Starfinder space isn't all that dangerous, between low damage and easily obtainable environmental protection (combined with it being very difficult to remove that protection).
What do other systems use to represent the dangers of space? What kind of 3PP stuff are there?
How would you make space more dangerous in Starfinder?
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You can make space ridiculously lethal by just remembering that cosmic rays exist.
"Cosmic rays" is a catchall term for various interstellar radiation effects. They use the same rules as radiation (see page 403). Most habitable planets maintain atmospheres capable of repelling these emissions. Such protected planets allow, at most, a low amount of radiation in infrequent bursts. Planets devoid of a protective atmosphere are constantly assailed by radiation of medium to severe intensity.
Now, it says planets without a protective atmosphere, but I think we can agree that concluding that only planets - and nothing else in space - are so affected would be a bit of silliness. But given what follows, perhaps that brand of silliness would be preferable. In any event, the lower bound for cosmic rays is medium radiation - you can get immunity to that with level 7+ armor, but until then, all you get is a bonus to your saves against it. And armor alone doesn't ever give you immunity to high or severe radiation. With those in mind, let's look at the actual radiation rules.
Pages 403 and 404 define radiation as a constitution poison, with a frequency of 1/round, a variable DC based on severity, no cure except for leaving the area at which point the poison immediately loses effect, and a special DC 18 fort save vs. Radiation Sickness - a disease - every time you make a save against the poison at Impaired or worse. What these sections do not define is how frequently you have to make a save in a radioactive area simply for being there. Other environmental hazards demand you make a saving throw every so often, but radiation is silent on the matter unless you fail your initial save.
Maybe it's only when you enter each area of severity, in which case you either make one saving throw and are fine, or you fail one saving throw and either immediately leave or die - and I'll elaborate on that in a moment. Or maybe it's at the frequency of the poison, in which case you either have immunity or you die. Or maybe it's at the frequency of GM Fiat, in which case you make however many saves they feel you need to... or you die.
Now, let's look at poisons in general. I won't go over the full rules here, but there are two specific snippets from the general rules and the consitution poison track we should make note of.
Upon initial exposure, regardless of whether she succeeds at her saving throw, the victim loses a number of hit points equal to the poison's DC - 10.
Every time the victim attempts a Fortitude save against the poison - whether he succeeds or fails - he loses Hit Points as per on initial exposure.
DC - 10 hit point damage on initial exposure, and then that same amount of damage every round if you fail the initial save, because radiation has a 1/round frequency. Cosmic rays are medium, high, or severe radiation, which have DCs of 17, 22, and 30 respectively, so you're taking a minimum of 7 damage per round, bypassing stamina and directly draining your HP.
Remember that cosmic rays are never weaker than medium radiation in an unshielded environment, and that even after level 7, armor alone will never give you immunity to high or severe radiation. With the most charitable interpretation, in which you save only once when you first enter an irradiated area - unless, of course, you move into an even more radioactive area - you take a minimum of 7 HP damage, and then you're fine. Or you fail your save, and either immediately go back inside or die from 7+ HP damage per round. And that's the most generous interpretation, with the weakest level of radiation that cosmic rays come in.
If you're not immune to radiation, large irradiated areas are effectively a save-or-die hazard. And space is the largest irradiated area there is.
Immunity to both disease and poison would thwart everything but the direct-to-hp parts it would seem ... nasty.
Edit: periapts of proof against poison are going to be much more expensive. The first person to invent and mass-produce them stands to make serious credits. ;)
If you can manage to get it - and I haven't spotted it, but I suppose it's conceivable - then immunity to poison on its own is total immunity to radiation. You're immune, so you're not making the save at all and thus never take HP damage from it. You're never subject to radiation as a poison, so it never affects you enough to make you save against radiation sickness, the disease.
If you're not immune, though, radiation is very nasty. Low radiation is a mere DC 13, but even that would be 3 HP damage per round once it gets in you. And then there's the completely open question of how frequently you save against it in an irradiated area to begin with.
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Starfinder space isn't all that dangerous, between low damage and easily obtainable environmental protection (combined with it being very difficult to remove that protection).
What do other systems use to represent the dangers of space? What kind of 3PP stuff are there?
How would you make space more dangerous in Starfinder?
Maybe that's the point of the setting though. Perhaps space travel and technology is so advanced now, that space is no more dangerous than the oceans are to us.
Gone is the hard science that destroys us with our current level of technology. Now we have sci fi fantasy where things can survive in space for a period of time.
There's an episode of Star Wars clone wars were Plo Kloon spends an extended period of time surviving in the vacuum of space fighting off killer robots to help protect clone troopers trapped in escape pods. It's a pretty epic episode and serves to demonstrate how powerful Jedi are.
I'm thinking this is the type of thing I'm wanting in my space opera.
That's why I put this in the advice forum and not the general discussion forum.
