay with the ship while in dock) or NPCs (since apparently the HQ ship has/needs NPC crew? My Starship Operations manual doesn't arrive until next week, I'm just going by what you've said in the thread.)

As for vulnerability in battle, it could be left behind in the drift if the fighters are all drift capable, as Garretmander suggests (this is also very Xwing, which is what I think of when we're talking about PCs in individual fighters. Start in your HQ, then jump to your target, do a raid/recon then return to base).
Another option is leaving the HQ ship a good distance behind in realspace (or driftspace when you're all travelling through drift), with the fighters ahead to look for trouble or attack the target. (sensors and weapon ranges aren't particularly long in hexes, especially compared to fighter speeds). If the enemy only detect incoming fighters on the sensors, why would they assume an HQ ship even exists behind if the fighters could have drift engines? Even if they do, they have to get past your fighter screen which gives you good shots on them as they have disadvantageous facings etc.)

Some GMs/APs may dictate you have to come out of drift right at the combat zone and can't plot a course to come in early, but even then you have some options as you can use the rules for flying within the same system in realspace (planet to planet, or planet to moon).

Another option is to have your HQ ship not have drift engines, and instead effectively act as a fixed base while the drift-capable fighters go out on mission (the Babylon 5 game - a GM could even use the HQ ship stats to represent the PCs squadron's 'docking bay' area, and have it be part of a large space station or mothership for campaign purposes - the bit you spent HQ BPs on is your personal docking space, tech lab etc. and the rest is campaign setting you're not authorised to use without paying credits, rolling social skills etc.)

The 'base' still HQ ship also works well with the the cloaking device from the Nearspace book, which is otherwise useless as you break cloak if you move or fight. An HQ ship launching fighters before combat begins isn't fighting in my book, and even if your GM rules otherwise, the cloak still lets the HQ ship launch fighters out of combat and use the cloak to be safe when left behind for the fighters to go on missions.

So, maths. At a sensible minimum, for an HQ ship with launch tubes, you can have:

Explorer frame (12BP), one set of set of launch tubes (5 BP), M4 thrusters (2BP), cut-rate sensors (1BP), pulse gray as minimum powercore for a ship that size (10BP). So we're down to 30BP minimum, or 36 if you add a drift engine (you're already forced to have a powercore that can handle the PCU minimum for drift.)

This version of course has no weapons, armour, countermeasures or shields (The CRB page 302 says "almost every ship has simple navigational shielding", so you don't need to worry about dying from space dust), and relies on its PC fighters to protect it. But it is something to upgrade from, with 2 free expansion bays (and upgrading to a transport for a 5th bay isn't too expensive either). Don't know how the maths for HQ ships works exactly as I don't have SOM yet, but hope this lower minimum at least reduces the minimum tier problem a tad.

Arguments could be made to go even lower than 30BP, but the above definitely works without needing a friendly GM.

(If you do have a friendly GM.... I'd argue that you don't need thrusters at all for a 'space station' type ship but the rules imply you must pick them. I'd also argue that you don't need sensors at all if you don't move and have a fighter with sensors outside most of the time, and the rules do list sensors as optional.
Then there's the grey area of whether the launch tube wording "Designed to fit on Medium and large vessels" actually bans them from being on small vessels or is just flavour text - if you can put them on small vessels then shuttles with their 3 expansion bays are only 6BP, and can fit a smaller cheaper powercore too. Come to mention it, powercores also have the wording they are "designed for" the sizes on the table - can they not be modified to fit a cheaper smaller powercore on a larger frame? Isn't that what mechanics, ysoki and space goblins are for? Your mileage/GM may vary)

I was wondering are there any rules for space hazards in one of the books?

The new Starship Operations Manual has some. There is currently a sample scenario from it on the forums (A Singular Notion) which contains a space hazard called Time Eaters.

