SFS is quite popular where I live.
Edited for clarity.
Of course it is. We're people who post on the freaking Paizo forums. We're a niche.
I think I see one potential difference between HWalsh and myself.
I have run (and played in) 0 adventures-as-written, from Dead Suns or SRS.
100% of my experience comes from running or playing in homebrew adventures tailored to a specific party that draw liberally from Paizo products but do not use them verbatim.
I do wonder how much of a difference that makes. It would seem, quite a bit. I don't know what to say about the over-a-hundred sample combats thing because it's largely meaningless without context and detail.
(I'm not much impressed by claims about running in a "very good home game," which as pertains to general claims about the system is not super-meaningful. I'm running a "very good home game" at this moment wherein we're having a metric @&!%-load of fun, doesn't mean I think I'm qualified to demand things from Paizo or define how the system will work for other people.)
Stones. Glass houses. Etc.
Stones. Glass houses. Etc.
If you ever see me trying to demand that Paizo release an Unchained Solarian or "I will not be satisfied" you can feel free to stone me at will. I will freely accept the Critical Effects from the falling glass. ;)
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No I see you making sweeping generalizations about the player base with no actual experience beyond what you listed.
The fact that you continue to make remarks of irrelevancy and condescension about other people's experience, style, or even numbers from your own self professed small island of experience is as bad if not worse than another's demands of a developer to come out and explain themselves. He only wants to make his game better. Which has as much bearing on your game as you allow. You simply talk about how others are doing it wrong and play it off or act deliberately obtuse when you're called out.
You have fun with what you do. That is fine. But please refrain from making such statements without solid evidence on such matter like the number of players in SFS. You do not represent "us" anymore than I represent "you", anymore than Hwalsh, or god forbid Ravingdork represents anyone outside of their own tables and experiences.
How the hell do,you know how much of the playing audience is outside society play?Let me put it this way: do you seriously believe fifty percent or more of the paying audience is in Society play?
Come on. Let's be real. I don't believe you believe that. I'm running on the assumption we all have the common sense to know that Organized Play is a niche.
While I have no clue as to the exact number, I think you are vastly underestimating the size of Organized Play. Even besides that though, there is another group who might well play unmodded: Inexperienced GMs. Not everyone playing Starfinder is coming in with years of experience GMing other systems. Do you really expect someone on their first (or at least one of their first) forays into GMing to know exactly how to mod the game to perfectly balance their party? Or do you think it might be reasonable that they might want to run the game the way it's written a few times before diving into homebrew? Gods know if I wind up running a game it's going probably be mostly unmodded because I very much do not trust myself to modify stuff properly.
No I see you making sweeping generalizations about the player base with no actual experience beyond what you listed.
If identifying Organized Play as a niche is the "sweeping generalization" you're referring to, I stand by it as common sense and without apology.
If you mean I'm making "sweeping generalizations" that running adventures as written is qualitatively different from running your own adventures, I think you probably have a point that I introduced a red herring there. Because despite my post, I don't truly think that in itself is a decisive factor.
To wit:
Even besides that though, there is another group who might well play unmodded: Inexperienced GMs. Not everyone playing Starfinder is coming in with years of experience GMing other systems. Do you really expect someone on their first (or at least one of their first) forays into GMing to know exactly how to mod the game to perfectly balance their party?
I don't expect anyone to know "exactly" how to "perfectly" balance this or that. I certainly don't. It's a new system.
What I will say -- and I will cop to having muffed this point a bit -- is that I don't really think "unmodded" play is a thing when it all comes down to it, not for the vast bulk of people engaging with the system. It doesn't really matter who's running which scenario, wildly variable results are possible from the same AP or the same SFS scenario just as they are from homebrew adventures, because it is unavoidable and an actual feature of the system that regardless of their experience level, tables will tailor adventures to their own style of play. I do think they have a much better chance of enjoying the experience if the group adjusts adventures to suit the pre-acknowledged needs and/or desires of the table (which ultimately is what I was getting at in my earlier post), but this is hardly a claim to have "perfectly balanced" anything.
Ceejay - You're arguing in bad faith here. Not cool.
SFS module sales aren't an indicator of how many people are in Organized Play and you have to know it. Kindly don't talk to me about bad faith.
Back to graviton stuff.
Situations where graviton mode can be great,
- zero G environments. Pulling the enemy off the wall leaving them floating in space and possible accelerating to a bad place.
