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SOM introduces Armada Combat and most of the rules needed to run it, but does not define what "short," "long," and "extreme" ranges are. Each of the three fleet types has a listed range of 3-5 hexes, but there appears to be nothing that relates this number to the short, long, and extreme ranges that are actually mechanically significant.

For example, a destroyer-class fleet has a range of 4 hexes. What is its short range? What are its long and extreme ranges? Are these all multiples of 4 hexes? Are they some fraction of 4 hexes? The information appears to simply be missing.

Perhaps the single most significant thing Paizo is trying with this mech playtest is the mech point (MP) system. While clearly related to how they've handled starship budgets, the actual details of the system differ rather dramatically. Given how central the budget is to mechs, since it directly or indirectly influences everything about them, it's worth taking some time to thoroughly analyze how it functions in various contexts. I'm going to go over how it changes as a party levels up given a few different ways of distributing it so we can all have a better understanding of how this system actually works.

MP Cost and Budgeting
Every component in the mech playtest has its cost determined by tier. Everything costs some multiple of the mech's tier; 1 MP per tier, or 2, or 0.5, and so on. Weapons technically have their own level separate from the mech's that can be higher or lower, but for the moment we'll ignore that.

Because all mech components have a cost per tier, the mech's total cost can be expressed in MP per tier. Given the same equipment, the absolute number of MP spent on a mech will change with its tier, but the MP spent per tier will remain constant. A tier 1 mech built with 20 MP and a tier 10 mech built with 200 MP both cost 20 MP per tier. Adding or removing components to either mech will take or give different amounts of MP in absolute terms, but will have the same effect in terms of MP per tier.

MP per tier (MPT) is thus a way of looking at the budget without needing to think about the actual tier of the mech. For instance, instead of thinking about how much a gatling gun costs at a given tier, we can simply consider that it costs 3 MP per tier. If we want to build a mech with 20 MPT, this tells us we will have 17 MPT left over if we give it a gatling gun.

Some of this may seem obvious after a moment's thought, but it really is a very useful thing to keep in mind. To see why, imagine a mech built at tier 1 for a level 1 party. It has however many MP spent on its features, and has a certain starting MP per tier. If you increase the mech's tier as the party levels up but make no other changes, its MPT tells you how your budget is changing. If the MPT is constant, your mech's cost is increasing at the same rate as your budget, and you have no MP left over after upgrading it. If your MPT is increasing, your effective budget is also increasing, and you'll have MP to spend even after fully upgrading your mech's existing equipment. And if your MPT is decreasing, this means your mech is over budget after upgrading it, and you're going to have to make some cuts to make it affordable.

Depending on how many mechs your party has and how you split the budget, all three of those cases are possible.

Assumptions and Implications
There are enough possible variations within this system that a genuinely comprehensive analysis is well beyond anything I am prepared to do within the 3 days or so we've had the playtest. In order to keep things manageable, I'm using the following assumptions.

Unless otherwise stated:

• The party consists of 4 PCs
  
• Each party member has the same level.
  
• All party members level up at the same time.
  
• The party will tend to prefer that their mechs each have as high a tier as possible, and invest in each of them accordingly.
  
• MP invested in each mech per level is constant; if a party starts by investing a certain amount of MP in a mech, they will invest that much MP in it every level.
  
• All weapons are the same level as the mech's tier.
  
• The rounding of fractional values and its ability to make costs rise and fall over budget at odd and even levels is ignored.

APL is the same as the actual average party level with 4 or 5 PCs; while I could have gone with either, 4 PCs makes the math a bit cleaner in some areas. This is the basic reasoning behind the other assumptions as well.

Given 4 equal level PCs, the party has 60 MP per level that can be distributed across 1 to 4 mechs. There is still an enormous variety of possible combinations, so I'm only going to consider a few representative cases.

• The party invests all 60 MP per level into a single mech, with tier = APL+1.
  
• The party evenly splits the 60 MP 3 ways to maximize the number of mechs at tier = APL.
  
• The party evenly splits the 60 MP 2 ways, for a pair of stronger mechs, with tier = APL or APL+1.
  
• The party evenly splits the 60 MP 4 ways, for 1 mech per person, with a tier that is 1 to 5 below APL. As mentioned above, this is not possible at level 1.

A party does not need to evenly split its budget between its various mecha, but I believe the trends that emerge from these four cases will largely cover the remainder.

From here, we can examine how the MP budget actually behaves when trying to advance mechs in each of these cases.

Upon drinking this elixer, your coloration and the general form of your features instantly and permanently changes.

What is the duration of an effect that is "instant and permanent?" This cannot be a wholly mechanical statement; an Instantaneous duration is different from and incompatible with a Permanent duration. The only way that phrase works is if one of them is narratively rather than mechanically descriptive, which leaves two possibilities.