Link:

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6shbe?STARFINDER-ENCOUNTER-A-SINGU LAR-NOTION#discuss

For example I know one AP has a unique ship capable of travelling into a star but I can't find rules for how class a normal commercial ship can approach them before radiation/heat overwhelm its defenses or the gravity well of a black hole captures it?

There aren't really any exact distances or speeds in the game at all (ship speeds are in hexes of unspecified distance, space travel within a system or via drift is all XD6 days not any real distance or speed given), so there definitely won't be any in the books. I don't know whether Starship Operations Manual lists any normal space hazards like 'near a sun', or just whacky sci-fi ones like the time eaters.

This is the sort of stuff the GM makes up or is only relevant for a specific scenario, and then not in real units (e.g. "the event horizon of the black hold is 20 hexes away, if the Devourer cult ship can drag the hostage ship there with their Gravity Gun tractor beam then the hostage ship is pulled to its doom").

But yes. A lot of people have the same problem. I've often said that the gunners have the impact, the pilots have all the agency, and everyone else is just rolling the same skillcheck to aid the gunner. Many of the reviews I've seen to starfnder cite the same problem.

I've had a 5th level captain tell me "I make the diplomacy check on a 1, I'm aiding our gunner hit with the biggest gun and getting coffee... later..."

I have a few solutions I've worked up for this problem with my group of 4, but it won't help the OP as it would make things taken even longer with a large group.

Briefly, to avoid derailing too much, it involves more smaller ships on both sides. The PC ship can have launch tubes (pact worlds book) and 1 or 2 fighters, meaning that in space combat you launch fighters and suddenly you have 2-3 PC pilots with agency. This also leaves the main ship undermanned so the PC crew there have more variety as they need to switch crew roles more often in response to damage, enemies coming into range of certain guns etc. rather than having a dedicated PC for each station all the time.
Minor crew actions become much more important (for fighters and the undermanned main ship) so PCs are making multiple rolls per turn as they roll for minor actions as well as their main roll.

Giving the enemy multiple weaker ships instead of one strong ship gives more choices to the PC ship crew as well (science officer has 3 ships to scan, captain has 3 ships to taunt, gunner has multiple targets to choose from) so it's no longer "my one taunt per combat is used up so I just buff gunner every turn" or "the one ship is scanned so I'll give up on the sensor station now". Especially if you make the enemy ships non-identical, so one might be a glass cannon with long-range weapons, one a short-range assault ship, one tough but undergunned etc. This makes scanning the ships and adjusting strategy on the fly much more important than if they were multiple identical fighters. It's a bit more GM work, but if the GM is into space combat they are probably building custom ship designs for fun/practice anyway, and once you get a few loadouts written down for your main antagonist group you can reuse them (which also makes it feel like a unified military/corporation/pirate fleet).

Multiple weaker ships on both sides also make space combats progress faster, as it is easier for one fighter or ship on each side to be taken out, at which point the losers may rescue/retreat, or if they fight on then their firepower is reduced so the battle ends quicker. Considering how rare and feeble criticals are in space combat, you rarely significantly reduce enemy firepower when fighting a single ship until it hits 0hp and ends combat entirely.

The main rules issue with my method above is that the PC ship budget rules assume a single PC ship - you can buy launch tubes with BP but not fighters.
Rather than splitting the BP budget, I get round this in my current game by telling them they need to steal fighters (not in space combat, but from bases as a heist) and then if they lose a fighter or want a better one they have to do another theft. This works quite well with the Operative being a ysoki ace pilot, and the general firefly/scoundrel theme of my game, but wouldn't work for others.

So much for briefly.... well I hope it may help people on the thread drawn by the title, even though it won't really help the OP (with 6-8 PCs and a GM already taking too long to make choices for a single ship)

We've been mostly fighting unmanned ships piloted by some sort of undead A.I? that doesn't register any lifesigns on scanners and seems to be fearless.