- any situation where there’s dangerous environmental factors that you pull them into (quicksand, head vents, electric fences, laser traps, mine fields to name some)
- when the Solarian is above the targets. If he’s on the ceiling through suction boots or the Solarian ability and he just lifts the enemy up and then drops them again. Even more effective if his companions have readied actions to shoot the enemy mid lift. This even works if the Solarian is on a balcony above them.
- if the enemy is on a cliff or ledge.
- if an enemy is flyingThose are just ones I can think of and that’s only dealing with the one power everyone’s seems to whinge about.
The issue there is that Black Hole can only pull. So several of those situations are very, very limited.
1: Yeah, handy there (Though it requires you to be already floating yourself)
2: Black Hole can only pull. You'll need to be in that environmental effect yourself or on the other side of it (Which is an issue when Black Hole only pulls a short duration)
3: The readied actions could not be Full Attacks. Your soldier would actually be better off going with 'shoot them in cover' than 'Ready a single better attack'. You'd also be depriving the group of one of their primary damage dealers by doing so.
4: Again, it can only pull. You can only do that if you jump off the cliff first and take them with you or if you've gotten flight.
5: They'd need to be flying at a rather low height for you to yank them into melee range.
While the mental image of a Solarian suiciding off a cliff with an enemy like it's SSB is entertaining, it's also a very limited situation.
SFS module sales aren't an indicator of how many people are in Organized Play and you have to know it. Kindly don't talk to me about bad faith.
Mind you, at the same time 'The modules designed for the game' is likely going to be a rather common situation for players, so they are a very good place to use a test for functionality rather than any individual players game.
Every RPG is someone's first and first time GMs are more likely to use modules.
Stellar Advantage (Level 1):
A Solarian may choose either their Constitution or Wisdom Score. They may substitute their Charisma Score for any feats, traits, values, abilities, skills, or other effects that use the selected score. Once this score is chosen it cannot be changed.
This is interesting - in fact, very interesting, because of the specific two stats you chose - but I think a broader rule should be implemented to address one of the reasons it's so incredibly common to have Solarians dip in Soldier:
Change Resolve Points to always be based on your highest ability score, whatever that is.
It's incredibly easy to build a Solarian with absolutely no Charisma dependence, because so many of their abilities don't need it - the same is actually true for Envoys. But there's just no way without multiclassing to have your character's Resolve Points actually depend on what sort of person they are, and that seems completely at odds with what Resolve Points represent, both thematically and mechanically.
I'm not saying it would be enough to "patch" Solarians, but it would at least make it less immediately tempting to multiclass out.
Mostly true, but I did want to point out 1 thing, full attacking a target behind cover is effectively a -8 to hit. That's a LOT of penalties...
SFS module sales aren't an indicator of how many people are in Organized Play and you have to know it. Kindly don't talk to me about bad faith.Mind you, at the same time 'The modules designed for the game' is likely going to be a rather common situation for players, so they are a very good place to use a test for functionality rather than any individual players game.
Quite, though we should still expect players making their own adventures to be a major factor, but moreover: I think what I'm tending towards here is that "the modules designed for the game" are themselves quite variable experiences depending on the table.
This is something that's a lot clearer to me now than it would've been in, say, the Eighties or Nineties because actual play podcasts are easy to access, and I can see in real time the radically different stories that can be extracted from the broad outlines of the Dead Suns AP in a way that would've been much harder to do for "Keep on the Borderlands" or "The Tomb of Horrors" back in the day.
I also do have the benefit of a certain form of hindsight, admittedly. If I'd been wholly reliant on the published content of Shadowrun in its first year, I never would've become a Shadowrun fan. This to be sure is a totally personal thing, in that I've never been super-partial to the "official" content of any game and have never relied on it to judge the worth of the system. That is very much me... but I don't think it's only me. ;)
Mostly true, but I did want to point out 1 thing, full attacking a target behind cover is effectively a -8 to hit. That's a LOT of penalties...
That is true. However, at level 20 for example? Full attack against guy in cover: 62.37DPR Single attack against guy outside of cover? 62.79DPR. All the work of the Solarian resulted in...less than a single point of damage per round (While costing the Solarian the ability to attack himself). An extra attack (And especially 2 extra attacks) makes up for a lot of penalties. Against a guy in partial cover, the soldier is better off with the full attack.
The one time it makes a noticeable benefit to shoot the guy after he's yanked out is if he's got Improved Cover (Which is stuff like a gun port in a tank or castle wall).
