Driftbourne's page

I think the difference is that in Starfinder 2e, all scenarios are repeatable. So I think that eliminates the need for replays. Note there's no SF2e replay boon you can buy with APC, and it looks like SF2 replays are not tracked.

The Gap also affects other planes, so the changes between PF and SF timelines could be much bigger than just the normal passage of time.

Planar travel is very commonplace; anyone who has traveled to another planet by Drift Drive has experienced planar travel. For some busy routes, it's as common as taking an airplane today.

The Drift doesn't exist yet in Pathfinder, so it's possible that Starfinder could have other unique planes. There's always room to do more with the Drift. For people who didn't play SF1e and didn't read Drift Crisis or play through Drift Crashers and Drift Hackers, having an SF2e book that goes a bit deeper into the Drift can turn the Drift from this is how we travel in Starfinder into this is one of the really cool things about Starfinder.

With common diabolical legal services, getting into Hell at any character level should be easy; getting out is the hard part. Going to Hell is something that has happened at the 1st level in an SF1e AP.

I haven't seen Rage of Elements, but I'm thinking something like Planar Ports of Call.

A 1/5 split isn't splitting the party; it's someone went off on their own. It sounds like luck is the reason they survived.

In a play-by-post to really do a split party right, you could make a separate game thread for one of the parties, so neither group knows what the other is seeing or where they are. Although in Starfider comm units, could overcome some of that.

Time line-wise of book releases, Tech Core is more in line with the Armory book, although the Tech Core is more like Tech Revolution content-wise. So hard to tell if a god/magic book would follow next. Meanwhile,
There are all the spells from PF2e that could be used, and until we get a divine book in SF2e, the divine lore from SF1e mostly still works.

SF1e had a few books in planning or being worked on we never saw because the OGL mess happened, and they started working on SF2e. I think the planar book was one of them. It sounded like some of these projects were getting rewritten for SF2e.

SF1e has several interstellar drives that are similar to drift drives, but for other planes. Helldrives, First Drives (first world), Shadow Engine, Planar Aperture Drive, Elemental Engine. There was some planar travel in Drift Crashers, post Drift Crash seems like it would have been a good time for an SF1e planar book. I "think?" it was said in a live stream that the Planar Book was what was replaced with Starfinder Enhanced.

Outside of the connection between PF1e Distance Worlds and the Pact Worlds, planar travel gets you to locations that Pathfinder and Starfinder have in common, that haven't been explored in depth in Starfinder yet. Not sure when a book like this would come out, definitely post-core books, but likely sooner than later otherwise.

Event Listing

Event Listing

Maybe in a book like Galactic Magic, but unless there's a lot of updating to do from the SF1e Galactic Magic, I don't see it happening anytime soon, kind of like how there's only a few big changess to the Pact Worlds, so no Pact Worlds book to start, instead we are getting a book on Absalom Station which we never got in SF1e. Another book SF1e never got was a book on the planes, so that might be a better chance for something sooner on fiendish things, although not limited to just fiends.

I used to want a 5th tradition for Starfinder just to have one that was Starfinder only, but now I think it comes down to having more tech-flavored spells than a new tradition. It doesn't get more "tech Mystic" than motivating ringtone.

A PF2e wizards writning down spells in a book isn't much different from writing a computer program for a spell chip. When triggered, both do a preprogrammed effect. In Starfinder, magic can often be seen as an alternative power source for tech items.

I am unaware of what problem this new approach is solving.

Besides making them easier to write, balance, and cheaper to produce, there are several player facing benefits.

1. It's also easier for GMs, since you don't have to prep for high and low tiers. Which also means there are fewer pages to flip through when you only have one set of stat blocks per encounter instead of two.

2. Most near TPKs I've been in, we only survived because, at the last moment, when the GM realized they used the wrong tier stat block or had mis-calculated APL.

3. Playing the only 1st-level character when the rest of the party is 3rd and 4th-level isn't always fun.

______________

If your group only has one table, the problem is no different than only having a 4th-level character when the group is playing 5th + scenario. The quick solution for players are play a pregen to level up your character, or if you have time, make a 3rd-level character.

