Has anyone gone to the trouble of reverse engineering the expected damage and AC of the Starfinder character classes at each level?
Can you elaborate what you mean by "expected"?
Do you mean... DPR assuming optimized stat upgrades and weapon selections? AC assuming level-appropriate armor every level?
Or do you mean... DPR and AC needed to keep exact pace with enemy HP and attack rolls?
I'm not sure I know what you're asking for.
People have calculated average damage of weapons based on expected to hit value. Class options can impact this some, but not by a huge margin.
Also it's not reverse engineering. It's just calculating expected damage. Reverse engineering is seeing a finished product and trying to figure out how someone got there. In this case, there isn't a finished product you're asking about.
Or do you mean... DPR and AC needed to keep exact pace with enemy HP and attack rolls?
That is exactly what I mean.
For example, I have noticed is that up to about 10th level, the weapon damage is pretty reasonable. but after that weapon damage increaces rapidly.
When Paizo designed their NPC creation system, they built it with certain presumptions about what the PCs could do at any specific level. I was wondering if anyone has tried to figure out what those assumptions were.
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Well here's a quick and dirty comparison, HP for CR 5/10/15/20 combatant arrays vs. average PC damage with a reasonable laser longarm at that level.
CR 5 HP: 70
Level 4 Light Excavation Laser: 5.5+5 = 10.5 damage
6.67 hits to kill
CR 10 HP: 165
Level 9 Aphelion Laser Rifle: 10.5+10 = 20.5 damage
8.05 hits to kill
CR 15 HP: 275
Level 15 Advanced Autobeam Rifle: 17.5+15 = 32.5 damage
8.46 hits to kill
CR 20 HP: 465
Level 20 Zenith Laser Rifle: 38.5+20 = 58.5
7.95 hits to kill
Pretty consistent at the higher levels, of course you can adjust this up or down by picking different weapons and making different assumptions about resistances and bypass methods. This also ignores the increasing potency and availability of damage boosters (overcharge weapon, empowered weapon, etc.) as characters with those options level.
The rapid scaling of weapon damage after level 10 is probably because you need it to punch through heavy resistances when you encounter them, and you can't afford a lot of top flight alternate weapons to bypass them all. Also the percentage increase in damage per hit that you get from leveling up your weapon specialization declines at higher levels. Going from level 3 to 4 is actually a notable percentage increase in your total damage even if you hold onto the same weapon. Going from level 13 to 14 is not.
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I mean, that's pretty easy. You've got the enemy stats right there in the Alien Archive's NPC building rules.
If you assume a combatant NPC consistently has a 65% chance to hit an on-level PC, you'd get PC KAC that starts at 16 at 1st level and ends at 42 at 20th level. You can fill in the rest of the numbers if you want. Just toss them in a spreadsheet and do the calcs yourself. It'll take no more than a minute or two to get the full array.
You can do the same for HP. Say for example that the intention is for each PC to deal 25% of an equal level NPC's HP in damage each round. We grab the combatant array and have expected PC DPRs of 5 @ 1st level and 116 @ 20th level.
Based on my experience with doing character math for Starfinder, a PC bumping its offensive and defensive stats and keeping up with armor and weapon upgrades will stay on pace with the above values. Buffs and debuffs are what let PCs get ahead of the curve.