I honestly rather doubt that the loss of the Solarian's damage is really being made up for by the increased damage from the guys with the pistols.
That is very much me... but I don't think it's only me. ;)
Not but by the same token: A game not working in it's own, designed scenarios that is set up is a problem. A GM dealing with it also requires the GM to be aware that there is a problem, something most new GMs would not innately know.
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Back to graviton stuff.
Situations where graviton mode can be great,
- zero G environments. Pulling the enemy off the wall leaving them floating in space and possible accelerating to a bad place.
- any situation where there’s dangerous environmental factors that you pull them into (quicksand, head vents, electric fences, laser traps, mine fields to name some)
- when the Solarian is above the targets. If he’s on the ceiling through suction boots or the Solarian ability and he just lifts the enemy up and then drops them again. Even more effective if his companions have readied actions to shoot the enemy mid lift. This even works if the Solarian is on a balcony above them.
- if the enemy is on a cliff or ledge.
- if an enemy is flyingThose are just ones I can think of and that’s only dealing with the one power everyone’s seems to whinge about.
The issue there is that Black Hole can only pull. So several of those situations are very, very limited.
1: Yeah, handy there (Though it requires you to be already floating yourself)
2: Black Hole can only pull. You'll need to be in that environmental effect yourself or on the other side of it (Which is an issue when Black Hole only pulls a short duration)
3: The readied actions could not be Full Attacks. Your soldier would actually be better off going with 'shoot them in cover' than 'Ready a single better attack'. You'd also be depriving the group of one of their primary damage dealers by doing so.
4: Again, it can only pull. You can only do that if you jump off the cliff first and take them with you or if you've gotten flight.
5: They'd need to be flying at a rather low height for you to yank them into melee range.While the mental image of a Solarian suiciding off a cliff with an enemy like it's SSB is entertaining, it's also a very limited situation.
1. Or on the opposite wall of the zero g environment. Or flying past using boots etc.
2. It’s a 20 foot range, so if you’re on the opposite side it’s pretty good. Particularly for things like energised fences3. Which is crap for the soldier but may make a difference for the non full ban classes (though not likely given how low AC values for enemies are). Also, if you’re directly above them you lift them ten feet into the air and then they drop, possibly prone and possibly taking falling damage. That would depend on your GM I guess
4. If you are below the cliff or ledge that they are on, you can pull them off the ledge or cliff. They could in fact fall up to 20 feet (range of the effect)
5. I can think of a fight in the first AP where the final boss begins flying around in room where dragging it ten feet down could be really useful, especially if it can crash into something on the way.
That is very much me... but I don't think it's only me. ;)Not but by the same token: A game not working in it's own, designed scenarios that is set up is a problem.
I am the last person who's going to claim the published adventures are flawless, quite obviously. The question is whether the flaw is in the system or the adventures.
1. Or on the opposite wall of the zero g environment. Or flying past using boots etc.
2. It’s a 20 foot range, so if you’re on the opposite side it’s pretty good. Particularly for things like energised fences
3. Which is crap for the soldier but may make a difference for the non full ban classes (though not likely given how low AC values for enemies are). Also, if you’re directly above them you lift them ten feet into the air and then they drop, possibly prone and possibly taking falling damage. That would depend on your GM I guess
4. If you are below the cliff or ledge that they are on, you can pull them off the ledge or cliff. They could in fact fall up to 20 feet (range of the effect)
5. I can think of a fight in the first AP where the final boss begins flying around in room where dragging it ten feet down could be really useful, especially if it can crash into something on the way.
2. But it would rely on them already being right up against it.
3. But is also costing the damage the Solarian himself is doing. Unless you've got like...a dozen...PCs with pistols I don't think there is a net gain there.4. Actually, you couldn't. They'd impact the ground if you were below them and stop. Black hole can only pull in a straight line and is stopped by any hard object.
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CeeJay is also ignoring the very large group of people who buy the modules because they don’t have time to design their own game.
Paizo makes the majority of its money from its adventures, not the rules. It’s why they make the rules free (eventually this will happen for Starfinder)
What that tells me is large numbers of people are buying the modules that Paizo produce. The expectation being they should work really well with the rules as written. The most that may need changing is the odd equipment drop that may not suit any one in the group.
In fact, I will go so far as to say that CeeJay is on the minority for play style in this hobby.