Also, Hephaistos 2e has the tech playtest classes in their character builder.

Hephaistos 2e

You can't play for no credit as the fourth player at a 1-4 table, for example, because the table could continue without you by adding a pregen.

I feel like an exception to that rule would be good for situations where an experienced player dropped out of another game to play a pregen to help a GM with a table of all new players. Having new players play multiple pregens can be overwhelming, and having at least one experienced player at the table can help the GM out when teaching new players. This is a common occurrence at our lodge.

I really like that all Starfinder 2 scenarios are repeatable. I've already repeated 3 of them. The last one I repeated, another GM had to cancel on short notice, and being able to run a scenario I had already run made it easy to fill in on short notice. Because it was on short notices one of the players had also played it before. So being repeatable helped both sides of the table.

Empires Devoured is also a playtest adventure; some of the hazards in the playtest were known to be overturned, so I'd consider that when deciding to let them be saved. An alternative to character death I sometimes use is that they are knocked unconscious until the end of the session. That way, they can be saved, but it feels like something bad happened that could just be fixed with a quick spell or med patch.

I'm hoping for spherical power armor for Novians, with the Novian being the power source, to make a miniature Dysion's sphere. Another option would be making a Novian becoming a Dysion's sphere into an Evolunist niche.

The first 3rd to 4th level Scenarios are starting to come out, and I have a few questions.

1. When making a higher-level character, do you record your starting experience points on your first chronicle as the minimum to start at the level? Or do you start with 0 XP and just level every 12 XP? I think if you start at 0 XP, it might answer question 2.

2. Can you do free rebuilds until you reach the next level above where you started, as a 1st-level character can before reaching 2nd level?

3. The starting credits or equipment chart on the Lore Spire covers levels 1, 3, and 5. I thought in SF2e the top level you could start at was 7th? (although there's no need for that in season 1)

4. How does starting a character at a higher level and GM chronicles mix or not? For example, if you have 2 GM chronicals and build a 3rd-level character.

I'll quibble and say Precog flavor is mostly in SFS 2, but the pre-roll mechanic which I just love isn't there which is unfortunate since I liked that a lot. I've had fun with the SFS2, but certainly the range of options available in SFS1 still makes it very attractive to play.

I wonder if the pre-roll mechanic was left out because it would be more powerful with crits being 10 over AC or DC.

Imagine a worlanisi precog with 3 pre-rolls and hero points. That's a lot of dice control. I'm courious to see if worlanisi luck remains first nat 1 of the days = becomes a nat 20

SF1e only had 7 classes at release.

The tech playtest mechanic and technomancer are still playable even in organized play. With the precog now being a witchwarper subclass, that's 8.5 classes from SF1e covered at the release of SF2e.

The release of SF2e was on August 1st 2025, that's only 6 months ago, not a year.

Tech Class Playtest pdf

I think this is the first SF2e scenario with missing stat blocks for creatures in the Alien Core. The Archive of Nethys has a new tool for printing missing stat blocks as a printer-friendly PDF. You can also apply the difficulty adjustments of the encounter to the stat blocks or print out all levels of difficulty.

Encounters for Starfinder Society Scenario #1-14: The Beasts of Bo: Part One

To find that without a link it's:
AoN > Setting > Adventures > Scenarios > SFS Year 1 > View Encounters

There was talk in another thread about starship combat in organized play, how it's better to have more challenging starship encounters at the end of a scenario, because losing a starship battle is usually a TPK or complete mission fail, especially if it's the first encounter of the scenario. So I had an idea for a boon you could get by spending ACP in case your ship is destroyed. I'm also a big fan of fail-forward mechanics.

Rescued: The boon would rescue you; it might take up all of your downtime for the scenario that left you stranded. Gain +1 to Subsist in one environment that you were stuck in. For getting stranded somewhere with a population, you might instead gain the option to take one versatile heritage feat or a local lore skill.