Sounds like something homebrew or at least obscure (there is a shipmind aberration that runs a ship but that is living). Your GM may be taking such a long time to make its decisions because he has some sort of action priority list or special rules he's using.

I suggest the next time you disable one of those ships you should definitely board it and find out what the heck is going on. Your GM may be wanting you to do so for plot reasons, and if you can gain insight IC into what it is and how it works you may be able to find a weakness or a way to stop them turning up to kill you. At the very least it guarantees a session or two without ship combat as you do the boarding action.

(also if your GM is just wanting to run ship combat to the death and just pulled 'yeah, they're undead AI so you can't negotiate", then stating IC that the ship behaviour is weird/unheard of and you want to board to find out why might cause the GM to rethink what they're doing or write some plot).

Here's a radical idea: You're the crew of a non-Drift-capable generational ship. Each adventure is a new system that the ship encounters. At the end of each adventure, the PCs go into stasis for decades until the computer declares the next emergency.

I mean, that's a cool idea for a homebrew private game (as is the earlier suggestion CovusMask made of being in another galaxy beyond drift beacons), but no way they make that an AP as those are designed to integrate with online SFS play and other APs. Coming back to the main setting in years, if at all, doesn't work with those (i.e. the same PCs can't be in any other AP afterwards, the wealth/equipment buying system assumes a connection to the standard economy, SFS boons and all their time-related plot wouldn't work with it etc.)

As the OP would like an AP (as would I), and this in the Adventure Path forum, it needs to work within the main setting/timeframe to be picked up as an AP idea.

It would also take you 5 weeks to travel from one unexplored system to the next. So if you are done with the system or if the trouble you would run into is too big the time spend on taking a detour through Absolom would be negligible.

I guess, but if you're in a race with other explorers (rival corporations, veskarium 'diplomacy' etc.) that 1 week might make a big difference. And you're still effectively 6 weeks from absalom if you want to come back or bring help, so pretty alone in space (it would be easy enough to write the AP so your initial issues/discoveries aren’t big enough to be worth SFS reinforcements, and then you uncover the climax plot of doom when it is unfolding too fast for you to be able to lose 6 weeks getting help, and so you must handle it yourself).

Alternatively, why not have one unexplored system with lots of planets? Then each planet is only D6 days away from each other, but a trip to Absalom is 6 weeks total. This also allows some of the star trek staples like warring factions, neutral zones etc. without the usual 'but Drift means distance and neighbouring are meaningless' problem, especially if the natives have spaceflight but not Drift travel.
The Pact worlds system shows you can have multiple inhabited worlds with wide varieties of life in the same system (as does the Veskarium home system, they just conquered or exterminated all the non-vesk).

One downside is that you are always only 1 week at most away from Absolom Station, so there is no really a feeling of being alone in the unknown.

I mean you're only a week away if you want to go there, but then you lose up to 5 weeks coming back (I assume space exploration would be in the Vast). And any reinforcements or aid would be 5 weeks away.

I think at least half the star trek staple episode types would still work in this situation.

From what I've heard about the existing APs they seem to involve a lot of the 'going to ancient ruins' side of exploring but not much of the 'setting foot on unexplored planets' side. Would be nice to have an AP which is mostly about that.

Joe Mathos wrote:

That’s why I buy my characters clear spindle Ioun Stones or Rings of Sustenance. No more worries about food or water. Unless the GM is really evil and puts the party in an anti magic field.

Logically every person in Starfinder should have that stone. It pays itself in not even a year.

Unless you're a utilitarian/miser type and live on field rations for 52 credits a year.

But as someone who isn't like that, if I could spend a largish chunk of money to not need food, I probably never would as I enjoy eating and food shopping. And costwise its not insignificant.

