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When my group tried to do starship combat it seemed super repetitive with each player stuck just repeating the same action each turn and they didn't really feel like there was any tactical decisions that are possible to take outside of deciding where/how to move.
What sort of strategies could I attempt to implement to make the starship combat rules less "I do the same action as last turn" ten times and more tactical?
So I've seen these threads a lot. Personally I believe that most of what needs to be "fixed" with starship combat is people's expectations about it. I don't think it's broken. Some people don't like it; that's ok. It doesn't mean it's broken. Warhammer isn't "broken" just because I might not like miniature combat.
Starship combat is a mini-game. It's a different kind of combat. Maybe it's more like a skill challenge. But the pilot is going to move, the gunners are going to shoot. It's what happens. I believe (just my personal belief) that starship combat is supposed to be a fun intermission. You spend 15, 30, maybe 45 minutes on a big furball going whoosh whoosh pew pew and then you carry on.
Is it tactical? Barely. Only in terms of steering really. But it's not Starfleet battles they're going for. I can understand why a group might want it to feel "deeper", but I don't believe that's what Paizo was designing it for.
Hm. I wonder if you could somehow graft on something like Starfleet Battles...
I've been running a homebrew campaign since release day, with the PCs just hitting level 18 last session. We've had only a handful of starship battles, by design. I use it not to seriously threaten the PCs, but to punctuate a dramatic moment. This helps to keep away from the slog that others speak of, and the players get excited to show off the starship they've spent hours optimizing. Win win.
That said, I feel like the biggest issue with Starship combat is how easy shields are to replenish. It can be worked around with higher tier enemies, bigger guns, smaller shields, etc., but I feel like we shouldn't have to work around it. The damage to damage mitigation ratio feels slightly off, lengthening the battle. My favorite starship battles so far have been completed in 30 minutes or less.
In my experience with SFS, several of the starship combats have been great fun, but there are a few that aren't.
So I've seen these threads a lot. Personally I believe that most of what needs to be "fixed" with starship combat is people's expectations about it. I don't think it's broken. Some people don't like it; that's ok. It doesn't mean it's broken. Warhammer isn't "broken" just because I might not like miniature combat.
Starship combat is a mini-game. It's a different kind of combat. Maybe it's more like a skill challenge. But the pilot is going to move, the gunners are going to shoot. It's what happens. I believe (just my personal belief) that starship combat is supposed to be a fun intermission. You spend 15, 30, maybe 45 minutes on a big furball going whoosh whoosh pew pew and then you carry on.
Is it tactical? Barely. Only in terms of steering really. But it's not Starfleet battles they're going for. I can understand why a group might want it to feel "deeper", but I don't believe that's what Paizo was designing it for.
Hm. I wonder if you could somehow graft on something like Starfleet Battles...
I don't necessarily want something "deeper". I just want something so my players aren't bored repeating the same "I fire again and that's all I can do this turn" for one player for an entire battle and "I rebalance the shields again and that's all I can do this turn" for a different player for an entire battle. When all the PCs bar the pilot can be replaced by a piece of paper that says "Repeat previous action" on it for the entire battle after round 1... they aren't really finding it a fun intermission because there's nothing to do but just say "I repeat what I just did".
The times I tried to use it were all intended to be just quick and simple intermissions as you suggest, but instead they were just repetitive slogs with nothing to do.
I've been running a homebrew campaign since release day, with the PCs just hitting level 18 last session. We've had only a handful of starship battles, by design. I use it not to seriously threaten the PCs, but to punctuate a dramatic moment. This helps to keep away from the slog that others speak of, and the players get excited to show off the starship they've spent hours optimizing. Win win.
That said, I feel like the biggest issue with Starship combat is how easy shields are to replenish. It can be worked around with higher tier enemies, bigger guns, smaller shields, etc., but I feel like we shouldn't have to work around it. The damage to damage mitigation ratio feels slightly off, lengthening the battle. My favorite starship battles so far have been completed in 30 minutes or less.
In my experience with SFS, several of the starship combats have been great fun, but there are a few that aren't.
My group doesn't play SFS so I am not sure what sort of things they do in it. Is there anything in particular that helps make them fun?
Some of the push activities and RP expending actions can break up the monotony of the safe choices. I personally think science officers should scan more often for better info in some (not all) situations.
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I don't necessarily want something "deeper". I just want something so my players aren't bored repeating the same "I fire again and that's all I can do this turn" for one player for an entire battle and "I rebalance the shields again and that's all I can do this turn" for a different player for an entire battle. When all the PCs bar the pilot can be replaced by a piece of paper that says "Repeat previous action" on it for the entire battle after round 1... they aren't really finding it a fun intermission because there's nothing to do but just say "I repeat what I just did".
From personal experience, my group hasn't really had this problem. We have two aspects that prevent this. The first is heavy role playing. We totally own the around the table with banter from the captain and other things.
The second is understanding every action, and viewing the whole table as a single cohesive unit.