If the Serum's duration is mechanically Instantaneous, it is "permanent" in that the modifications will not simply go away in a few days as something like hair dye would. Changes to underlying bone structure - such as the length of one's fingers as in one of the examples provided - would remain regardless of how much time passed, in as much as they would in light of normal physiological processes potentially altering them anyway, such as hair gradually losing its color as one ages. If the Serum's duration is Permanent, it is "instant" in that the Permanent effect is applied the moment the serum is ingested. However, unlike an Instantaneous effect, this is a form of lingering magic, and is therefore subject to Dispel Magic and similar cancellation effects.

Unfortunately, I think the wording is equally valid for both interpretations, which is quite unhelpful.

As another question, can the use of a Serum allow you to assume your own exact form? I would think yes, as the precise wording is that you cannot assume the exact appearance of another creature, but I've seen some uncertainty on that subject.

If the correct interpretation of all this should be that it is a Permanent effect, it also raises the question of how multiple doses interact with each other. They must either override or outright dispel and replace previous uses, and it's certainly not clear which that would be.

Most of the environmental hazards provide an explicit frequency at which you make saves against them. Hot and cold conditions both demand saves every hour, every 10 minutes, or every minute depending on their severity. Thick and thin atmospheres both demand hourly saves, and severely thick atmospheres demand saves by the minute. It goes on like that.

But what about radiation? It's treated as a poison, but if you're standing in an irradiated area and pass your first save, when do you make another save against it? Do you just not make another save at all, unless you move into an area with more severe radiation? That doesn't seem right - if you pass your initial save, you can just stay there indefinitely and be fine. Is it with the same frequency as the poison? That doesn't seem right either.

Keep in mind that as a poison, radiation will deal DC-10 HP damage on initial exposure, whether you save against it or not. As a constitution poison specifically, once you're at Weakened or worse, radiation will deal DC-10 HP damage every time you make a save against it - once per round - whether you pass or fail. So one save against ambient radiation doesn't seem like enough, because you can just succeed and be fine indefinitely. Saving every round for initial exposure doesn't seem right either, because then radiation will kill you very quickly no matter what you do unless you leave.

Each Large and smaller ship has room for only a single power core by default, but Medium and Large starships can be fitted with an extra power core housing. Huge starships can have up to two power cores, Gargantuan starships can have up to three, and Colossal starships can have up to four.

An expansion bay can be set aside for an additional power core must be purchased separately) and the associated wiring and safety apparatuses. A power core housing can be installed on only a Medium or larger ship.

I'd like an interpretation check on this. Some things are clear from these passages: Large and smaller ships can be fitted with only one power core by default, and Medium and Large ships can be fitted with an additional power core housing at the cost of an expansion bay for a second core. And contextually, it's clear to me that Huge and larger ships can hold multiple power cores with no need for power core housing, up to the limits given.

But I do think a couple things here are ambiguous. The power core section specifically calls out Medium and Large ships as being compatible with power core housing, as opposed to Medium and larger ships like power core housing itself. Should this be read as exclusive? Is power core housing only for Medium and Large ships, as the Power Core text indicates, or Medium and larger ships, as the expansion bay text indicates?

Further, should it be read as restrictive? The exact language of the power core section is "fitted with an extra power core housing." Should this be read as a limit, restricting Medium and Large starships to a single extra power core independent of the answer above? And if it is taken as a restriction, do the limits given for Huge and larger starships then refer to their default capacity, or to their augmented capacity when expansion bays are dedicated to it?

Can turrets be mounted on ship frames that do not explicitly possess them? Secondarily, can additional turrets be mounted?

Normally, I would probably say no by default, but looking over how the rules are written in this and other situations, it's actually fairly ambiguous.

What the rules on page 305 do state is that you can add additional weapon mounts to a ship within a limit set by their size - no more than two mounts per arc for a tiny or small ship, for instance. They also state that for a slightly higher price, you can add weapon mounts to a turret that still has room, following the same size-based limit as the other arcs - again, no more than two on a turret for a tiny or small ship. What the rules do not mention is adding a turret if a ship does not already have one.

But they do specifically mention that a ship frame can have no more than x weapons per arc (or per turret). And in the case of tiny and small ships, there isn't a frame given that has a turret to begin with. Now, this may just be future-proofing the ruleset a little, to make it clear that when and if they release base frames in that size range that do have turrets, that it still applies, but Dead Suns has further muddied the issue.

To me, that indicates that weapon mounts can be added to a turret that the ship does not explicitly possess, and in doing so add said turret to the ship. Or perhaps, alternatively, that every ship mechanically has a "turret" that can accept mounts, but not every ship actually has mounts in that "turret." By extension, that not every ship even physically has the turret they mechanically possess, up until a weapon mount is added to it.

In either case, the rules aren't clear. I think this is an area where they would normally permit or deny something explicitly, but it appears that they do neither.