(considering a poor meal costs 1 credit and we still have a £1 bakery where I live, that would be £245, not a small amount for me and perhaps unachievable for poorer people without credit options - or whose interest payments would be more than they'd save on food anyway. Plus if you live with family or have children you'd need to buy them all stones too if you want to save any time and space on shopping and food)

And that's if everyone just accepts the stones are entirely safe and socially acceptable (unlikely considering current real-world concerns about things like GM food and pesticides, and the fact the entire restaurant and farming industries would have an incentive to oppose the ioun stones). And if we assume the ioun stone manufacturers can produce them on the necessary scale (with a business model which then collapses once everyone has one - yes newborns would need them, but those dying of old age could pass theirs down in the family, so new sales would be tiny).

And that's before we even get into the question of who is producing all the ioun stones and the potential ramifications, real or fake ("Big Ioun Stone don't want you to know that ioun stones cause cancer! And they can use them to track all your data for their eventual takeover!")

Alangriffith wrote:

Mortagon wrote:

Do you know of any way to get more range on your guns without having to cash out a fortune? I find that most pistols have an extremely limited range and combined with the ridiculous ammo expenditure it's very rare to get more than one enemy in a cone.

-Halve the range

You're aware automatic mode halves the range increment, not the range, right?

Incorrect.

Automatic:
When you make a full attack with a weapon in automatic mode, you can attack in a cone with a range of half the weapon’s range increment.

Well page 170 says "range: the weapons range increment" but I guess that's only for reading the weapon tables, not the special rules.

Okay then, I stand corrected. I also amend my houserule suggestion for fusillade to also make the cone range into range increment, since you're making rolls to hit anyway and can apply the usual increment penalties. That would also make the far shot feat useful for this build.

I really have no idea why this feat is so weak - are there uber-smallarms in the Armoury or APs somewhere that could be used to abuse it? Would it somehow stack with Trick attack or something weird?

Do you know of any way to get more range on your guns without having to cash out a fortune? I find that most pistols have an extremely limited range and combined with the ridiculous ammo expenditure it's very rare to get more than one enemy in a cone.

-Halve the range

You're aware automatic mode halves the range increment, not the range, right?

So if you use any main book laser pistol it has a range increment of at least 80, halved to 40. So you can do an 80 or 120ft cone, you just take a -2 to hit on targets outside the 40ft range, and -4 to those at 80-120. It's a pretty steep penalty with your existing -4 for automatic on top, but it gets you a lot of shots if there are, say 10 targets there (and you definitely have enough ammo for 10 targets, and have to use it all up anyway).

To me the main issue would be that you need your GM to habitually throw lots of enemies at you in one encounter, as you'd need at least 4, preferably more, enemies in your cone for it to be worthwhile. But I find it hard to see why you couldn't be able to get most of the encounter in your cone (unless using sonic or flame pistols, which have truly terrible range).

***

In terms of making the fusillade feat better, the obvious way I'd do it would be to add the rule that if you are spending more than twice as much ammo as you would need for a normal automatic shot (which you almost always would be, unless you go for low capacity superpistols in an attempt to powergame), you get two attacks on each enemy in the cone instead of one, still with the -4 for automatic fire and any range penalty. That works out the same as a full attack on each enemy, without crit, and you're using up all your ammo and effectively missing the next turn to reload or switch weapons (plus your weapons need to be identical so will be lower level than those of the other PCs due to the quadruple cost). Doesn't seem overpowered to me against multiple weak enemies (since a melee guy with cleave can take down 2 or 3 of those in a fullround anyway, or grenades can be used), and against multiple stronger enemies the damage from 2 hits with underlevelled smallarms won't put them down anyway.

Against a single target this upgraded fusillade is still far worse than a normal full attack, so you can't use it as a bosskiller, just for crowd control.

Garretmander wrote:

Yeah, I imagine the likelihood of that being so remote that it just doesn't happen. Except maybe once or twice in the 300 years absalom station has been around.

And even then, I'd think the collisions happened in the material side of things.

