I think people went nuts about the Dragonkin is because... we didn't get a bonafide dragon-like PC race in Pathfinder. Here's my reasoning:
- Half-breed templates are now barred from PC options.
- PC races now exist to compensate.
- Aasimars for half-celestials, tieflings for half-fiends, skinwalkers for lycanthropes, geniekins for half-elementals, etc.
- The half-dragon template... didn't get such a race.
- Wyvarans... are based on wyverns, not true dragons.
- Kobolds... aren't the most popular races to play as a "dragon" either, because they feel more like cannon-fodders.
- Kobolds could have gotten a Medium variation (their version of the Hobgoblin or like the oversized goblin trait) that could have been like WotC's Dragonborn.
- Dragonkins are essentially what players have been waiting for.
- The only thing I don't understand is that for a race that used genetic engineering to shrink down, they have still Large, instead of being extremely-close-to-Large-despite-being-Medium. Yeah, yeah, I know that they are considerably smaller than traditional dragonkins, but come on, the rules don't reflect such a change.
SROs are essentially your droid race :P (a certain character in a recent sci-fi movie made me chuckle) The only thing I have trouble figuring out is their Integrated Equipment ability. So, they get... three components total (datajack, comm link and 3rd custom)? The rules seem to indicate that I can either get 1 expensive component or as many components as half on my level.
On a sidenote, SROs seem to be missing something about their actual construction. For instance, the Small one pictured has treads... which would mean higher speed, but limited flexibility. What about a jet pack, rotors or aquatic propellers? What about integrated weaponry (I doubt that can be added in their Integrated Equipment)? I dunno, but I think that SROs deserve to be expanded more than they were first presented.
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Pretty much my sentiments. The +4 races get a little scetchy when used with the right class. The Shobhad for me was one I needed to double take. Large w/ reach, penalty is to Int, four arms so they qualify for the Kasatha feats (including the pact worlds one that lets you avoid AoOs), and the equivalent of Orc Ferocity because why not? As a soldier they're pretty much the ultimate melee fighter, and 1 lost skill point per level isn't going to hurt them too bad so they can jack up Dex and Con.
That said, that's one function: beat stick. Honestly my OP sensors are more disgusted by the Operative class than any race. 8+int skills+2 at max automatically, Operatives Edge for +1-6 to everything which dwarfs pretty much every other class skill boost, and on top of that their combat presence with trick attack. There's no race that really does that to the other races; make their benefits seem worthless.
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Pretty much my sentiments. The +4 races get a little scetchy when used with the right class. The Shobhad for me was one I needed to double take. Large w/ reach, penalty is to Int, four arms so they qualify for the Kasatha feats (including the pact worlds one that lets you avoid AoOs), and the equivalent of Orc Ferocity because why not? As a soldier they're pretty much the ultimate melee fighter, and 1 lost skill point per level isn't going to hurt them too bad so they can jack up Dex and Con.
That said, that's one function: beat stick. Honestly my OP sensors are more disgusted by the Operative class than any race. 8+int skills+2 at max automatically, Operatives Edge for +1-6 to everything which dwarfs pretty much every other class skill boost, and on top of that their combat presence with trick attack. There's no race that really does that to the other races; make their benefits seem worthless.
How on earth can you leave out their increased speed?
I doubt most dragonkin are literally 10 feet wide, or even 5 feet wide.
They probably can go down the hallways just fine, and it only becomes a problem when someone is heading in the opposite direction at the same time, or during combat where having the extra space for precise maneuvering really matters.
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I imagine access for everything Small and Large to be about as common in Starfinder as handicap access is in real life. There's just too many varied alien races out there for engineers and designers the worlds over to not have taken into account something as blatantly obvious as size.
If you're a medium race building a ship or station you're sacrificing 1-2 to 3/4 of your available space to make other races (which you may or may not want visiting) happy. It's not going to be universal in space stations or common in space ships.
