So a starship that get's beaten in starship combat is left disabled. I plan on my PCs using multiple ships, and I don't want to go too soft on them during the starship combats. However I don't want them left with 1 ship running and another just sitting there. I know there are rules for repairing a ship, but I don't have my book handy.
Can a group repair their disabled ship enough to get somewhere else to finalize repairs if they have been disabled?
Yes. The rules make no distinction between disabled and functional for that purpose, so the difference is merely how much ship HP has to be repaired. So long as the ship has not been destroyed outright, the party has the UBP to spend, and the party has whatever tools you as the GM feel are necessary, they could not only patch the ship back to a working state but completely repair it themselves.
When you do have access to your books, those rules are on pages 321 and 322.
If a ship is reduced to 0 or fewer Hull Points, it is disabled and it floats in its current direction of travel at a rate of half its speed until it is repaired, rescued, or destroyed. Crew members aboard such ships are not in immediate danger unless their life-support system is wrecked, but they might eventually die from starvation and thirst if they have no way to repair the ship.
If a ship ever takes damage that exceeds twice its Hull Points, it is destroyed and can’t be repaired. All systems stop functioning, and the hull is compromised. The crew might initially survive, but without protection, they won’t live very long.
And...
When a starship combat encounter is over, the crew members can repair damage done to their starship, provided it hasn’t been destroyed and they haven’t been captured! Shields regenerate Shield Points at a set rate (depending on the type of shield) as long as the starship’s power core isn’t wrecked. You can double this recharge rate for 10 minutes by taking 1 minute and succeeding at an Engineering check (DC = 15 + 2 × the starship’s tier). Any penalties from critical damage conditions apply to this check.
You can remove the critical damage condition from a system by taking 10 minutes and succeeding at an Engineering check. The DC depends on the severity of the condition (DC 15 for glitching, DC 20 for malfunctioning, and DC 25 for wrecked). The system is no longer critically damaged (it has no critical damage conditions) and can function as normal.
Repairing damage to the hull (restoring lost Hull Points) is more difficult. You must first stop the starship completely, usually at a safe location (for instance, a world with a nonhostile atmosphere or a dock on a space station), and the repairing character or characters must have access to the outside of the hull. On most worlds, the crew can pay mechanics to repair the starship; the cost and time needed are up to the GM. If the crew is on its own in uncharted territory, it can still repair the starship’s hull. Doing so costs 10 UPBs per point of damage to be repaired and requires 5 hours of work regardless of the number of points repaired. A character who succeeds at an Engineering check (DC = 15 + 2 × the starship’s tier) can cut either the cost or the time in half. For every 10 points by which she exceeds the DC, she can reduce one of these factors by half (or by half again), to a minimum of 1 UPB per point of damage and 1 hour. Any number of allies can use the aid another action to assist with this Engineering check. Failing the check to reduce the time or cost instead increases the cost by 5 UPBs per point of damage.
I think these two lines may make the situation problematic, if you're a cruel DM...
If a ship is reduced to 0 or fewer Hull Points, it is disabled and it floats in its current direction of travel at a rate of half its speed until it is repaired, rescued, or destroyed.
And...
You must first stop the starship completely, usually at a safe location (for instance, a world with a nonhostile atmosphere or a dock on a space station), and the repairing character or characters must have access to the outside of the hull.
By RAW, I'd say that likely means that if you're disabled, you need a tow of some kind or some way to externally stop the ship of all relative motion, since you can't power up the thrusters until you repair the hull and you can't stop your movement to repair the hull until you repair the thrusters.
Personally, I wouldn't play it that way. As long as the crewmen had space suits (or whatever) and UPB's and a way to 'tie off' while working on the ship, I'd let them climb all over it repairing the hull while it floats along. That is, assuming they're in actual 'space space' and not 'about to re-enter atmosphere' or 'crash into an oncoming asteroid' space.
Presumably the gibberish is a byproduct of the dubious server behavior over the last couple of days. I can state with near certainty that neither of our posts were originally what you can see there now.
To summarize what was said, yes, the party can repair a non-destroyed ship so long as they have the time, UBP, and whatever tools you deem necessary on hand. The relevant rules are on pages 321-322 of the CRB, or somewhere on the StarfinderSRD if you'd prefer that.
pithica42 noted that a strict and unforgiving reading of the rules might be problematic; the text on 320-21 describes a disabled ship as floating in its current direction of travel at half its speed until repaired, rescued, or destroyed. Repairing the hull specifically requires stopping the ship completely, which would be somewhat challenging if the ship is disabled.
This does raise the obvious question of what you are stopping in relation to, though, so I would personally handwave that particular clause as simply meaning you can't patch the ship's hull when actively accelerating, such as when you're firing the ships engines. Why this is completely impossible is another matter entirely, of course.
I for one welcome our robot overlords...
D**n, I was actually really happy with that message. I quoted the rules and highlighted them and everything.
It's what Hithesius said, though. Personally, I'd rule that as long as you aren't accelerating in your own reference frame you should count as not moving, otherwise, you can't repair your ship on a planet, either. But RAW says you can't repair a disabled ship without stopping it "completely" first, and you can't stop it without repairing it (or rescuing it with another ship).