Optionally, to make it feel more like the character really was stranded, have it that the character can't play in the next scenario you play in. Maybe quicker rescues cost more ACP

Thought it might be an interesting way to allow scenarios with higher stakes or consequences.

Thanks for taking the time to post this update. All of your hard work and the work of the entire Starfinder Team is greatly appreciated! I've been playing TTRPGs since 1979, and Starfinder is my favorite setting by a long shot. I've only played Starfiner through organized play, and having a great time doing so!

Now that more scenarios are out, and they are all repeatable, the original want of other adventurers getting sectioned feels less important than it did early on. I love the shorter length of the SF2e scenarios; it leaves time for GMs who like to mod and add some of their own flavor to them (within SFS guidelines), making repeating them more fun.

Now that the higher-level scenarios are starting to come out, I'm looking forward to being able to make a character starting at higher levels. At first, I thought this was just a good option, giving us more flexibility, being able to use our one character instead of pregens at higher levels. Now I'm really excited about when I realised this allows me to start at 3rd level, which is great for character concepts that are built around them getting an archetype at 2nd level.

I'm 1 game away from getting my first "whatever they come to be called."
Just had another idea for that. Use a little Skittermander face for the symbol and call them "nufriends."

Thanks again for all of your hard work. You bring our favorite galaxy to life! or in Zo!'s case unlife.

Speaking of ways to make CSS more fun or easier to use, a new 3rd-party tool was just released.

Mobile View and Cinematic Starship Combat Builder added to Starfinder Encounters

I dug a little deeper and asked AI to show its sources for the info on Gnolls and Kitsune, and it linked to another thread started by the OP

Upcoming Galactic Ancestries Book for 2E

Which is odd because it's not what the AI link says it's linked to, AI claims to be linking to "Paizo Forums - Scions of Lost Golarion / Part 3 Player Core 2", I can't find a thread or blog post with that name. But there is a Reddit post on Scions of Lost Golarion.

My guess is someone taught AI the dubious knowledge feat, and or the deception skill.

No reveals were needed, all information that was problematic could already be found in the Alien Archive entry featuring them.

More info of this old conversation can basically be found in this old thread

But essentially, an old Discord post from devs insinuated that greys had a real chance of being cut, especially since at the time, reptoids were confirmed cut, and Ikeshti's had retcons applied to their lore. So we were expecting greys would either be cut or get the Ikeshti treatment.

I just want to point out that the thread linked to had several posts removed by Paizo, so the first post in that thread is not the OP.

Milo v3 wrote:

I feel like cinematic is the closest it's been, but has suffered from not giving players enough agency in the examples for me to want to use the system over just replacing the whole encounter with one or two skill rolls and just not having a system for starship combat in my games.

I really hope that whatever system they come to gives reasons to be doing different things each turn and have actual decisions get made.

Yeah.

I ran the Corpse Fleet encounter and almost immediately my players asked to do tasks not listed like targeting engines, taunting crew, hacking systems, etc.

By CSS, using creature building rules for balance and scaling, it opens up using a lot of other regular actions.

Ttaunting the other crew is just a matter of calling them over ship comms and using intimidation to demoralize.

For hacking, you can borrow the hacking action from another CSS; they're all listed in the Archive of Nethys Cinematic Starship Scenes

Hack Defenses [two-actions] (magic or science officer)
Attempt a DC 22 Arcana, Computers, Nature, Occultism, or Religion check to infiltrate sensor networks or nullify sensor patrol drones and turrets in your path.
Critical Success: Gain 2 Infiltration Points.
Success: Gain 1 Infiltration Point.
Critical Failure: Lose 1 Infiltration Point.

In the SF2e GM Core, there's a Hacking Subsystem.

To target the engines, let an Enovy use Get'Em at the engines. The PCs hit the engines, giving the opponent's ship the glitching condition. Ships in CSS's can get persistent damage like PCs can, why not conditions? Since CSS doesn't have movement rules, instead of the glitching condition, use Off Guard to simulate that a slower ship is easier to hit.

To make CSS more intresting plug in regular actions/rules whenever you can. Doing so lets your players use actions from their character sheet, giving them more choices directly related to their character.