Perhaps but just picture a capital city and the traffic flowing in/out of it. That's how I see Absalom station and the like sure in the galaxy odds of you running into another ship are remote but in proximity to THE guidance beacon and hub of intersteller activity. I can't see them not having safety rules without having incidents.

Pact Worlds book page 151 states that the Drift is "technically coterminous with the Material plane, meaning that a given point on one plane corresponds to a point on the other, yet these points are hopelessly scrambled, - two points apparently a mile apart in the Drift might correspond to locations thousands of light-years apart on the material plane". So there's no point on the Drift side which has heavy traffic, as all the points leading near Absalom Station are vast distances apart.

Combine this with what I referred to in my previous post about you not exiting the drift onto the material plane inside a solid object or at the same spot as another ship, and there's pretty much no collision risk on either side despite the traffic (except arguably on the material side if ships are speeding around when other ships pop out of the drift in front of them - a simple speed limit near the station would solve that one, if you don't rule such collisions are so improbable they never happen anyway).

I was thinking about this and the fact the drift is plane in its own right not a hyperspace where you don't see anything else while traelling which got me wondering can ships collide? That is . . .

SHIP A BOUNDARY SHIP B

If ship A transitions into the drift at the same spot as ship B do they merge and explode or is it shunted to a nearby open space like teleport/plane shift?

Pact Worlds book page 150 has more on the drift, and specifically states the opposite to this scenario isn't possible ("two ships can't exit the drift onto exactly the same point into material plane space, and a ship won't exit into a solid object"). It doesn't say anything about your scenario of going *into* the drift at the same spot, so technically this is still up for debate. I'd personally argue that as the Drift beacons and engines are linked to a sentient god (Triune), that this is at least equivalent to the control of a spellcaster, so you would shunt like with teleport spell does (that or it simply isn't possible to transition into the drift at the exact same spot as another ship).

Similar if Ship A transitioned and appeared in front of Ship B with them both heading in opposite directions is there any safe guard to prevent this?

This one has an actual rules answer. As a ship must be stationary for 1 minute with thrusters off to enter or exit drift (core rulebook pg 291), they can't be heading in opposite directions. Ship A is stationary, which cuts down the odds of collision by a lot.

(moving off the rules and into opinion, one could argue if ship B is moving at top speed and ship A jumps out right in front of it that a collision is still possible. I'd personally rule that, as the ship combat rules don't allow ships to ram others on purpose without the special thrusters in a ramming prow, that avoiding collision with a stationary craft is always possible so ship B would never hit A.

I mean, this ability technically allows you to pop an analog padlock with no circuitry from 20 feet away.

That blows my verisimilitude out of the water. Hacking a network through a wall shouldn't be a problem.

Never heard of a sonic screwdriver?

I mean, this ability technically allows you to pop an analog padlock with no circuitry from 20 feet away.

That blows my verisimilitude out of the water. Hacking a network through a wall shouldn't be a problem.

Never heard of a sonic screwdriver?

Didn't volume 2 of Against the Aeon Throne establish that species detecting biometrics exist? I seem to recall the doors there could tell if you were Azlanti (or maybe just any human) and required hacking/bypass if you weren't, regardless of any disguise.

Only Reptoids/Grays and others with a magical polymorph effect should be dodging serious technical security looking to find species hiding themselves as others.

The reptoid in alien archive has a change shape ability which says it can 'assume the appearance' of another creature, 'gains a +10 racial bonus to disguise checks' and 'otherwise functions as disguise self' (disguise self being an illusion not a polymorph, though it does say in disguise self description it 'counts as altering your form', whatever that means). Alien Archive doesn't label Change Shape with a type (Ex, Su or Sp).

So if we're saying biohacker auto-bypasses disguises by reporting the humanoid as a reptoid, reptoids should be bypassed, right?