For example, I'm in the captain's chair. I open most combats with Taunt during helm phase to give us an early advantage, followed in subsequent rounds with Demands and Encourage (as a Skyfire Centurion my encourage gives +4 to my combat ally, this is important). I made an ultimate captain character though.
Our Science Officer generally opens with Scans, and frequently uses Target Lock once we have all the info we need. Generally what weapons are in what arc so we can position effectively. That Target Lock lets us control our criticals and increases the threat range to 19-20. We've also been known to balance all our shields onto the side with the enemy. A very Star Trek move, but it has paid off on occasion.
Our Engineer is the most valuable role on the ship. So long as we're doing well, staying in their blind spots or avoiding attacks, the Divert action is huge. Making all damage 1s into 2s, increasing speed, and of course repairing shields. Patch has gotten used once or twice to avoid penalties.
For the Pilot. Stunt. Stunt all the time, even when you don't need to. If you win the piloting check for initiative, use Turn in Place. If you lose, generally you're in position for a Flyby. It honestly makes even the movement part a lot more fun, especially if you fail and the team needs to adapt.
Gunners is attacking like normal combat, but it can feel really good when supported by the science officer, engineer, and/or captain and just devastating an enemy ship.
The other thing, we have a team of 6, but keep in mind you can change roles beginning of each round. Our team has three formations, our basic with 2 gunners, a turtle mode where our Hacker Operative pilot becomes a second engineer for additional patches or because our Mechanic now has the Armory starship combat options doing a regular action while our Mechanic uses unique actions, from there I as the captain hop in the pilot seat and our Mystic, my combat bond hops into the captain chair to give DC 10 encourage checks using the Piloting he would use for Gunnery to guve me +4. Then there's full offense, where we forgo the engineer and both the Mechanic and the Pilot go to guns, having me and the Mystic move to the same Pilot combo, but we get 3 Gunners. Then of course at any time I as Captain can become a second Engineer (Envoy bonuses are great for everything), second Science Officer, or third gun, albeit with a smaller bonus than the Mechanic or Operative due to a lower Dex score.
Going back to the role playing though, giving a combat banter order as Captain has a really big impact on making those little skill challenges feel awesome. If I say "Target their engines and bring us around." it adds that authoritative feeling like we're a team driving a ship, not a series of skill checks. Then for my Demand that round instead of just a roll it's "Sobok, I wanna hole in that ship big enough to f$+!!" It adds. The Science Officer just saying "I've locked onto their engine." adds tension to the gunnery roll and just makes ot all feel better.
TLDR; Remember there are a lot of cool options, and roleplay banter makes everything better.
EDIT: Oh yeah! I forgot we even named the ship's AI, so even the actions of our nodes, those little +1s have a roleplaying moment. "Sunny, calibrate weapons and assist with scanning." "Yes captain."
For those who allow third party material in their Starfinder game, could look to Starships, Stations and Salvage Guide by Edward Moyer, published by Gamer Printshop (my company). We don't fix these specific issues to ship combat, but it does include more options.
We've included both collision damage table and capabilities for your ship like ramming prows - once your opponents shields are down ram their ship. With a ramming prow included, which must be built into the original ship, because the frame is strengthened as part of purchasing a ramming prow with 75% of the damage done to the ramming ship applying to the ramming prow only and not the rest of the ship. You can also purchase a boarding hold, which requires a successful piloting check to get where you need to be without damagin either ship - your boading extender magnetizes or with grappling arms grapples the opponent ship, cutting lasers on the boarding hold cuts a hole, and boarders enter this ship for normal non-ship combat applications.
For those wanting magic capability with your ship, the primary purchase is for a spell-primed shield augmentation bay, though BP-wise is expensive, and you purchase to the level of magic being used as a multiplier in it's cost. With this bay and expenditure of spell slots, you can give your ship non-detection, invisibility, greater invisibility, holographic image (a kind of mirror image for your ship) and more. Also with this bay, you can purchase arcane sensors allowing you to detect magic, detect invisibility and other scanner options. There is even a limited blink stunt you can perform where you can have your ship blink to a hex in a random direction up to six hexes away (roll d6 twice). Though you could land in the same hex as another ship, just a necessary risk.
Combined with an advanced spell-primed science bay, you can enhance one attuned weapon system and spend spell slots to grant bonuses with that weapon, including individual missiles. You can also purchase an arcane command chair that allows the captain to grant bonuses to any one ship system during combat, and by spending 1 first level spell slot, you can switch that to a different position (pilot, gunner, science officer, mechanic).
There are many new armors, shielding and special systems to grant a cloaking shield, an ECCM system to mitigate targeting your ship (TL), a reflective coating on your armor to mitigate laser weapons and more.
Basic combat still works the same, but with more options to use ship combat can be more exciting...
Yeah the only fun we had during Starship Combat was the RPing. I might just skip the rules and just do pure RP for starship combat in future given the responses to this thread.