I also don't get the hate on SF1e's Starship Combat, especially reading what came out after I quit running it. We're GMs really going, "oh you all explode now, game over." instead of disabling, surrendering, abandoning ship, etc? I think only once did I ever had a starship combat end in "TPK" and that was because it was a Halo: Reach style "survive until you can't" style finale mission to set up our next campaign.

I'm not one of the SF1e starship combat haters. I had fun with it, but I see more potential in CSS and adventures built like Nova Rush, add movment rules to either, and you have tactical combat. Until we get full starship rules, I think a more useful conversation would be how to get the most out of CSS and adventures like Nova Rush to make them more fun.

I quite liked the cinematic combat stuff having played with it a few times. Personally, I'm not sure we need tactical combat, coming from someone who loved the tactical combat in SF1. I think what we need is the ability to get more crew actions and to customise our ships. Specifically, swapping weapons and choosing bay options. AC, shields, HP etc can all be covered by the building rules as in the cinemtaic combat stuff.

I agree that more options would be good. I wonder if, when the full shipbuilding rules are out, if you could just plug in a ship with a full stat block into a CSS and just use the rest of the CSS to set the obstacles, non-ship threats, and victory conditions to make an encounter. I also wonder if a list of crew actions for the full starship combat rules could also be used in a CSS.

________________________

I think for those who have only looked at but not played with CSS, or played a CSS as written, there are more weapons and crew options than it may look at first sight.

If you take all the CSS we have so far 3 from the GM Core and 4 from Guilt of the Grave Word, we have 8 types of ship weapons plus a gunner action. Two of the weapons also have variations for different levels.

For pilot actions, there are 6, but Tactical Withdrawal appears in 3 different CSS having from slight to completely different variations. I think this is important to point out because, unlike standard actions that have a single fixed definition, an action in CSS can have the same name but be made to do whatever the scenario needs.

Some of the other crew roles are lacking actions, but are also some of the crew roles that have things to do inside the ship during a battle, using non ship realted ruels.

Thanks for the reminder about that. I'll have to start keeping an eye out for scenarios that go together to see what the impacts are. This is the first season I've been able to play or run scenarios as they came out, and in order, so first time I've seen the results of past scenarios play out. I had assumed effects would show up next season.

Now that you mentioned it, I just checked the chronicles for 1-13 Foul Humors, and if Tadasi survives is on it again. Checking warhorn I have seats left, but know at least 1/2 the players are from the first game.

If Tadasi died in my game a 2nd time, but showed up alive again in a 3rd scenario. I think it would be fun to progress her recovery from Borai to Corpsefolk. I could do it without changing any of Tadasi's stats and just say her change in appearance is the result of experimental blood transfusions done at Dreamlink Labs. If she survives Foul Humor,s I'll say the transfusions worked, and she returns to looking normal.

It's also kind of fitting for my group, we played Disaster at Dreamlink near Halloween, so I used skulls as hero points.

* If space combat is going to be its own miniature-based game, does everyone get a miniature of their own?

I think this is important because one of the frustrations in SF1 was that only the person (pilot) moving the ship got to really make a lot of choices. As a gunner you're just rolling dice and hoping to roll high, but you're not making many interesting choices.

I think it's very unlikely that everyone will be in their own starfighter, unless they do an AP like Mechageddon! for starfighters. For one to do that, everyone has to be good at plioting and that narrows down character choices a lot. Most species wouldn't enjoy 5d6 weeks of Drift travel in a single-seat starfighter, so you also need a base ship.

So that makes the question what kind of starship works best for long travel with a crew of 4 to 6, and what kind of combat works for that size of ship. So we're talking about flying RVs with guns or in Star Wars light freighters, basically something you can live in, which just happen to be small enough to fit on a flip mat, but big enough to fill up the map.

From the STF CONline 2026 - Starfinder 2e Developer Panel last week, it looks like the SF2e developer working on staship combat was inspired by a game called Faster Than Light. Which looks like it could work with the size of ships I described above. I haven't played FTL, but watching some videos on it, it's got great reviews, so maybe they're on to something.

