Starfinder Adventure Path #40: Planetfall (Horizons of the Vast 1 of 6)

Announced for June!

I'm squealing right now, space Kingmaker has finally arrived!

Well this should be interesting. I'm wondering how much this is going to be a single-planet focus like DoF and how much it'll be able to maintain the Sci-fi vibe from that same perspective.

Why is it starting in June, why did they skip May?

Why is it starting in June, why did they skip May?

We have some plans for May I don't believe we have talked about yet.

Hm, lets see how they reconcile exploration and having a starship to quickly traverse the planet. Especially as orbital weapons and VIs are now a thing.

Sounds interesting and would love to play this. I wonder if we end up building an empire between planets/star systems.

Any kind of webinar announcement for this product planned or already streamed?

Absolutely! Our target convention for this got canceled, but we will be making a big deal out of this (and related news) shortly. Stay tuned!

Oh hey, space kingmaker :O Seems like they figured out how they want to do it

Space truckers, and now space Kingmaker? I am beyond thrilled, thank you so much.

Awesome news!

NICE, LFoD and then this, a double header into unexplored new themes for the system.

Good to know our twitch voices get heard as I've popped in Kingmaker "Starfinder edition" [possible the last couple years from their twitch streams and cons,

LOVEN IT Starfinder team and THANKS for this!!

Please Please lets have better digital maps for this one, one can hope!!

Tom

Makes sense given that the Galaxy Exploration Manual struck me as "Ultimate Campaign... IN SPACE".

This sounds exciting! Can't wait to get my hands on it!

This and Fly Free or Die will be two of my favorite themed APs.

Oooh! Interesting! I look forward to learning more about it!

Fly Free or Die part 6 comes out in April, This one in June. So we're skipping May?

Fly Free or Die part 6 comes out in April, This one in June. So we're skipping May?

They've said there's an unannounced product in May. Maybe a module?

This one has "Adventure Path" on its cover...

Hm, lets see how they reconcile exploration and having a starship to quickly traverse the planet. Especially as orbital weapons and VIs are now a thing.

Can't really fly your orbital starship through forests, caverns, and ruins, so not much different than how it's handled in real life. Drive to place and explore, take photos, don't takes photos while driving your Ferrari through the forest.

Also they're exploring the planet, not blowing it up.

Ixal wrote:

Hm, lets see how they reconcile exploration and having a starship to quickly traverse the planet. Especially as orbital weapons and VIs are now a thing.

Can't really fly your orbital starship through forests, caverns, and ruins, so not much different than how it's handled in real life. Drive to place and explore, take photos, don't takes photos while driving your Ferrari through the forest.

Also they're exploring the planet, not blowing it up.

They can hover it over wherever they want to go. And if they want to land, thats where orbital weapons come in (or just regular ones). A few less trees does not hurt the planet at all.

... wut?

That is the exact definition of hurting it.

Doing strafing and bombing runs is not exploring.

Yer do straf'n an bomb'n runs AFTA 'ploration team doesn't report back.

... wut?

That is the exact definition of hurting it.

Doing strafing and bombing runs is not exploring.

I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

... wut?

That is the exact definition of hurting it.

Doing strafing and bombing runs is not exploring.

I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!

The PCs are not archaeologists, they are colonists. And if a forest is in the way of a new colony, the forest will be gone soon.

Luke Spencer wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

... wut?

That is the exact definition of hurting it.

Doing strafing and bombing runs is not exploring.

I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!

The PCs are not archaeologists, they are colonists. And if a forest is in the way of a new colony, the forest will be gone soon.

You massively overestimate what damage a small explosion does to a planet, namely none.
Find a site you want to explore? Let your starship hover over it, clear a small space near it and touch down with a shuttle. And if you run into any trouble you order the VI on board of the ship to support you.

There are plenty of historical examples of colonists destroying large amounts of culture history, and wildlife through poor practice. I'm British, I would know. Why would you bomb a site when you don't know what's there? You could wipe out an endangered species, destroy valuable and rare resources, or ruin a site of importance to the colonists. That being said I would expect travel to be less of an issue in this game than Kingmaker, you can always parachute/rappel out of a ship to the area you want to explore and make sure it's secure before exploding a landing zone.

Ixal wrote:

Luke Spencer wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

... wut?

That is the exact definition of hurting it.