At high levels of play where the soldier has their 3 attck full attack that might be true, but for until then I think you'll find that it does work out better for the soldier to shoot once with an out of cover target than to full attack a taget in cover. Also keep in mind not eveypne shooting on your team is necessarily a soldier. For classes with lower BAB that readied attack is going to be FAR more effective than full attcking the opponent in cover.
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1. Or on the opposite wall of the zero g environment. Or flying past using boots etc.
2. It’s a 20 foot range, so if you’re on the opposite side it’s pretty good. Particularly for things like energised fences
3. Which is crap for the soldier but may make a difference for the non full ban classes (though not likely given how low AC values for enemies are). Also, if you’re directly above them you lift them ten feet into the air and then they drop, possibly prone and possibly taking falling damage. That would depend on your GM I guess
4. If you are below the cliff or ledge that they are on, you can pull them off the ledge or cliff. They could in fact fall up to 20 feet (range of the effect)
5. I can think of a fight in the first AP where the final boss begins flying around in room where dragging it ten feet down could be really useful, especially if it can crash into something on the way.2. But it would rely on them already being right up against it.
3. But is also costing the damage the Solarian himself is doing. Unless you've got like...a dozen...PCs with pistols I don't think there is a net gain there.
4. Actually, you couldn't. They'd impact the ground if you were below them and stop. Black hole can only pull in a straight line and is stopped by any hard object.
2. Or ten feet away if you’re also ten feet away.
3. You’re ignoring the part where the enemy then fall ten feet and possibly fall prone so your soldier buddy can smack,him even more effectively.4. This is one is very situational, I’ll grant you that. But if they are on the very edge of the ledge shooting down at you, then I’d be allowing the power to pull them off it. Also, if they are climbing a cliff, there’s nothing to stop them being pulled off it.
I am the last person who's going to claim the published adventures are flawless, quite obviously. The question is whether the flaw is in the system or the adventures.That is very much me... but I don't think it's only me. ;)Not but by the same token: A game not working in it's own, designed scenarios that is set up is a problem.
I'd personally say the system. I mean, look at the debate I'm having about the Black Hole power. We are needing to debate such edge cases for it to be useful while the Photon version is beneficial 'When you have dudes in that area, full stop'.
My issue is that I don't think Graviton is powerful enough for how very situational it is, doubly so when it requires a multi-turn charge up. So you need to make sure those guys are STILL in place 3 turns after you decide to do it in the first place, since you needed to charge graviton. They'd really have benefited from looking at D&D 4e's Defenders and Controllers for how to make it work.
Black hole isn't an inherently bad idea BUT it's fiddly enough that the reasons to ever use it are so very situational as to make it not very useful. If it had say, been a free action (So you can yank guys foward then full attack them or run up, yank a guy and charge him) or if it had been sticky, you could have kept people out of cover rather than forcing your allies to ready actions because you can't be sure the guy will still be there when the target arrives etc.
For example, I'm working on some Gravity weapons for some homebrew and this is the keyword I'm using for the heavy weapons to try and make them sticky.
Event Horizon: A creature that fails a save against an event horizon weapon cannot move through any method until the end of it's next turn.
It's not that a situation can't be created where a graviton power could theoretically be useful, it's that being 'Sometimes, situationally useful' isn't really good game design when Solarians DO have to choose between graviton and photon (Since they need to charge up each mode individually).
CeeJay is also ignoring the very large group of people who buy the modules because they don’t have time to design their own game.
Admittedly I do think if you don't have time to adapt modules to work for your table, you should probably think about whether RPGs are really for you.
large numbers of people are buying the modules that Paizo produce.
Of course. I'm one of them. I have several SFS modules and all of the Dead Suns content to this point. I just adapt the content.
I will go so far as to say that CeeJay is on the minority for play style in this hobby.
I make no claims either way. All I'll say is that if you want to get the most out of this hobby as any other, you have to be willing to invest some time and effort to make it work for your group.
3. You’re ignoring the part where the enemy then fall ten feet and possibly fall prone so your soldier buddy can smack,him even more effectively.
Actually, a Prone guy behind cover would be at a net +8 (+4 for prone, +4 for cover) to his defence effectively. It's +4 AC vs ranged attacks. So if you do that, you've actually made the situation WORSE for the ranged attackers (Likely the majority) in your party. The one situation it's a benefit is a melee attacker, who doesn't really tend to mind cover much himself because he can personally go around or over it.