Also pointing out the lear long Drift Crisis event, was particularly inspired by the need to chage how the Drift works, so travel could become more predictable for things like space piracy to make more sense in Starfinder. That, combined with how FTL plays, and I think we will see more boarding action in SF2e, which makes sense with the size of the ship that fits a crew of 4 to 6. That doesn't mean there will only be shipboarding combat.

The ship in Battle for Nova Rush is big enough to act as a small base ship and could hold a few starfighters or a single shuttle-sized ship. I think if the party has more than one pilot, having 1 or 2 smaller ships, you could launch, could add a lot to a starship battle.

TL;DR - I think space combat design needs to start out by thinking a lot about what wining and losing means for the adventure. Provide build advice for GMs on how to use low and high stakes space combat. Especially for how to make LOW stakes space combat work because that's what you need the most of.

I think for low-stakes combat, the goal should be for the PCs' main mission to be completing some goal not related to combat, but they have to survive the combat long enough to complete the mission before fleeing. Having goals like that also gives the PCs who are not pilots or gunners something to do.

Also, being able to directly target the opponent's engines or weapons could help end battles without having to fight to the death. This also leads to opportunities to board ships.

I think Ascalaphus hada really good point about high stake encounter happening at the end of a scenario, where a TPK wouldn't end the game right at the start. I also think having a final battle with a ship you have encountered before, where one side or the other had fled the fight, helps lead up to a better boss fight. That's harder to do in a single scenario, but could be done as part of a meta plot or AP.

I think losing doesn't have to mean a TPK. You could be stranded on a shipwreck in space, or you might be able to crash land and be stranded on a planet. You could be taken prisoner or rescued by someone else. A lot of these options work better in longer adventures and more sandbox games. They could be harder to do in organized play. For organized play, being rescued could be a downtime activity or a boon you buy with ACP

Ascalaphus wrote:

But if the stakes are going to be that high, that has some consequences for how you can use them.

5) There needs to be (in general) some way for the PCs to be able to just run away from a fight once they realize they're losing.

In normal combat encounters most of the time (not all, admittedly) it is possible to realize that you're losing and its time to retreat, regroup, and come up with a better plan. In fact, those make some of the best encounters IMO.

That's one problem with Drift travel is activating a Drift drive requires the starship to be stationary with conventional thrusters off for 1 minute to "spin up" the engine. So fleeing tends to turn into a chase. Which can force a GM to have the opponents fight to the death if their ships are slower than the PCs' ship. Letting opponents flee when they take x amount of damage is a great way to keep starship battles from dragging on.

I don't think Dtrif trave needs to be changed, but having options like diverting all power to the sublight thrusters to make a getaway could help. Another option the PCs could be told in their mission briefing not to pursue fleeing starships.

If the PCs are the ones who flee, doing so could have some impact later on in the adventure. But being able to flee depends on whether the PCs' ship is faster than the opponents, back to needing some way to make a quick escape.

1-13 Foul Humors doesn't say what to do if Tadasi didn't survive in 1-03 Disaster at Dreamlink Labs. So I've been looking at all the potions, since Tadasi was found dead due to the PCs getting to Dreamlink Labs late due to some bad luck with piloting checks, when I ran Disaster at Dreamlink Labs.

1. If the PCs found Tadasi's body but didn't get her name, run 1-13 Foul Humors as if Tadasi had never died.

2. If the PCs remember Tadasi's name, just change Tadasi's name in Foul Humors.

3. Have Arta save Tadasi, but Tadasi is now a Borai. I think this fits the scenario well since the Borai's physical description says "their blood becomes infused with void energy, turning it into a thick, black ichor." Which ties into the description of Tadasi's corpse in Disaster at Dreamlink Labs, "Her body is partially drained of blood, and her fur is matted with an oily black substance." (I'm assuming the black substance is ichor.) This would also make Tadasi a Reborn Newbornite.

