I think the idea is to loot weapons off of enemies as you fight them, basically allowing you to trade 10 weapons you don't want for one you do. It does set a pretty hardcore murder hobo precedent if the game assumes that you'll be looting 90% of your WBL.
Other threads have pointed out a perspective shift in design for starfinder. The 10% sell back ratio incentivises keeping gear that you find and I think the prevalence of different damage types and easy access to resistances and DR (I'm looking at you Enhanced Resistance) even further enforce the idea of a varied equipment list.
Yeah, the reduced sell price, as well as opening up weapon focus and specialisation to entire categories instead of a single weapon should push more to using stuff found as loot, rather then selling it all off and basically ignoring it.
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The theory behind loot is very different in Starfinder.
The biggest difference is that, because of how bonuses to hit and damage are acquired, the odds of you looting a weapon that you actually want to use are astronomically higher than in Pathfinder:
The Iconic Pathfinder Slayer wants a Kukri. Using a looted Magic Sword will cause them to lose all kinds of bonuses, so they'll sell it.
In Starfinder, if you are a Small Arms user, then your Weapon Specialization and any Weapon Focus feat will apply equally to any Cryo, Flame, Laser, Plasma, Projectile, Shock or Sonic Pistol that you happen to come across.
(It's true that Soldiers can choose to get equipment bonuses to single categories, but for them, it's pretty much gravy.)
The same is true for armor. You might skip out on a looted suit that has better EAC/KAC but also a big Armor Check penalty, but then, that's you choosing, just like in Pathfinder.
I *suspect* that considering the desire to both avoid certain penalties and to customize them with Mods that players will be spending the majority of their credits on their armor, and will tend to use whatever weapon they can get their hands on (literally).
And while all of this is well and good from a design perspective, like I said earlier, it only reinforces the murder hobo stereotype. If you can't sell your stuff for the new tier of gun you'll want to start a fight so the GM will give you one.
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Just loosely looking at a two item families like the Freebooter Armor line or the Laser Rifle line it looks like there is a ~4-5 times price markup between item generations. By 10th level our WBL = 66,000 credits and assume only 50% went to weapons and armor (as suggested in the core rulebook). Then, assuming we've upgraded twice by level 10 we've lost 0.9[(33,000 / 4.5) + (33000/4.5^2) = 8066.77 credits or ~24.4% of our weapons/armor specific budget. Assuming the other 33,000 credits is also taking this hit because most items don't allow upgrades or factor in consumables cost vs. permanent modification costs that stick around, its reasonable to ballpark a similar decay rate across the other half of our wealth (i.e., 25-50%). Doesn't that seem fairly high?
The wealth by level tables don't actually match expected wealth per experience point when you compare the various tables.
If you look tables 11-3, 11-4, and 11-5 on pages 390 and 391, and combine them with table 2-4 on page 26 you'll notice a few things.
You need 1,300 xp to get to level 2. That is 13 CR 1 encounters for a typical party of 4. Wealth per CR 1 encounter is 460. 460 * 13 / 4 = 1495.
Combine that with your initial 1,000, you get about 2,500. Thats 25% more than your expected WBL.
Doing the same thing for level 9 to level 10, shows a typical character earning 32,500, when the WBL only goes from 45,000 to 66,000, for an expected gain of 21,000 gp. That extra 54% (32,500/21,000) is expected to go somewhere, and I think it is into consumables and selling old equipment for newer equipment.
You're expected to "lose" money to stay on WBL. I've run the numbers and think if you keep equipment until level-3 or so leaves you around WBL.
You are always expected to lose wealth, even in Pathfinder.
And grenades are totally a wealth sink (way expensive for one shot)
Now that you mention Pathfinder, if we do the same calculations for it, I see 1st-2nd level is about 30% extra, while 9th to 10th is also 30% extra. 19-20 is about 37% extra.
Checking Starfinder 19->20, looks about 54% extra beyond WBL. So pathfinder looks consistent around 30-35%, while Starfinder is consistently about 50-54% after the first few levels - that initial 1,000 skews it a tad.
Looks like Starfinder is throwing about an extra 20-25% of WBL at the players beyond Pathfinder's extra, so I think that selling every few levels at 10% has been accounted for, assuming you go by the book rewards per encounter.
And while all of this is well and good from a design perspective, like I said earlier, it only reinforces the murder hobo stereotype. If you can't sell your stuff for the new tier of gun you'll want to start a fight so the GM will give you one.
Or just make enough money to craft the gun you want. Sucks that crafting's limited to your level, rather than Level +2 like item availability, or Level +1, as in areas that aren't bustling.
And while all of this is well and good from a design perspective, like I said earlier, it only reinforces the murder hobo stereotype. If you can't sell your stuff for the new tier of gun you'll want to start a fight so the GM will give you one.Or just make enough money to craft the gun you want. Sucks that crafting's limited to your level, rather than Level +2 like item availability, or Level +1, as in areas that aren't bustling.
That isn't the best solution, since there's no discount for crafting.
I like Hiruma's observation above. The suggested credit rewards for each CR and the experience gained are set up to give more creds per level than the WBL guides, meaning there's a slight buffer built in for selling stuff off.