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Also I'd like to point out that black hole is a low level zenith revelation. After you have other zenith revelations it's likely that you won't use it very often simply because you now have better options. It is a 1st level ability after all. It does have some scaling built in so at level 17 it has a range of 40ft which is more usable though still not great. But by level 9 you could have time dialation, starquake, or wormholes you could use instead.
I'd personally say the system.I am the last person who's going to claim the published adventures are flawless, quite obviously. The question is whether the flaw is in the system or the adventures.That is very much me... but I don't think it's only me. ;)Not but by the same token: A game not working in it's own, designed scenarios that is set up is a problem.
And I'm not there yet.
Which is not to say I believe the system is flawless. I've homebrewed Envoy Improvisations in my game because I came to believe there were a small group of them that were too fiddly to be really useful. Totally possible the same is true for Graviton powers and if I had a Solarian in my game (or as I'm playing as a Solarian in the game where I'm a PC) I may discover the same.
For the most part, though, the deeper I've delved into Starfinder as a system, and as a GM, the better I've come to understand why it's built the way it is and the more I've come to appreciate the decisions made in building it, most of which I undersstand. There are miscues here and there but I'm a pretty hard sell on the proposition that the system as a whole is particularly problematic.
Also I'd like to point out that black hole is a low level zenith revelation. After you have other zenith revelations it's likely that you won't use it very often simply because you now have better options. It is a 1st level ability after all. It does have some scaling built in so at level 17 it has a range of 40ft which is more usable though still not great. But by level 9 you could have time dialation, starquake, or wormholes you could use instead.
Yeah, though all of those suffer heavily from the 'Multi-round chargeup' part. Time Dilation is a fantastic power to open with...but you can't. You can only use it multiple rounds into the fight after some foes are likely downed or people have spread out. By the same token, Wormholes are really, really cool...and you can't use them outside of combat (Since you can't be fully attuned outside of combat) where such mobility would be really handy and you can't use it first round of the battle to help get your allies into position. You need to know 'I'll need wormholes a few rounds from now'.
Which sorta runs into my comment that the powers are fiddly enough as to be too situational for their own good. In comparison, a 4e controller (As that's likely a pretty good comparison in role with a graviton-based solarian) can open up a battle with slows and stuns, rather than needing to wait multiple turns and can do damage while they also control.
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CeeJay is also ignoring the very large group of people who buy the modules because they don’t have time to design their own game.Admittedly I do think if you don't have time to adapt modules to work for your table, you should probably think about whether RPGs are really for you.
large numbers of people are buying the modules that Paizo produce.Of course. I'm one of them. I have several SFS modules and all of the Dead Suns content to this point. I just adapt the content.
I will go so far as to say that CeeJay is on the minority for play style in this hobby.I make no claims either way. All I'll say is that if you want to get the most out of this hobby as any other, you have to be willing to invest some time and effort to make it work for your group.
What an amazingly arrogant statement.
I will say that I currently play a number of systems where I don’t have to modify the content in the prepublished adventures in order to make it enjoyable for my group.
That includes both pathfinder and fifth edition.
However, what these last few posts of yours has certainly demonstrated to me is your complete lack,of understanding of the player base in the hobby world. It explains a number of your previous statements in other threads. It also makes much of what you have to say worthless in discussions about game play issues or balance.
You have a firmly concreted stance of “I don’t have an issue so it can’t be a problem”, and then dismiss any other style of play than what you use as irrelevant and wrong.
You may not find a problem with the game, and that’s fine. But your arrogant and dismissive attitude towards other people’s experiences and findings is unpalatable.
Wow this thread is going quick to the bad lands of personal insults and condescending statements.
I know some people have been saying that combat is usually only a couple of rounds, but that has not been my experience so far, and the system itself, with the modifications that were made to the action economy, should have moved further away from the 1 round combats that were apparently common in pathfinder. In the games I've played and run rarely has combat ended in less than 2 rounds.
Now as the the complaints that the graviton zenith are situational, well so are the photon ones. Supernova is cool, but if the enemies aren't grouped up a few rounds into combat (and you've aserted that the often aren't) it ends up doing less damage than full attacking a single enemy. Miniature star suffers as well if enemies don't bunch up. Ray of light is cool, but you could have moved next to them already by now. Solar acceleration is nice, but lack luster of your team isn't close around you to gain the benefits.