I got a few weeks before I run this, so courious what others have done if Tadasi didn't survive in Disaster at Dreamlink Labs.

* No Character Synergy: It doesn't matter in the vanilla version what exactly your character is, it comes down to skill checks.

For the most part agree with all you said, just wanted to add some comments to this one.

I always felt that Character Synergy and even lack of player awareness of the starship Ruel came from; that's it's not part of character creation and wasn't on the character sheet, unless you had the character portfolio. It also didn't help that Starship combat used a completely different action economy.

Especially in organized play, where the players never got to build their ship, I had always wanted a crew station modification rule, where each player could at least have some input on their crew station.

To help things run more smoothly, I used the Starship Rules Reference Cards and, at the start of combat, gave each player the cards for their crew role.

* Easy Exploits: The bulding rules were subpar in balance. It was easy to make your starship much stronger than its tier suggested,

That's one thing I like about CSS being by the encounter; if the balance is off, it's like fixing an encounter without having to update the rules. How or if that applies to the full starship rules, we'll have to see.

For obvious reasons (TPKs suck) Paizo wasn't willing to make space combat actually deadly.

That^^^ Plus half the time in SFS scenarios, the starship combat was the first encounter on the way to the main adventure, so a TPK would end the game at the start.

Side note: The longest SF1e starship combat I was in lasted almost 6 weeks in a play-by-post. The only thing that kept it interesting was taunting the enemy ship's captain. One of the players came up with the famous line "Eat my shed fur!" At the start of the next scenario, my character gave everyone on the crew a t-shirt with their best taunt from that battle on it.

The ability to drop in/out easily via PFS is what kept me coming back to PF2

People still drop in and out all the time, not sure why you think that has changed?

As a customer since near the very beginning, I'll still check in every few months to see whether Paizo has course-corrected, but that'll probably require entirely new OP leadership. PF3, maybe?

To me, the problem is that since the new store, there are no forum comments directly on the blog post; that's where we got a lot of comments from Paizo. That decision wasn't likely made by OP leadership, since it affects all bolg post, not just the OP blog post. A change of OP leadership is not going to change that. I think OP leadership is doing just fine. I feel there have been other shifts in how Paizo communicates. I suspect that comes from much higher up the OP leadership.

the months-long radio silence on Starfinder 2E adventure sanctioning,

I'm a frequent poster to that thread, I'm in no way upset about it, mostly courious and hopeful for change. Although there's been no official response in that thread, there was a comment, I believe, to a blog post, so I can't find it anymore, but the gist of it was that there's no sales data suggesting sanctioning APs has helped sales. I'm guilty of buying both Murder in Mettal City and Guilt of the Grave World, so that data may be correct, if others who only play organized play have bought them too.

I do think we are in a year of experimentation with organized play testing ideas before making SF2e and PF2e more standardized in how they run. Paizo's always seemed more willing to take risks to try new things with Starfinder. I wonder if not sectioning SF2e APs is testing, making all SF2e scenarios repeatable, and that would be harder to do with sectioned APs. Just a theory, but if true, a blind test would give better results, which would explain the lack of response. I like everything being repeatable. I hope PF2e gets that too.

Since seasons tend to change at Gen Con, if we get any big news about organized play, I'd suspect it would be around then.

Hang in there or take a break, but don't let it get to you.

(I liked my Singularity suggestion, but I guess it wasn't to be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

If there is ever a season of PF2e/SF2e crossovers, Singularities would be a great symbol for that!

Driftbourne wrote:

3. The missing stat blocks is eaisly delt with now that AoN has a feature that lets you download all the stat blocks for a scenario with one click as a single printer-friendly PDF or that can be used on a phone or tablet.

Unfortunately this only helps if they are showing the correct stat blocks. There are still errors in 7-01 (at least).

** spoiler omitted **

Have you reported that to AoN?

If you tell people that an adventure is a great way to run heists, but the adventure is actually just the various complications that happened prior to the heist and some of the heist prep, while the heist itself is just a single abstracted roll... that isn't going to be seen an heist adventure to me and struggle to see how it'd work as a foundation for future heist adventures.

