What is the credit cost for starships and equipment

[kixaplix]

Hello, just asking how much does it cost in credits for starships and equipment

[dragonhunterq]

There isn't a credit cost for starships. The resources for ships/ship equipment and personal equipment are tracked separately by design.

[Claxon]

Yeah, it's intentionally separated and not meant to be interchangeable.

[Lane_S]

Imagine if you could trade a build point for 100,000 credits.

Hey guys, we just made second level. Do you think we should sell a build point?

[Omnius]

The cost is no.

Starfinder is a D&D derivative. As such, there is not an economy. Credits are not money. They are a secondary XP track tied directly to the main XP track. XP scales your attack and stamina, while credits scale your damage and AC. This prevents credits from functioning as money. It's also why almost everything that doesn't tie directly to scaling your damage and AC costs an effectively trivial amount.

Adding an additional feature that has to scale with level and keying it competitively off of that same secondary XP track breaks the game. In playtesting, they tried credit costs for ships. In practice, most play groups either ignored their ship in favor of better gear or neglected their gear in favor of having the best ship, and in either case, it broke the math of the game.

[Metaphysician]

Lane_S wrote:

Imagine if you could trade a build point for 100,000 credits.

Hey guys, we just made second level. Do you think we should sell a build point?

Exactly. Unless the cost of ship systems were absurdly low, it'd be *waaay* too much a good idea to make a little sacrifice here and there, in exchange for gearing up the party with a fully panoply of borged out Level +2 gear with all the fixings. And that's before we get into salvaging enemy ships defeated in battle. One successfully captured prize, and you might never need for money again.

[Claxon]

And we recognize this lack of realism doesn't sit well with everyone.

But remember, this is only game. Not reality. The limitations exist for reasons and we could come up with reasons why this happens, But ultimately it's justification for something that is not tied to the setting of the game world. It's about balance and mechanics.

The game breaks down if you can covert back and forth between spaceship value and character gear value.

[d'Eon]

If your players really want to upgrade their ship, get them in touch with one of the shipbuilder mega-corps. I'm sure some of them would find a job for a small team of highly skilled mercenaries and pay them in surplus parts. And if that job they're given just so happens to bump them a level, even better.

[Gary Bush]

I have read of some GMs that give characters, as part of their reward, a pool of Build Points (used to build ships) that the players can then do what they wish on their ship.

[Jimbles the Mediocre]

Gary Bush wrote:

I have read of some GMs that give characters, as part of their reward, a pool of Build Points (used to build ships) that the players can then do what they wish on their ship.

That's a great idea for a campaign that focuses heavily on ship combat (especially if those build point rewards come from defeated ships).