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So, once again, I am forced to ask: how does +4 to a single stat provide any advantage over any of the races that provides +2 to two stats? You have the exact same number of points to spend, and the same cap. You can hit 18 INT with a human just as readily as a grey. Only downside to other species is if the stats they provide bonuses to, are stats you didn't want to buff. But since there are good reasons to pump nearly every stat in Starfinder, this is a really marginal downside.
The only racial upsides are penalties in a stat you'd like to dump combined with bonuses in places you wanted to increase more than 10. Any bonuses in places you didn't want to increase are harmful, bonuses in places you did want to increase are a wash.
I imagine access for everything Small and Large to be about as common in Starfinder as handicap access is in real life. There's just too many varied alien races out there for engineers and designers the worlds over to not have taken into account something as blatantly obvious as size.
It depends if ship constructing companies work for all aliens, or are more race-based.
I don't think Ysoki's Navy would spend resources making their ships confortable for triaxian dragonkin. In particular for triaxian dragonkin boarding them.
Ysoki don't have much of their own culture, they tend to just fit in in whatever space is left (figuratively and literally) There's an entire warren of them on the kasathan world ship that work on the engines crampt quarters and saw some tiny rooms and said "OOO i could fit a house in there..." and they did.
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I'm inclined to agree that a race specific ship might not be quite so accommodating, but I imagine most space stations open to the general public would make for such allowances.
The campaign world's concept completely falls apart in SO MANY areas if you assume such accommodations don't exist (not to mention, managing things gets MUCH more difficult). After all, the technology level of the Pact Worlds is at such a high level that engineers can already make armor, implants, and weapons for humans, undead, mechanical souls, giant lizards, mini-hug beasts, mega-bug beasts, crystalline rock snails, flying meat sack baloons, and alien jellyfish and slimes. Why would such universal versatility in technology exist everywhere, but not in starships? That makes no sense!
I'm inclined to agree that a race specific ship might not be quite so accomodating, but I imagine most space stations open to the general public would make for such allowances.
The campaign world's concept completely falls apart of you assume such accommodations don't exist.
I'm sure parts of Absalom Station have been retrofitted to accommodate large species, but it would be pretty weird to do that for the majority of the station. No one is going to mandate that all rooms in Manhattan be made 16' tall and four times as spacious just because we make contact with a big alien species who sends several thousand people as permanent residents and rotating tourists.
I'm inclined to agree that a race specific ship might not be quite so accommodating, but I imagine most space stations open to the general public would make for such allowances.
The campaign world's concept completely falls apart in SO MANY areas if you assume such accommodations don't exist (not to mention, managing things gets MUCH more difficult). After all, the technology level of the Pact Worlds is at such a high level that engineers can already make armor, implants, and weapons for humans, undead, mechanical souls, giant lizards, mini-hug beasts, mega-bug beasts, crystalline rock snails, flying meat sack baloons, and alien jellyfish and slimes. Why would such universal versatility in technology exist everywhere, but not in starships? That makes no sense!
The ships might be made so that you can rip out spare decks or install extra ones.
There are two maps of Absalom Station on the AP01: they have wide corridors and double-sized doors everywhere but one room.
Starfinder Society Quests: Into the Unknown (that free one) has one Absalom Station map with 10 ft corridors (but 5 ft ladders). I don't have anything else from SFS, but I believe there are more scenarios set in the station.
Evidence so far indicates Absalom Station is very "large-sized aliens" inclusive.
Well it's not like dragonkin are the only or most common large sized alien. Vesk, verthani, and nuar are all all on the larger size of medium and Verthani especially are probably the most populous humanoid race in the pact worlds. Haan, sarcesians, shobhad, urogs, and adult barathu are all large sized and barathu are probably the most populous race in the system, period.
A lot of realworld concerns regarding construction go out the window in space, at least for a structure that you never intend to take into a planet's atmosphere & have experience a planet's gravity outside of freefall. So long as you can defend it against impacts you can build it as big as you want, up until the point you have to worry about it collapsing under it's own gravity. Material cost is still a concern but less so when you have an entire solar system to harvest from. One of the major limitations to our capacity to build in space irl is the cost of getting material out of the atmosphere but in the starfinder setting that's become largely negligible.