Alternatively, if we're opposing disguise with the biohacker science check, that still gets a nat 20 so would bypass most reptoids (CR1 reptoid has disguise 25 with the bonus if taking 10 or rolling average, level 1 biohacker with at least +1 int modifier modifier and a rank in relevant sciences has 25 with his automatic nat 20 from the custom lab scan. I assume reptoid master scales similarly with the appropriate level biohacker to its CR, but there's a lot more maths I can't be bothered to do to confirm that).

The Gray in alien archive doesn't have any disguise skill listed, nor any disguise abilities or spell-like abilities that would cause a disguise.

So if we're bringing adventure paths into it, has the Threefold Conspiracy been run by anyone for a party including a biohacker?

Would any of the mysteries be ruined by a biohacker PC auto-bypassing reptoid disguises by identifying them as reptoids? Are there disguised grays, and if so does it explain how they are disguised? Would biohacker bypass them as well or is specified as shapeshifting? Is there any clarification that shapeshifting even changes DNA?

These are somewhat genuine questions in that I do genuinely want to know the answers, but I do obviously have the agenda that I don't believe custom lab should bypass disguises, so some of the questions are phrased to show how I feel that happening is ridiculous or ruins the whole shapeshifting schtick of reptoids (and apparently grays, even though the only book I have with them in doesn;pt have any disguise pwoers for them).

People keep bringing up 20 credit disguise kits but you also have to have the skill, and/or use a spell for a +10, or a 500 credit holoskin. Meanwhile the custom lab costs 1 chemalyser or medkit (to replace - first one is free), and counts as BOTH those items in addition to providing this scan, so its effectively 0 credit value to bypass somewhere between 20 and 500.

But does the custom microlab only use visual means of identification, or does it scan dna/pheromones/x-rays/other to identify it?

What makes you think that scifi disguise kits are only a visual disguise? It does say 'change appearance' but surely you can appear to be someone else in a non-visual way? For example Vlaka can be blind and have blindsight sound and blindsight smell, but I assume you wouldn't let them automatically defeat disguises because of it?

The rules for the disguise skill say you have to have a disguise kit, use magic or use a tech item (no more just stealing some clothes like in D&D - don't know about Pathfinder).
Tool kits (including disguise kit) are described as including 'specialised tools and devices', so why not assume those items include a pheremone/scent release patch/spray, a chip to scramble/hack nearby scanners etc.

The holoskin doesn't include any description beyond appearance-changing, but I'd personally rule it contains similar stuff to a disguise kit, and if not then you could carry a disguise kit and supplement it with those items.
Magic and shapeshifting would definitely hide/change pheremones and skeletal structure, possibly DNA too.

So without anything I'd call a houserule (just an interpretation of existing rules/info), the the problem is solved - whether with a scanner or a biolab or alien senses, you still need to roll perception vs disguise or be fooled (maybe give a +2 circumstance bonus to the person with a biolab, or another scanner that doesn't have its own bonus in the rules, but that's within existing GM discretion rules).

Yeah I was looking last night and the only "rules" I could find for scanning were about scanning an enemy ship during star ship combat. Which doesn't include information about personnel.

Well entry 1 on the scan combat action list (CRB pg 325) does say it reveals "living crew complement". It's unclear to me whether this is the listed complement of the ship (e.g. 4 for shuttle, 6 for light freighter, regardless of how many crew are currently aboard) or whether it picks up the actual number of crew aboard (the use of the term 'living' might suggest the scan is for heat signatures or something, but as it doesn't include passengers in guest quarters on the list anywhere, the ship may just be scanning for whether life support is on, and cross-referencing with the normal complement for its classification, as classification is also something listed on scan entry 1).

In either case, as it specifically says 'living crew complement', I guess corpse fleet and non-adapted eoxian ships always come out as 0?

So when you "scan" a planet it seems like HammerJack is correct, that what you detect is completely up to your GM.

