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Julien Marchal wrote:

Max PC AC (light armor, best of KAC and EAC)

L1 16
L2 17
L3 18
L4 19
L5 21
L6 23
L7 24
And their opponent hit bonus
Cr7(18),Cr2(7), Cr9(22), cr1/3 (3), Cr3 (10), cr4(12), cr6(16), cr4(13), cr5 (12), cr1(8), cr4 (12)...

That does not look good... At all. Boss fight are pretty much auto-hit, even with some support (mystic spell or operative debilitating trick to give -2 to hit). Cover would be essential except that most of these attack in melee. Armor helps against mooks as long as you are behind cover, otherwise you will get hit most of the time.
And that's MAX Ac for light armor, most PC will not be there (require to max dex and spend significant amount of cash).

I'll note you only need 14 Dex to max Heavy Armor AC through level 10, and only 16-18 to max it after level 10. If you are a low Dex character, its probably worth the feat to upgrade to Heavy. About the only class that loses anything by switching to heavy armor is the Operative.

At level 7, any character could have 25 KAC with 14 Dex and the expenditure of a single feat on heavy armor. Against a CR 6 mook with +16 to hit, the mook is hitting 60% of the time? Cover drops that to 40% of the time. Doesn't seem that bad.

Lets take an APL 6 party up against that CR 9 single enemy fight, which is described as "EPIC" in the CRB. It has 145 hit points. Level 6 characters have 76 or more effective hit points each, with over 380 hit points spread over 5 of them. Given they get 5 turns to the enemy's one, what hit % would you want that epic boss to have to make it an epic fight?

Lets consider how long a fight might last. Each ranged player is looking at perhaps 10 (1d6+6 or 1d8+6) points of damage average with ranged weapons assuming single attack actions, with perhaps a 50% hit rate assuming some party buffs/debuffs. 0.5*10*5 = 25. That is 6 rounds on average to drop the enemy (145/25) using just ranged attacks. Melee attacks might reduce that by a round, down to 5 rounds. Melee +...

You need 13 str to take the heavy armor feat. Ends up being same investement than having a 17 dex plus a feat.

1-problem is not the PC hitting the ennemy, they really have no problem with that.
2-problem is making putting effort in defense actually do something, in your epic fight scenario the boss hit the heavy armored PC 90% rate, 80% if the operative in the party give the boss a hit penalty instead of making him flat-footed. Rest of the party is hit 95% of the time. Yeah the fight need to be epic but you might as well fight the boss naked and it won't make a difference, and that doesn't feel right.

Before I start throwing house rules (or declaring that something is broken) I'd like to analyze the numbers and check if my guts feeling are validated by the numbers.
And damn my guts keeps telling me there is something wrong with AC and hit bonuses in this game, so let's check it on both side.

On average a L1 character will have BAB 0 +2 (dex 14) for a total of +2 to hit with his trusty Laser pistol.
At max a L1 character will have BAB 1 +4(dex18)+1 (weapon focus) for a total of +6
As they level up Dex bonus will go up by 1 at L5 and 10 (0 and 1 for maxed out character).
Chances are both will buy a personal dex upgrade around L3 for a +1 increase to dex bonus, max-character will pickup a +2 increase to dex bonus at L7.

So PC hit bonus looks like:
L1 2/6
L2 3/7
L3 5/9
L4 6/10
L5 7/11
L6 8/12
L7 9/14

Now what the AC of their opponents? We'll assume that the values given so far are right (some looks really really weird like goblins and pirates having lower AC than their dex would give alone...) and only taking the highest of KAC or EAC:
Cr7(21),Cr2(13), Cr9(24), cr1/3 (12), Cr3 (15), cr4(18), cr6(20), cr4(18), cr(5) 18, cr1(13), cr4 (18), cr1(13), cr6(18).

The standard character seems like he will have a hard time hitting the bosses (cr 2 above Lv), often needing a 13-15 to hit. If targeting the weakest ac and having a L4 operative on the team, hit % goes back up above 50%.
The maxed-out character on the other hand hit% is always north of 50%, add in some support and he can full-attack safely.
Mooks (cr = or below Pc lv) are better staying behind cover all the times or they will get murdered
Verdict: first gut feeling was wrong, the PC hit bonus are just right compared to the enemy AC

Now the other side, assuming the PC have armor equal to their LV
Max PC AC (light armor, best of KAC and EAC)
L1 16
L2 17
L3 18
L4 19
L5 21
L6 23
L7 24
And their opponent hit bonus
Cr7(18),Cr2(7), Cr9(22), cr1/3 (3), Cr3 (10), cr4(12), cr6(16), cr4(13), cr5 (12), cr1(8), cr4 (12)...

That does not look good... At all. Boss fight are pretty much auto-hit, even with some support (mystic spell or operative debilitating trick to give -2 to hit). Cover would be essential except that most of these attack in melee. Armor helps against mooks as long as you are behind cover, otherwise you will get hit most of the time.
And that's MAX Ac for light armor, most PC will not be there (require to max dex and spend significant amount of cash).
Verdict: Feels wrong that Ac only helps in firefight vs mooks(and only if maxed out and behind cover) and is completely useless in boss fights

I haven't looked too closely at the math for this, however, keep in mind that the expectation is the PCs are going to be fighting lower level ship opponents.

Not really. Of the 3 starship fights I have read in official scenarios a single one has a ship lower tier than the PC level.

so npc gunnery is counted as a skill and they get 4+1.5tier to their gunnery check...
This is wrong for the following reason:
1.Pc only get 4+lv on that check (assuming 18 dex)and there is very little to increase that number. An extra 1 at lv4 by buying a stat boost item, 1extra at l10 for reaching 20dex... So pc ends up way behind compared to npc
2. Pc might as well not put any point in defenses on their ship. The npc have 95% hit chance at mid lv as armor doesnt keep up vs npc gunnery.