Doing strafing and bombing runs is not exploring.

I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!

The PCs are not archaeologists, they are colonists. And if a forest is in the way of a new colony, the forest will be gone soon.

You massively overestimate what damage a small explosion does to a planet, namely none.
Find a site you want to explore? Let your starship hover over it, clear a small space near it and touch down with a shuttle. And if you run into any trouble you order the VI on board of the ship to support you.

There are plenty of historical examples of colonists destroying large amounts of culture history, and wildlife through poor practice. I'm British, I would know. Why would you bomb a site when you don't know what's there? You could wipe out an endangered species, destroy valuable and rare resources, or ruin a site of importance to the colonists. That being said I would expect travel to be less of an issue in this game than Kingmaker, you can always parachute/rappel out of a ship to the area you want to explore and make sure it's secure before exploding a landing zone.

Because its convenient and a lot safer to blow up a 100 ft. radius landing spot than to have the walk/drive all the way from the colony through wilderness.

Until level 5 when you can just jetpack out of the ship.

Destabilizing the region and destroying resources and potential excavation sites is not exploring.

This is not a game where all problems are solved with “fly around and blow everything up”.

Luke Spencer wrote:

*Snip*

Because its convenient and a lot safer to blow up a 100 ft. radius landing spot than to have the walk/drive all the way from the colony through wilderness.

Until level 5 when you can just jetpack out of the ship.

I still think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. If there's a bunch of mushrooms that emit deadly spores you could risk poisoning your party, or if there are flammable elements you may end up blowing yourselves out of the sky. I don't think convenience is a good excuse to ignore legitimate risks on a planet which is basically unexplored.

I also think it's a flawed assumption that you have to go from the colony and back every time you want to explore a new hex (assuming they use rules similar to Kingmaker). Even if the whole area is forested (Which I think is unlikely because it seems like it would get repetitive if there was no variety in terrain) there are going to be clearings where you can land your ship without destroying any potential areas of interest.

There's also the consideration that the party might not have a ship. The setup might have you dropped on location with the rest of the colonists with the ship leaving to resupply and bring more resources/colonists. You're lackeys here so even there is a ship you might not be given limitless access to it straight away.

Also just gonna say this, fly around and blow stuff up, sounds boring as hell when it comes to building a nation.

Kingmaker, the OG, and the game is much more fun to me when it comes to being relatively peaceful to those you can.

I like the idea of the Stolen Lands/Narland becoming a wide and eclectic nation filled with not-so-common ancestries as well as friendly with Fae.

I was upset that you couldn't talk down the Hill Giant that Nok-Nok leads you too, I remembered him from the AP, I wanted to help him set up a moonshine still in the capitol.

Destabilizing the region and destroying resources and potential excavation sites is not exploring.

This is not a game where all problems are solved with “fly around and blow everything up”.

You should really stop and think about how big planets are. A small clearing will not destabilize a region.

The size of the planet is irrelevant.

Yes, randomly carpet bombing places will in fact destabilize the area.

And that's without even getting into the fact that you don't even know what you're blowing up.

The size of the planet is irrelevant.

Yes, randomly carpet bombing places will in fact destabilize the area.

And that's without even getting into the fact that you don't even know what you're blowing up.

Pulling out the strawmans I see. Who said something about carpet bombing?

Unnecessarily blowing up an area for a landing spot cause due to being lazy and careless I'd say would fall pretty close under carpet bombing, especially the bigger the ship.

It does.

If people want to build something somewhere they don't go and randomly blow up the landscape, they go and survey the landscape and foundation.

"Who said anything about carpet bombing," asks the man who proposed carpet bombing.

Okay, will this story go to 20 or will it stop around 12?

"Who said anything about carpet bombing," asks the man who proposed carpet bombing.

Show me a quote...

I hope the setting for this is a bit more exotic than 'generic terrestrial world' like exploring forests and jungles is fun but I hope they take the opportunity to give an environment that differs from the Stolen Lands in Kingmaker.

I hope it's not just "Kingmaker in space" as Kingmaker is actually one of my least favorite APs (with the exception of a couple of the adventures).

Grankless wrote:

"Who said anything about carpet bombing," asks the man who proposed carpet bombing.

Show me a quote...

Because its convenient and a lot safer to blow up a 100 ft. radius landing spot than to have the walk/drive all the way from the colony through wilderness.

