I was going to post this over on Pathfinder's forums since I'm running Pathfinder but all things considered this is the better place to ask since at this point I'm less of running Pathfinder and more pre-Starfinder so lets get some practice in now. Anyways I'm seeking advice for something that's happening in my campaign right now. I have a week to sort things out.
Here's what's happening: The players are agents working for Phitch Mining Company because they've had some bad luck and wound up on a backwater mining planet to get on their feet and it's good money. An emergency has happened where the miners at a Noqual mine have encountered a buried star ship of Grey origin. After coming in contact with it, the ship started emitting tachyon energy which is disrupting FTL in the area. Security for the mine tried to handle it but Magnetars and Grick Worms became attracted to the radiation and burrowed into the mine, and worse yet, it seems that some of the Grey experiments have gotten loose. The PC's goal is to clear the mine, shut down whatever's emitting tachyons (likely their FTL drive) and get paid.
One obstacle is that once they got down far enough (took them a few days dealing with repairs and killing monsters in the refinement facility) I hit them with a time warp hazard and they've been affected randomly by slow and haste effects. Apparently something down there is interacting with the tachyons that is affecting time. I threw in some other tidbits in there by making time outside of the mine go faster or slower based on how many people were hit by a slow or haste effect.
So my question: They are at the last leg of this chapter of the adventure where they are now in the ship in question. I plan to have them meet a suspended Flumph who will aid them in stopping whats happening but the time warp hazard isn't quite enough to be truly exciting for the climatic mini-dungeon. What kind of time effects would be good to impose on the party to make the fight with Magnetars and a killer robot more exciting? I thought of doing something meta like having them see themselves from another timeline before those versions disappear or see themselves die to a killer robot and warn them of the robot's weakness before they die, but I'm not sure exactly how to handle that. Any ideas of some scifi shenanigans to do during this final run of the adventure.
They are lvl 4 but they are considerably powerful due to technological items being 10% of the normal price and having automatic bonus progression two steps early.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Having difference characters (PC or enemies) shift forward in time, essentially teleporting into the future and missing turns but also not able to be targeted, or having the killer robot from the past show up to fight alongside the present version of it.
You could even do things like have the fight progress, and if the PCs start to win/get the robot down to 50% hp, then have past versions of itself pop in, and if they knock it down to 25% hp, have 10 past versions show up. When 12 time copies of it starts beating them badly, they can reverse time and re-do things, armed with better knowledge of how the fight progresses and its powers. Or have them gain knowledge during the fight of how to turn off or dampen the time warp, so they can start to turn it off before 10 time copies of the robot come in.
You could mess around with the durations and casting times of spell effects...
A spell effect that normally ends after one round suddenly lasts for many rounds or a full minute, or vice versa...
A spell that normally takes an action to cast, suddenly takes only a free action (or five rounds) to finish casting...
A PC tries to cast a spell or activate an ability, but it doesn't go off until one round later (or multiple rounds)...
PCs from alternate timelines (generated by the GM), or alternate PCs very similar in abilities to the real ones, appear out of thin air and fight for a few rounds, then disappear again...
Another idea is to buff the robot beyond belief (like give it DR 10/- and tons of energy resistances) and play out a couple rounds of combat so the PCs realize they're way over their heads. The Flumph then activates some sort of device that transports them to the past (still on the ship, but back before it crashed so it still has a living crew, etc.). At this point in time, the robot is still being constructed so they have a chance to sneak around and sabotage it. The Flumph warns them that it can only hold that portal to the past open for so long, so they should do their business quickly before being transported back to the present. Once back, that sabotage could severely weaken the robot's defenses and make it beatable.
I'd handle the bit in the past as more of a stealth mission than a combat mission (throw in one minor skirmish maybe), and maybe take 8-10 rounds total in order to complete it so that it feels more like a suspenseful interlude rather than completely killing off the pacing of the combat.
EDIT: and I totally misread how old the OP was, whoops. This scenario probably already played out -- if that's the case maybe let us know what you ended up doing though.