What is the size comparison between creatures and spaceships?
Well let's see. The smallest size starship listed in the starship scale table is size Tiny. This is about the size of, say, a single-man fighter craft. They are listed at lengths of 20 to 60 feet, so an average of 40 feet, and weighs 3-20 tons, so average of 11.5 tons (23,000 pounds if we assume typical tons). Now we look at the bog standard of "average" for creatures: A Human. According to the Vital Statistics chart, the average human is 5 to 7 feet tall, so average 6 feet, and weighs 100-300 pounds, so average 200 pounds (0.1 tons for those keeping score). So the average Tiny Starship is about 6 and 2/3 times the length of a human, and 115x the weight. If we compare a Human to a Medium starship (since humans are Medium creatures, it gives a better direct comparison maybe) those range from 120-300 feet in length (average 210) and weigh 40-150 tons (average 95, 190,000 lbs,) for a total of 35x the length and 950x the weight.
I don't think they match up so much as cross over. So medium creature=fine or tiny spaceship?
A typical tiny spaceship has a medium pilot inside of it, along with engines, thrusts, weapons, a cockpit, computers....
So it's way bigger.
Any vehicle with a pilot is bigger than a pilot.
Even the smallest ships will probably be bigger than a car
I don't think they match up so much as cross over. So medium creature=fine or tiny spaceship?
I mean if you're just asking because you want to give a medium sized encounter starship statistics so it can fight in space, then I say just go for it.
It's not like creatures have to follow the same rules as PCs do by requiring a starship to do starship combat. They could possibly use themselves.
I don't think they match up so much as cross over. So medium creature=fine or tiny spaceship?
Starship size scaling is weird, but at lower tiers it's close enough to +1 size = x2 length that we can probably extrapolate beyond Tiny using that for length (though weight scales super weird and I'm not about to toy with that) so let's look at this.
Tiny Starships, as I said in my last post are about 6 2/3x the length of a Medium creature. Working off this, that would make a Diminutive ship 3 1/3x the length of a Medium creature, and going off that Fine would be about 1 2/3x the length of a Medium creature. So some smaller Fine ships could be about the size of a Medium creature, while some larger ones could be about the size of a Large creature.
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I see no reason to stop applying the same size categories DnD 3/3.5 and Pathfinder have always applied to creatures:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat/space-reach-threatened-area-te mplates/
So there are 9 size categories, where Medium is Size 5, and a creature is between 2^(Size-3) and 2^(Size-2) feet tall/long.
Meanwhile, Shinigami has already brought this up, but Starship scaling is pretty strange - for example, Medium ships don't cap out at 240 feet, as you'd expect, but rather 300 feet. I suspect this is largely an artifact of Starfinder's habit of rounding numbers to multiples of 10 or 100 whenever possible, which you see all over, like in how experience rewards and costs work.
Here's a basic list of scale conversions for ships, so you have an idea:
Tiny Starship: 20-60 Huge-Gargantuan Creature: 16-32-64
Small Starship: 60-120 Colossal Creature: 64-128
Medium Starship: 120-300 Colossal+1 Creature: 128-256
Large Starship: 300-800 Colossal+2-Colossal+3 Creature: 256-512-1024
Huge Starship: 800-2000 Colossal+3-Colossal+4 Creature: 512-1024-2048
Gargantuan Starship: 2000-15000 Colossal+5-Colossal+7 Creature: 2048-16384
Colossal Starship: 15000+ Colossal+8 or larger Creature: 16384+
So a Colossal creature is larger than a Tiny sharship, and you can slot in Medium humans pretty easily.
In the star wars D20 game, fine sized starships take up the same space as a large creature. Colossal creatures are the same as small spaceships.
It's not like that in Starfinder,is it?
It's not quite that clean, given that they are on their own scales, but the math comes pretty close to that.
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Starships smaller than Tiny are arguably too small to be targeted by normal starship weapons. If a starship can't target an orc or a group of orcs, I don't see how it can target another starship that's roughly the size of a large orc.
If a GM allows Diminutive or Fine sized starships, they should probably clarify whether or not these ships can be precisely targeted by starship weapons. The answer could dramatically change the way starship combats work in the campaign.
Starships smaller than Tiny are arguably too small to be targeted by normal starship weapons. If a starship can't target an orc or a group of orcs, I don't see how it can target another starship that's roughly the size of a large orc.
If a GM allows Diminutive or Fine sized starships, they should probably clarify whether or not these ships can be precisely targeted by starship weapons. The answer could dramatically change the way starship combats work in the campaign.
It's probably best modeled as a size bonus to your AC, like small and tiny starships get.
Also, maybe a little off topic, but while you can't target said orc or groups of orcs, you can still effectively damage them with your ship weapons when treated as "deadly hazards."
Like, for example, using the hazard attack rules found in the vehicle rules, a tier 12's ship with a heavy particle beam cannon (8d6) would best work as a CR 12 hazard attack (11d10) when used against people. Likewise, the Heavy Nuclear Missile Launcher (10d8) on a tier 12 ship would probably best work as CR 12 trap statistics (12d12+5) when using explosives. I use trap damage for this because traps are described as "environmental hazards" and have saving throws instead of only attack bonuses, like for hazard attacks.
Like, for example, using the hazard attack rules found in the vehicle rules, a tier 12's ship with a heavy particle beam cannon (8d6) would best work as a CR 12 hazard attack (11d10) when used against people. Likewise, the Heavy Nuclear Missile Launcher (10d8) on a tier 12 ship would probably best work as CR 12 trap statistics (12d12+5) when using explosives. I use trap damage for this because traps are described as "environmental hazards" and have saving throws instead of only attack bonuses, like for hazard attacks.RAW, it's 10x the listed damage for that weapon.
At the GM’s discretion, if starship weapons are ever brought to bear against buildings or people, they deal Hit Point damage equal to 10 × their listed amount of damage.Your really going easy on your players if your dropping 8d6 x10 to 11d10. Minimum 80 to a maximum of 110.
While a starship weapon can (at the GM's discretion) deal x10 their normal damage, it states that it's too inaccurate to target individuals or groups. It does state that the GM can treat it has a hazard, and this seems to be the only consistent method of damaging creatures with starship weapons.
Really, though, 11d10 is still very powerful compared to other level 12 weapons, and taking this damage doesn't imply that you got hit dead on as opposed to maybe being grazed by it. Allowing players to regularly have access to weapons that deal x10 their listed damage with no drawback is really not a good idea, in any case.