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So I didn't see a thread for this, so here we go! I played the first two quests of Into the Unknown which involved one regular combat and one starship battle.
Building the character
I built a Sharpshooter Solider, and I felt that there were not many build options. Many abilities like weapon finesse and precise shot have been folded into the base rules and it felt like all of the feats available to me were really meh. Weapon focus and Toughness were serious contenders for best feat...
Also, I am sad that the solider has 4 combat styles for melee or hybrid combat and only 2 for shooting.
Also, also. The arcane assailant specialization is the most lame. Its level 1 power does nothing in most cases. Its level 5 power is +3.5 damage and level 9 is too far away for me to care about.
Gunfights
Our party had 2 soldiers with Reaction cannons
1 engineer with a combat drone wielding a Reaction cannon
1 engineer riding a stealth drone
1 solarian
1 space wizard
In the first encounter, you get shot at by 4 guys with concealment and laser pistols. This is super brutal because they were able to almost KO our solarian and did destroy the stealth bot before we even got to act.
Enemies with guns mean that they can all shoot at you. I was afraid that melee would be just strictly better because you get to add strength, but it feels like the volume of fire means that charging in is a good way to get focused. Unless more of your team is going to charge with you.
Magic missile is really strong at level 1 when you can afford to nova. 3d4+3 is much better then even a heavy weapon's 1d10. And it can't miss.
Starfinder has larger hp pools then pathfinder. They feel pretty good to play with since people generally don't get one-shot and you don't have the barbarian just clean up every encounter before you get a turn. I know this used to be a problem in low-level PFS with 6 PC tables.
Ship fight
I was surprised by how dynamic this turned out to be. Everyone gets to do something. I look forward to seeing how multi-ship combat plays out.
I was disappointed with critical damage. It feels like it is trivial for the enemy engineer to repair glitching damage (he was succeeding on a 6.) Since you only get to deal critical damage to a ship four times, its basically impossible to actually destroy a system.
The captain is kind of lame. He is limited to using aid another all combat, and using taunt and demand once; at least pre-6. Since starships have so many hit points, this means that for about half the battle he is stuck using aid another. This means that he does not get to make any huge game changing rolls. Consider: pilots control positioning and initiative, which are hugely important; Engineers get to repair systems and recharge shields, which keeps you alive; science officers get to shift shields around which directly protects hp; and gunners get to roll the attacks, which is the most fun part of the game :).
I guess the captain wears the cool hat.
TL;DR
System is fun at level 1! Starship combat is exceeds expectations and is at least as good as regular d20 combat.
fighters are still boring.
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I just finished my first Starfinder Society game with 3 others, so I'll add to the first play impressions.
I was playing a Human Priest Solarian (14 Str/14 Dex/10 Con/10 Int/11 Wis/14 Cha). Feats were Weapon Focus: Adv Melee weapons, Fleet. I chose Solar Armor. Using a Tactical Pike with reach and a Kastha Microcord armor. Diplomacy, Intimidate, Athletics, Mysticism, Sense Motive as skill choices.
In the party were also a Human Scholar Soldier (Sharpshooter) with an Azimuth Laser Rifle as well as a Shirren Ace Pilot Operative with a Tactical Semi-autopistol. Lastly there was a Navasi level 1 pregen.
We had a really good GM, and we really enjoyed the roleplaying flavor.
Out of combat, the party had all skills covered. Most used skills included Culture, Diplomacy, Computers and Engineering, Piloting and Perception. Intimidate, Life Science, Medicine, Bluff, Sense Motive and Survival were each used at least once. The aid another action was used quite a bit where it made sense, and made a difference on a few occasions.
Our first fight involved coming upon 3 ranged enemies. The Solarian already had his armor up and won initiative. Drawing the pike while charging meant it was trivial to get up among all 3 enemies (80' charge range), and hit one on the charge. He also got a reaction attack off from a ranged attack on the same one, dropping them. Gun fire was exchanged, and all 3 enemies were basically down in 3 rounds
We stabilized all enemies within 3 rounds of dropping them (using the rule on page 250 about monster/NPC death. We literally had the Soldier stabilizing an enemy with the Medicine skill while another enemy was still up. The Solarian was the only one hurt (lost 7 Stamina and 4 hit points, which 1 resolve point and a Serum of Healing Mk 1 fixed up).
The second fight involved a large CR3 monster, with 4 player adjustment. Again, Solarian took point, and whiffed the entire fight while the ranged people rolled to hit. Doesn't help when you can't roll above a 5. Fortunately, the monster was whiffing the Solarian as well, and on the 3rd round just started shooting the Soldier (who took 7 stamina damage). Solarian still missed the reaction attack. Everyone else's gun fire, a grenade, and a supernova eventually took it down. We stabilized it after (within a round of dropping it). The Soldier spent a resolve point to recover stamina.
The last "fight" we resolved peacefully through skill checks.
Defying PathfinderStarfinder stereotypes, no enemies were killed in achieving the mission objectives.
I was mostly happy with the Solarian's performance. I was slightly sad that the only action I could really take each round before the third round was simply attack. Of course, that was basically the same variation in the options than the Soldier and Operative took, which were respectively shooting their laser rifle and trick attacking with their pistol. Although, the dim-light the Solarian sheds when using the solar manifestation actually came in handy when in a dark area and wielding a 2-handed weapon. Also the reach on the Tactical Pike is really, really nice against ranged enemies, as well as large monsters.
Navasi actually had the greatest variety of actions in combat which included shooting, Get 'Em, throwing grenades, and using a flash light in the dark.
Overall, everyone at the table had a lot of fun. Certainly we were looking up rules during the game, and had a little confusion during a chase like scene, but otherwise it was smooth playing.
In the party were also a Human Scholar Soldier (Sharpshooter)
** spoiler omitted **...
How did the sharpshooter go?? I want to build either an operative or soldier sniper.. But starting to really feel like the sniper rifles are gimped and very circumstantial..
Esspecially when it seems so easy to cover distance!
Where there many opportunities to use the 500+ feet range??
It was actually a Longarm weapon specialist, not a Sniper weapon specialist. They were using an Azimuth Laser Rifle, not a Sniper weapon, so they only had a 120' range. Although it did mean they were always in the 1st range increment. The Operative was occasionally taking a range penalty with their 30' range Tactical Semi-autopistol.
I think people get the Sharpshooter fighting style confused with a Sniping specialist, because of the names of the fighting style and some of its abilities . It can in principle be used with sniper weapons, but Longarms and Heavy weapons gain much more benefit. The soldier had Weapon focus: Longarms and was planning on taking the laser accuracy gear boost at 3rd level.
The Sniper's Aim was handy, as its was basically +2 to hit if the enemy was in cover. Sadly, even with +6 to hit, rolling a bunch of 5's and less didn't help in the first fight. Second fight went much better for them roll wise.
They also contributed a lot outside of combat with a 14 Int, both Science skills, Engineering, Computers, and Medicine.