I'm looking for advice on making space more dangerous.
Sorry if that came off a bit too snarky. Didn't mean it that way.
Basically, two of my players want space to be more dangerous, so I'm looking for some ways to incorporate that into the rules. Maybe seeing how other games do it, or what 3PP there is that can do it. Just looking for general ideas that I can work with.
As a starter, I'm thinking of just removing the environmental protection from clothing and armor that's no power armor. Maybe have space suits be the only protection against space. Not sure yet.
I wouldn't necessarily just strip out the environmental protections from body armor completely, not in light of the setting's technological development. Reduce it a time increment to hours instead of days, making wearing a second chance suit underneath their heavy armor a consideration of funds (an extra hour? SURE!)
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Start introducing suffocation rules instead of hp reduction. Fail first save, begin suffocating, fail second fall unconscious, fail third and dead. That's pretty deadly. Or after the.y go unconscious from the second failed save, they only have Con mod rounds to get to safety before death. It's how 5 ed does it.
Make environments corrosive to suits. The suit is fine at first, bu the longer it's in the environment it begins to be damaged. Eventually, it breaks and loses integrity so the environment starts hurting the players.
Make the default that suits don't have environment protection turned on until the players activate it, (one action). The suits only have limited capacity for environment protection so it doesn't make sense the players would have the, running all the time.
Make conditions that blind/deafen or nauseated the players instead. Visual effects not protected against by standard suits. It actually needs full masks with protective visors.
Gravity sickness over time. Low G environments cause blood flow issues so force Con Saves. Or the fact gravity is caused by spin and interacts with Coriolis to make nausea occur.
Madness. Sci fi is full of tropes where people go mad staring into the edge of nothing. Intelligence checks or Charisma checks to prevent them gaining insanity points or suffering some form of delibitating experience.
Could roll to see if they run into a micro-astroid or debris storm :) Space is full of those and other unknown things. Interstellar clouds full of plasma floats by the ship, causing electrical disruption to physical burns.
Mi-Go.
Tribbles.
Muppets.
IRL perspective:
Experience with space travel around Earth suggests that being in space is indeed dangerous, but unless you have an acute failure of your environmental protection, the effects don't kick in until you've been there for a while.
Cosmic (and solar flare!) radiation is indeed enough of a concern for long-term exposure that space travel scientists have worried about how to shield from it. Cosmic radiation won't kill you right away or even in a few weeks (although a bad solar flare might have serious acute or even fatal effects in a fairly short time), but a recent report (unfortunately I can't remember where to find it) suggests that it causes cumulative damage to the central nervous system (researched in mice). It is reasonable to suspect that it will also cause an elevated risk of cancer, but we do not yet have a large enough population of astronauts (and they are generally not up for decades at a time, and usually only weeks to months) to see this. Serious proposals have included measures such as covering moon bases with 6 feet of dirt to substitute for an atmosphere (as well as provide thermal insulation and protection from meteorites). For spaceships of the technology we have, this is way too heavy, so proposals have included having small solar flare refuge rooms on interplanetary spaceships to where astronauts can retreat in case of a bad flare (a wall that isn't too heavy to put up in space with our technology won't stop the slow and steady trickle of high-energy cosmic rays, but it might stop most of the lower-energy but very numerous particles from a solar flare, whereas the normal spaceship walls and space suits won't cut it for this).
Something that hasn't been mentioned is that there's also wildlife in space in Starfinder. We don't have the Alien Archive yet, but the CRB mentions that there are giant beasts roaming space that are very dangerous. You could even take it a bit farther, have space vermin that will sabotage your players' ship and strand them in space to kick off a survival adventure (make them space rust monsters if you're feeling really cruel).
Also, while space is pretty much a tamed frontier in Starfinder, the Drift is still plenty dangerous with random chunks of planes floating around in it and what have you.
Between the Free Captains, the Corpse Fleet, corporate intrigues, potential assassins, Devourer cultists, generic pirates, raiders, criminals, space monsters, weird science things, weird magic things, the Dominion of Black, other cults, and any number of other possible threats, I would hesitate to call space a "tamed frontier." Particularly when the CRB itself disagrees.
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Something that hasn't been mentioned is that there's also wildlife in space in Starfinder. We don't have the Alien Archive yet, but the CRB mentions that there are giant beasts roaming space that are very dangerous. You could even take it a bit farther, have space vermin that will sabotage your players' ship and strand them in space to kick off a survival adventure (make them space rust monsters if you're feeling really cruel).
Also, while space is pretty much a tamed frontier in Starfinder, the Drift is still plenty dangerous with random chunks of planes floating around in it and what have you.
Pathfinder gives us some idea of the nastiness of Space. While I'm sure the stats are different, the setting is the same and thus I'm sure these creatures still exist in one form or another. In particular there is a death tree from Dragon's demand, and the Lovecraftian Color out of Space