Until level 5 when you can just jetpack out of the ship.

They can hover it over wherever they want to go. And if they want to land, thats where orbital weapons come in (or just regular ones). A few less trees does not hurt the planet at all.

How about we just don't randomly kill and destroy things for our own convenience?

I really hope no one uses their ship's weaponry to clear 0.0000001% of the vegetation destroyed every year by natural wildfires in that biome.

I still think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. If there's a bunch of mushrooms that emit deadly spores you could risk poisoning your party, or if there are flammable elements you may end up blowing yourselves out of the sky. I don't think convenience is a good excuse to ignore legitimate risks on a planet [which is basically unexplored.

And what kind of idiots are colonizing a planet without a full survey, anyway? Is catching cool diseases and hosting gross new parasites the pastime of the future?

Counterpoint, in a world with magic in it blasting even a small portion could awaken some slumbering horror or enrage the fey. Also, there is a difference between a naturally occurring disaster and just incinerating a portion of forest on a whim. Geez, might as well just repeat the colonizing of the Americas and ruin ecosystems across the board for convenience. Learn to live with nature, dingus.

I really hope no one uses their ship's weaponry to clear 0.0000001% of the vegetation destroyed every year by natural wildfires in that biome.

Luke Spencer wrote:

I still think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. If there's a bunch of mushrooms that emit deadly spores you could risk poisoning your party, or if there are flammable elements you may end up blowing yourselves out of the sky. I don't think convenience is a good excuse to ignore legitimate risks on a planet [which is basically unexplored.

And what kind of idiots are colonizing a planet without a full survey, anyway? Is catching cool diseases and hosting gross new parasites the pastime of the future?

I personally think there are better arguments to not use your ship weapons to clear a landing site than potential deforestation, but I don't think it's that surprising that the colony don't know every detail of the surrounding environment, and not just for the meta reason of this being an adventure path and needing some aspect of exploration and conflict.

We know that the colony effort is being headed by multiple factions so it's fairly believable that they would want to get things going quickly, wouldn't want to lose out your valuable resources or good locations to a competitor after all. Plus I would imagine there is environmental data available, you can learn a lot about a planet without actually exploring it physically, but if you know there's an anomaly that needs to be checked out in person it's probably safer not to shoot in that general vicinity.

Counterpoint, in a world with magic in it blasting even a small portion could awaken some slumbering horror or enrage the fey. Also, there is a difference between a naturally occurring disaster and just incinerating a portion of forest on a whim. Geez, might as well just repeat the colonizing of the Americas and ruin ecosystems across the board for convenience. Learn to live with nature, dingus.

How do you think a colony is build exactly? That also includes large scale deforestation and other destruction.

Albatoonoe wrote:

Counterpoint, in a world with magic in it blasting even a small portion could awaken some slumbering horror or enrage the fey. Also, there is a difference between a naturally occurring disaster and just incinerating a portion of forest on a whim. Geez, might as well just repeat the colonizing of the Americas and ruin ecosystems across the board for convenience. Learn to live with nature, dingus.

How do you think a colony is build exactly? That also includes large scale deforestation and other destruction.

Thankfully this could easily be bypassed with magic, shaping the colony into the environment rather than destroying it.

Also while I assume there will be deforestation (if the colonists are in a forested area) the assumption is that you have charted the area you're building in first. You have to explore the site to determine the risks before you start work, and blowing it up incurs the chance that you may destroy a valuable resource. Properly surveying an area is both straightforward and wouldn't take that long, both in universe and from meta perspective so there's really no downside to it.

A lot of people who don’t seem capable of managing a mortgage have string opinions on how easy interstellar colonization is if you take no risks and assume infinite resources.

I wonder if we will have more extensive use for vehicles to explore, rather than using a ship. The idea above about the ship leaving makes some amount of sense, or using it as the basis of the colony, then getting to use the ship later in book 2 or 3.

I'm kinda with Ixal on this.

Not to say I'm necessarily endorsing the approach of paving a new parking lot with orbital bombardment, but in that if there's nothing actively preventing it aside from morality & caution, then there's nothing actively preventing it so the possibility is going to need to be addressed.

We can argue about what we should or shouldn't do, but it's naïve to think that no one's going to get the idea in their heads and try it whether you think it's an ethical thing to do or even a good idea or not, and the AP should be prepared for this.