I think Battle for Nova Rush is a great example of how to run a starship encounter, but I don't think it's the only way. Also, when I say example, I don't mean copy and paste it, I mean twist and mangle it into whatever you like. The same goes for CSS.

This thread is "man, I wish there was more fighting starships like Rogue Squadron," with you and Driftbourne saying, "What do you mean?! It absolutely feels just like you're in KoTOR!" Again, is it a bad one-shot? No. But it is very clearly a bad example of and absolutely NOT the "[actual] starship combat", many of us want and honestly expected.

I haven't played Rogue Squadron, or KoTOR, but I used to play the old X-wing computer game, and currently play the Armada and X-wing miniature games.

I don't see Rogue Squadron as a starship combat game, from the players pespective its a starfighter game. You might go up against starships, but you're just one person controlling one starfighter. Sounds like you can give commands to NPCs in Rogue Squadron, but a typical Starfinder game is not just one player with several NPCs. To have starfighter combat in Starfinder, you need the whole party to have their own starfighters. I don't recall ever seeing that in a published Starfinder adventure. There are rules for squadron combat in SF1e, but I've never seen them used. To do squadren combat right in Starfinder, you need an AP like Mechageddon! for starfighters, but that's not something you do at release.

So if you're not in a starfigher, you're in a starship with a crew doing crew things during a battle or mission. If that's like KoTOR, I'm all for it. So I've never had the expectation in SF1e or SF2e that starship combat should be like a Rogue Squadron, or X-wing. Both Battle for Nova Rush and CSS let you do crew things in a starship. They don't replace tactical combat, but I think they do a good job of filling in until we get full tactical starship combat.

You could use CSS to recreate the Death Star Trench run. Luke didn't design his X-wing, so you don't need player-facing ship-building rules. You don't need maneuvering rules; they're flying in a trench. You don't need a long list of character options; Luke takes evasive maneuvers, decides to use the targeting computer or not, and fires a torpedo. Vader and the 2 TIE/ln are a hazards; the longer you take to get to the target, you start losing wingmen, you lose your shields, and R2-D2 gets hit. If you can do one of the most iconic cinematic starfighter scenes in movie history with a CSS, it's good enough for me.

100% this. The conclusion was the worst part of Nova Rush even looking at it from a purely "I just want a dungeon crawl," lens. It's essentially a barely weighted coinflip between "You win!" and "You win! But, with a downside," that really isn't affected by the adventure choices prior.

If by coin flip you mean

We're playing the same game, just with different expectations and points of view; neither is wrong.

I ran a game recently where a Witchwarper making difficult terrain, and a soldier using suppressive fire reduced a creatures movment to 5 feet per action. It was burtile.

I came up with a fun trick in that game. The soldier's area fire killed the creature right before its turn, so I kept the creature alive long enough to take its turn and had it charge the soldier. The suppressed condition kept the creature from reaching the soldier, and that's when I had it die.

Thank you to whoever did the sticky business!

To me,
1. The Battle for Nova Rush was funer then SF1e starship combat.
2. It felt like being on a ship while the ship was being attacked, largely due to a sense of urgency to get things done because the ship was getting attacked.
3. It felt different from just exploring and having encounters on a starship that was not being attacked.
4. It felt like the ship wasn't just there to get you to the adventure location.
5. It felt like the ships that attack the ship you are on were not just a random encounter on your way from point A to point B.

Call it what you like. I feel it's a good example of whatever that is.

It being an archetype means it is no longer a viable character concept for any game that starts at level 1, and yeah it does sound like the capabilities you get will be minor because archetypes tend to not have any budget.

I worry for another oozemorph situation.

In Starfinder 2e organized play, you can now build characters starting at levels 1, 3, 5, or 7. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but starting at 3rd level would be a way to build concepts you want to start with an archetype. Although for an archetype meant to replace a whole class, it would be nice to have it available at the first level.

I'm a my cup is half full kind of guy, lets look on the bright side.

