rumanchu's page

The important thing to remember with the AI is that none of the AI options available to players (with the possible exception of a level 20 mechanic's drone) have any sort of self-awareness or actual consciousness, they're all basically just souped-up versions of Siri, Alexa, Bixby, etc. If your player wants to know what sort of questions that their AI would ask, a perfectly valid response would be "What kinds of questions do you want it to ask in this situation?" (Perhaps an even better response would be to point to your phone and ask what sort of questions Siri would ask in that situation, but that might be a bit snarky).

Another thing to remind your player is that the AI has a very limited set of skills that it can attempt tests on: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive. That's it, and even those skills you have to consider through the lens of the AI initiating those test *at your request*, rather than on its own. It might be easier to think of it as effectively giving the character who has an AI-equipped computer training in those skills rather than thinking of the AI as being an NPC with those skills. Though not specifically called out in the rules, I'd also imagine that it'd be fairly obvious to someone that you're interacting with in person that your computer AI is communicating with them unless the player frames the conversation in such a way that it seems like someone is communicating remotely *through* the computer. While I wouldn't put a penalty on the test for that (unless the target has a specific reason to dislike AI or computers for some reason), I would certainly have it called out if the AI failed the test ("You insult me by having your *machine* try to convince me? Speak your own words!")

If this was in a game that I was running, I'd have the player come up with a personality for their AI and play it accordingly, as well as come up with an explanation for *how* the AI actually communicates things to him. Example: the character might have told his AI to observe any conversations that he has and advise him on whether or not the other party is being truthful (which is a pretty good justification to allow the AI to roll Sense Motive tests without the player having to specifically tell it to), but how is the result of that test relayed to the character? Is it a small light on a display (red for lie, green for truth), or does the AI just say, "They are lying" out loud for all to hear? (That would be my personal choice for the default behavior of an AI due to it being funnier). If he has a blanket "tell me if the person that I'm talking to is lying" rule (rather than calling on the AI to do so in specific situations), then have the player roll for the AI on *everything* that might apply. "Thanks for holding the door, I really appreciate it." "That's a lie, he appears to be sullen and angry that you assumed he couldn't open his own door."

I dare to think a new way of tackling this issue. Instead of gifting a ship to my 1st level characters I ... will not do so. I ''ll have them long it and want it and pay it with what ever credits they manage to gather.

Therefore, I need to put BPs into credits.

Here's the thing, though: if you choose to not give your players a ship until they can pay 275000 credits for a *T1* ship, you're going to need to tailor your adventures accordingly and either limit them to one planet/station or have their employers ferry them around as needed. You're going to have to decide how they get the money to buy that ship (which means about 50-60 times the usual rewards) and (more importantly) how to keep your players from taking that 275k and buying things that are "more useful" to their day-to-day life like guns, armor, etc. After all, since they don't *have* their own ship they're obviously not living a lifestyle that requires or necessarily rewards ship ownership. You'll have to come up with some sort of reason that the funds aren't liquid enough for them to fritter away while saving up for that ship, as well as some explanation for them earning this money without gaining XP since this hypothetical 275k cost is for a ship suitable for a freshly created group of first level characters. It's a whole lot of work for basically no gain whatsoever outside of satisfying an urge for your story to not have a "free" ship.

Your time would be better spent just using the rules *as written* and plotting your storyline so that they don't own a ship and come up with a reason in the fiction for them to have to wait to actually own one while having access to one.

Apparently, Ninja Division has already failed to meet their mid-September estimate to deliver miniatures. Various websites are predicting Oct-Dec sometime. In addition, it looks like the miniatures are going to be expensive; $10 for a medium:(

Not only have they not delivered anything yet, they've basically removed all references to Starfinder from their website aside from their press release back in March. Any links that you may find to product pages (like via a Google search or (purely hypothetically speaking) order information for an open order) goes to an error saying that the page doesn't exist. It's pretty frustrating.