All zenith require resetting your on while attuned abilities, so they suffer from that as well. All that being said, you don't have to plan a specific one 3 rounds ahead. You start attuning whatever is appropriate, and then use a paricular zenith of it's worth it once you are fully attuned. It's not a race to use your zeniths,
All zenith require resetting your on while attuned abilities, so they suffer from that as well. All that being said, you don't have to plan a specific one 3 rounds ahead. You start attuning whatever is appropriate, and then use a paricular zenith of it's worth it once you are fully attuned. It's not a race to use your zeniths,
Yeah but the Photon attuned (But not fully attuned) stuff tends to be a lot more useful on the way there than the Graviton. There isn't really anything as generally useful on the graviton side as Plasma Sheath. Defy Gravity is likely the closest and well...you can get flight like that from a Jump Pack pretty easily (And actual hovering flight before level 12). Graviton suffers because it relies a lot more heavily on your standard actions, conflicting with Stabbing Things, while Photon enhances Stabbing Things which your non-revelation class features are all about making better.
What an amazingly arrogant statement.
It's not "arrogant" to state a fact.
Here's another one: cinematic space opera is just flat-out a much more complicated genre to deliver credibly than what's treated in some other games. It's precisely why D&D is the ur-RPG instead of the coeval Traveller. It's not a failure if you don't have the time to make it work, and I'm sorry if my remark came off that way, that's not what I meant. It doesn't make you a bad or uncommitted GM if your players quit out of it (especially in a situation where there are complications like Starfinder has, where there are player groups expecting it to be another game); and if you don't have the time necessary to make Starfinder work but do have the time to make something else work, that's okay. Neither fact is a judgement on you or the system in itself.
While I generally agree with you that photon mode is better I just did a brief count of the graviton revelation (not zeniths) 5 used move action, 3 used standard/full actions and 3 were non actions. Now I will admit that it was a very quick count and I may have miscounted a bit, but my point was that many of the tradition revelations do not require a sandard action.
I will admint fully that graviton mode as a whole is more defensive than the photon mode. And usually a good offense works out to end up being the best defense. I just want people to not write off tradition mode outright as there are some good abilities there.
insinuating that any of us has somehow a more pure understanding of what gaming is, or what the systems beneath the surface are, is pure folly.
It's kind of funny you should say this, because it seems like the appeal-to-credentials immediately prefacing this is attempting precisely that. (And very nice that you did it for a living, congrats and I salute you, but hey, so did John Romero.)
Notwithstanding my earlier harsh comments, though, I confess I'm warming up to you. This statement and the ensuing analysis:
I think Paizo was aware that Solarians would have a lower strength than Soldiers did.
This is why the Solarian gets Flashing Strikes, which reduces its Full Attack Penalty by 1.
... seems entirely correct and perceptive.
- if an enemy is flying
Haven't dealt with a solarian in my tables yet, but what comes to mind is a barathu (or other floaty races) character, pulling npcs off the ground and letting them drop down 10 feet for 1d6 damage and landing prone, already at first level.
A game changer for Black Hole would be the ability to place the center of the effect elsewhere, not only on the character itself. Is that available at later levels perhaps?
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I dunno man, I've been playing a Solarian and he's been pretty awesome so far.
Edit: I can't even comment if it is balanced, just that my knee-jerk reaction for it being supposedly a hybrid role in a game with only seven classes at the moment is "I'm glad it doesn't dominate"
I don't think I understand why you think it's "supposedly" a hybrid role - as HWalsh correctly pointed out, everything about its design implies that it is not one.
Solarian, from what I've seen, is 4/5th fighter, 1/5th support. It is not a traditional hybrid class like from Pathfinder, and I think that's what is throwing so many people for a loop. You have to move away from tradition Pathfinder class roles and see it as something unique. As I said before, it is a fighter with support options. It's not as good as a Soldier with pure damage numbers and it shouldn't be. It is close, yes, and it makes up for that small difference with abilities that the Soldier doesn't have. The support options.
At low levels, sure, the Solarian is kinda weak. But every class is kinda weak, because it is low-level. At higher levels, a Solarian gains access to a lot more abilities than the Black Hole, which everyone seems too focused on as being bad.
In the end, even if you don't agree with me, it is a ROLE-PLAYING Game. The main goal is to have fun. Play the class for a while with some friends, enjoy the character you make, however it is you make it, and it shouldn't matter if the numbers or whatever say it's ever-so-slightly weaker.