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The range listed is it's range increment and for most weapons the maximum range of a weapon is x10 it's increment. Thrown weapons are x5. For each full range increment between you and the target you take a -2 penalty to your attack. Starfinder Core Rulebook p245
Sniper weapons work a bit different, in that they count as both sniper weapons and single shot longarms. Their range is if using them as a longarm, but if you take time to aim properly then they have the range increment as listed in their Sniper trait. Starfinder Core Rulebook p182
Hope this resolves any questions.
Unfortunately the original issue, that a sling from Pathfinder has better range than low-level weapons, is not resolved by this, because those exact same rules applied in Pathfinder.
Starfinder bows have a range of 60 feet.
Dunno if that's relevant or not, but there it is.
I see 1d10 and ignores hardness equal to its level (which may not seem like much at level 1, but is still better than nothing), vs 1d8. One is clearly a superior weapon.
Mind you, if the guy has Damage Reduction it won't help much. Which makes me interested in seeing if Hardness turns up much on creatures or if it's mostly a Vehicle thing.
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I see 1d10 and ignores hardness equal to its level (which may not seem like much at level 1, but is still better than nothing), vs 1d8. One is clearly a superior weapon.Mind you, if the guy has Damage Reduction it won't help much. Which makes me interested in seeing if Hardness turns up much on creatures or if it's mostly a Vehicle thing.
Interestingly, that is a problem with modern weapons - larger weapons will sometimes simply blow through something as squishy as human flesh, leaving relatively small wounds comparable to the size of the weapon.
That's why militaries specifically use weapons that can penetrate but then either get stuck in or tumble around inside. In general, however, it is better to critically wound over kill on the battlefield - a dead soldier takes on person out of the fight. A wounded soldier normally takes three - the wounded plus two companions (one or two to carry, and one to pull guard).
So, if you know you will be going up against tanks, robots and power armor, you bring the big guns - weapons that actually might be less effectively against non-armored meatbags, because they hit so hard.
Except Power Armour and Robots don't have Hardness. Penetrating feels like it should have worked on Damage Reduction too.
Someone claimed they saw a reference that magical constructs (or specifically golems) were going to have Hardness in Starfinder. Maybe it was in First Contact, I didn't find anything like that in a quick search of the Core pdf.
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Someone claimed they saw a reference that magical constructs (or specifically golems) were going to have Hardness in Starfinder. Maybe it was in First Contact, I didn't find anything like that in a quick search of the Core pdf.
They could do this, but I'm not finding anything in First Contact or Incident At Absalom Station that confirms this at all.
Penetrating's also good if you want to get into a building or something without going through the door. It makes it so you take that much less time to smash through that back wall.
Pathfinder ranges should absolutely not be compared. Also note a pistol and a bow deal equivalent damage. Pathfinder has no bearing on ranges of weapons.Unfortunately the original issue, that a sling from Pathfinder has better range than low-level weapons, is not resolved by this, because those exact same rules applied in Pathfinder.The range listed is it's range increment and for most weapons the maximum range of a weapon is x10 it's increment. Thrown weapons are x5. For each full range increment between you and the target you take a -2 penalty to your attack. Starfinder Core Rulebook p245
Sniper weapons work a bit different, in that they count as both sniper weapons and single shot longarms. Their range is if using them as a longarm, but if you take time to aim properly then they have the range increment as listed in their Sniper trait. Starfinder Core Rulebook p182
Hope this resolves any questions.
The thing is, you say that, but Starfinder's "Bow" weapon has literally identical stats to Pathfinder's Shortbow. Meaning it has a baseline by which you *could* compare Pathfinder's weapons. And even without it, comparing the range of a bow to modern weapons puts the bow equal to or even ahead of pistols which, by a quick Google Search, should put the bow to shame.
I always saw range as a measure of accuracy, not physical range the weapon can affect.
Depends how you want to see the abstraction. Range here is not to tell you how far these guns throw bullets, but to constrict players to fight relatively close to their foes. Only sniper rifle exists to safely put large distance between you and your foe and not lose the ability to hit.
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I always saw range as a measure of accuracy, not physical range the weapon can affect.
Depends how you want to see the abstraction. Range here is not to tell you how far these guns throw bullets, but to constrict players to fight relatively close to their foes. Only sniper rifle exists to safely put large distance between you and your foe and not lose the ability to hit.
In fairness, even using effective range as a metric, the ranges of most Starfinder longarms and heavy weapons are seriously low compared to real world ones.
An M16 (not a weapon known for long range accurace) has an effective range of over 1800 feet, for example. Even assuming that's ten range increments it makes a single range increment 180 feet. No projectile weapon in Starfinder gets more than two thirds of that, and many are more like half or less.
Sniper Rifles have longer range, but max out at 10,000 feet, while real world sniper rifles can have ranges somewhat higher than that. Still, they're probably close enough.
As are Small Arms, actually. Pistols have terrible range in real life, too. Way worse than something like a longbow. For comparison, a Colt M1911 has a maximum effective range of 164 feet (according to the internet, but that sounds right). An English Longbow had more like 660 feet on average (more for a stronger archer).
No, the problem is in the rifles (and equivalent weapons). And it's not a huge problem on the scale most games tend to operate on.
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I my opinion at least this is really one of those parts where "it's a game" largely has to overrule what would make sense and be reasonable. If fights happen at a range that would be reasonable for science fiction ranged weapons then suddenly most melee fighters wouldn't be able to close, and perhaps as important to paizo, their old maps wouldn't just be irrelevant but they couldn't make new maps. There's a limit to how big a map they can reasonably make that's easily portable. You could run a game with larger ranges, but expect to regularly have to manufacture a reason for why they can't shoot someone from a few hundred feet or that you'll have to stick a bunch of maps together regularly.
Honestly, my weirdness with range is that more weapons don't have Snipe. Some Heavy Weapons (Like say, the Artillery Laser) feel like they should have had it to match up with the name.