There is a rule for scanning planets on page 301 of the CRB, which says "Outside of Starship combat, a crew member can use the sensors to scan a planet the starship is orbiting... to learn basic information about the planet's composition and atmosphere." Nothing there about any lifesigns at all. Further on it also says "a crew member can also use the ship's active sensors to examine the surrounding area as if she were standing outside the starship, using her own senses..." So that would at least let you see if the planet was green with plantlife, had lights on the nightside and any man-made structures visible from space. Atmospheric composition would also tell you if the atmosphere was breathable, though a non-breathable atmosphere with visible structures/lights could indicate androids, exotic-breather aliens or an abandoned civilisation as easily as an undead one.

Of course there are current realworld satellites and probes that can see a planetary surface better than a person with up to +4 perception bonus (huge zoom/detail, thermal imaging etc.) but hey, Starfinder seems to be a star wars/space opera setting where spaceflight is easy but tech level is otherwise pretty low.

I’d check with your GM whether they are ruling space/vacuum is silent, first.
Starfinder is halfway between soft scifi and space opera, and a lot of those genres have sound in space for drama reasons, so your blindsense (sound) may just work.

Also, you’re going to be on a spaceship when actually in space (and can probably assume its turrets or whatever controls can include sound-based targeting, braille keyboards, sensor feed plugged directly in to your brain etc.). Any ground combat in a vacuum will likely have you on a solid surface, and as sound can travel through a solid your GM may rule your blindsight (sound) can work through that.

So my advice is to check with your GM first before seeking gameplay solutions. Your GM may dislike your character concept or ban a gear solution anyway, so you’ll need a conversation at some point.

Pantshandshake wrote:

There's no need to get into internal logic, its not going to fetch you an answer you like or that makes much sense.

Agreed. Ship combat is so abstracted that is very difficult to explain what is going on in any detail or with any sense.

But my players ask questions so I have to provide answers as best I can.

Like this gem from my players.

"Why does the enemy ship get an armor bonus while it has shields up? The weapons are hitting the shields not the armor. The enemy ship should not get an armor bonus until it is attacked in a facing that has no shields."

Because the ship’s computer calculates if shots/asteroids will do damage, and only activates/boosts shields in that arc if the hit would penetrate the armour and cause damage. Otherwise it saves shield energy and lets them bounce off.

This interpretation allows things such as the Tracker weapon (Nearspace book) to make sense (as it attaches a device to the hull despite shields) and also allows space-flying critters to access the ship without an argument on shields being up out of combat (the CRB mentions navigational shields as a thing, and even the critter who can phase through matter is blocked by forcefields, yet boards ships in the drift)

It even makes that famous Star Wars move make sense - docking on the back of the star destroyer bridge to hide, despite shields being up)

Pantshandshake wrote:

No? You just say "I'm the gunner for the all guns" and can choose which gun you fire?

Not a single person at my table reads the rules in that manner. Is that how everyone else is running starship combat?

*edit*
Might sound snarky? Not intentional. I'm legit asking, is this how people have been running starship combat? Because it sounds much better this way than the way my table does it.

Yep, that's how my group ran it.

That’s how I run it too. I didn’t consider it Star Trek so much as X-Wing. If you’re an interceptor pilot (1crew) in Starfinder, you have literally one seat yet two forward weapons as well as potential for more with upgrade rules, and you also pilot and potentially use sensors from your one seat. With the glide minor a tion, you can fire both weapons (at -4) and move (half speed with one turn) all in one turn as one guy. Plus a free shot if someone fails flyby on you, or if you have a point defence weapon and a missile comes in.

This fits with how in the xwing games you can switch between torpedoes or lasers with a button press, and they share the same sight. Get a missile warning in the later games and you can fire a flare (aft flak thrower equivalent?) with another button, all in one seat.

The idea that Starfinder make this harder in bigger ships (at least ones with minimum crew 1) seems dumb, especially as minor actions (such as snap shot) are described as “computer-aided”, so there is computer support going in to help you switch guns

Just FYI (as it has come up several times, not just in the last post), the CRB does state thrusters are used out of combat (though an argument could still be made that they might behave differently out of combat).