1. More blocks mean more games played.
2. GMs and players get more frequent breaks.
3. The missing stat blocks is eaisly delt with now that AoN has a feature that lets you download all the stat blocks for a scenario with one click as a single printer-friendly PDF or that can be used on a phone or tablet.
4. The shorter scenarios are easier to prep and set up at the table, with fewer maps and pawns to carry around at a convention. Even more important if you are GMing more than one scenario at a convention.
5. There are 10 normal blocks and 10 scenarios available from season 7, plus whatever is available for the start of season 8. That's enough scenarios to not have to repeat any.
6. I would imagine a chance to be the first to play scenarios for the new season would be very popular, which is likely why new seasons start at the largest gaming convention in the world.

These all seem like big benefits for running a large convention. Meanwhile, you can still play older scenarios in other places.

Driftbourne wrote:

I thought it was interesting that the Devs were saying that Nanocyte is going to be an archetype, that because of that, there was more they could do with Nanocytes outside of a class.

Well, a class has to have feats and features that both thematically cohere and also, like, actually function together as a build? An archetype can just have a grab-bag of appropriately-themed stuff after the dedication. Nanocyte-as-a-class would need to fit the shape of being a class, whereas Nanocyte-as-archetype can be more flexible.

Classes are also tied to one attribute; an archetype could free up what types of characters can use nanocytes by freeing up the class attribute requirement.

The devs were also talking about using nanocytes in new ways, like in equipment. I think with some nanocyte equipment and augmentations + the archetype, we can piece something together pretty close to the old class. Some nanocyte-flavored spells could help too, and would go well with the technomancer.

[Yes. Within relation to this topic, which is specifically "starship combat," and loosely how the SF2E "subsystems" kinda work. I'm not commenting on how fun the dungeon crawl is (which could quite frankly be a castle under siege with no difference other than flavor).

A good example of a sci-fi castle siege in a movie is the Battle of Yarvin. Earlier in the movie, rescuing Princess Leia and escaping the Death Star is a good sci-fi dungeon crawl.

I think if I tried to sell my players on a Starship fight adventure, but I'm the end included only one minute of interacting with anything outside of your own ship they'd feel disappointed by the end of it. They might still enjoy their time because starfinder is a fun game and we enjoy our fellows company, but the adventure itself will probably not be remembered as living up to the pitch.

Not sure how you play, but in general, I think there's a huge difference in opinions online based on how someone plays the game.

I play in organized play, I often don't even know who the players are 5 minutes before the game starts, so I'm not even thinking about having to sell anyone on the adventure. As a player, when I sign up, the only thing I'm checking is the level of the scenario and if I have played it before. Sometimes I don't even do that and just play a pregen if none of the characters I brought are the right level. I also play lots of replays as both player and GM. That's very different from having a home game and knowing what your player like or not.

Battle for Nova Rush is just one session long. If you wanted to try running Battle for Nova Rush, you could Just tell your players that they start as prisoners on a ship and have to get out. I played only knowing that, and came out thinking this is a great way to run starship encounters. When I read it after the game, I was shocked that it was only 5 pages long of game text. If it's not something that fits your group that's fine too.

I haven't checked recently, but the place I would check out is Starfinder Infinite, and DrivethroughRPG

https://www.starfinderinfinite.com/en/

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=1000588_0_0_0_0

When you play the scenario, you FEEL like you're on a starship in the middle of combat. You're frantically doing things to affect that combat

Bold text to highlight the point.

We just got some insight into Starships in Tech Core. Lots of interesting news in the video, but skip to 1:22 for starships.

STF CONline 2026 - Starfinder 2e Developer Panel .

It sounds like early inspiration for the new starship rules was influenced by the game Faster Than Light. I haven't played FTL, but it seems well-liked.
Why FTL Is So Awesome

I thought it was interesting that the Devs were saying that Nanocyte is going to be an archetype, that because of that, there was more they could do with Nanocytes outside of a class.

Thanks for posting that video. It touches on most of the major conversations on SF2e in the forums lately. (Tech Core, classes, and starship combat)

Now to go research how FTL plays.