From page 296, under heading 'Thrusters'

"Ships rely on conventional thrusters to move between locations in a system, to navigate the reaches of the drift once they arrive there, to explore, and to engage in combat."

Sorry if I'm getting too rules-lawyer, but this is the "Rules Questions" forum, so I think it's valid.

Garretmander wrote:

The point is that then when the published rules for a cloaking device state explicitly that you can't use the thrusters while cloaked, they are intending for the device to not be able to allow you to bypass starship combat encounters that the GM has put in place. You can't use the thrusters while cloaked = you can't move while cloaked. Because that is how the rules for the thrusters works.

Trying to bypass that game design decision based on the argument 'well, that is how it works in real life' doesn't sit well with me.

If cloaking devices aren't intended to help you bypass ship combats what are they supposed to do?

Because under your idea of how they work it's basically only good for parkin gyour ship and hiding it someplace. I just don't see that a reasonable way to use your ship. If you've landed your ship on something and it's powered down, you're probably not going to be worried about it being detected anyways. Either the enemy already had a good idea of where you were going or wasn't going to be near you anyways.

I agree that as written the cloaking device is nearly useless, but I also agree with Garretmander that this is how it is written. It specifically says you can only activate while 'not in motion' and says that activating thrusters deactivates it. This is a similar pattern to the rules for using Drift engines to enter/exit drift, which state your ship must be 'stationary with its conventional thrusters turned off' (CRB pg 291). It's a double statment, thrusters off *and* not moving.

So the far the only uses I can see for a cloaking device as written are for NPC/Enemy ships, for which I can think of 2 options:
1) A 'secret base' carrier ship that is permenantly cloaked and uses shuttles/fighters that the PCs must track back or stow away on

2) A pirate/assassin ship that sits cloaked on a known supply route, or in the predicted path of its target, and decloaks to open fire with short-range weapons when the prey gets close.

The first option couldn't be used by PCs without a GM houseruling past the single ship Tier level rules.
I suppose the second option could be used by PCs but only if they build a ship around the tactic and do a lot of hacking or espionage to learn the courses enemy ships have logged (though even that requireds the GM to rules that courses are actually logged with traffic control or merchant unions or high command or whatever). There seems to be no official-rules way to track enemies through the drift in a way that you could get ahead or intercept for a cloaked ambush - the comm system section of the CRB mentions a transponder for ships but no specifics on how that could be tracked, while the tracking device gear is far too short for ship scale, and the Tracking weapon in the Nearspace book is written to be nearly useless as it stops working when the tracked ship enters drift (as well as them knowing if they are tracked).

I can only hope the Starship Operations Manual adds a better tracking method and/or revises the cloaking device rules - The nearspace book actually refers to the SOM a few times in ship stat blocks, so it seems to have already been partially written.

Under your theory of operation you can't even orbit a planet or something because you would still be moving.

It's definitely true that you can't orbit while cloaked under the written rules, because the CRB states "a starship in orbit always has its thrusters active" (page 291, under Start Thrusters), and the cloaking device states it deactivates if thrusters are activated.

Well I find it unlikely that you’d have such a low damage weapon listed at that cost with no upside, and the existence of direct fire weapons only adds alternatives that make a limited fire 2D8 launcher entirely useless for its cost. Then again, EMP weapons are basically useless, and the biggest nuke famously lacks irradiate, so maybe I overestimate the design quality.

We may find out if they ever errata the weapons table, or if the Starship Operations Manual includes unlimited fire launchers.

But the CRB light torpedo launcher only does 2D8 damage, while for the same BP a high-ex missile launcher does 4D8. It seems pretty clear to me that the Light torpedo launcher trades damage for being unlimited fire (the only other difference from the high ex is 4 missile speed, which is hardly worth half damage for the same BP.