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Do your players notice a drop in temperature when you have a slow pressure leak? Do your players horripilate as if from fear when they near a static electricity trap? Do your players sense the awkwardness of a ship's HVAC going dead, or the slowly increasing temperature that will gradually cook them when the waste heat life support dies? Do your players note the glint of the sniper's scope as the sniper tries to reposition (with a -20 to their Stealth DC)?
It could be a spectrum:
1. No.
2. After something untoward happens.
3. Only if they make their Perception check.
4. Only if SOME make their Perception check, based on class traits, etc (e.g., Trap Spotter).
5. If they make their Perception check, they know -- but the others might notice something amiss.
6. They all can tell as it happens, but only those who make their Perception can act.
7. You hate surprises; you like to telegraph.
Myself, I tend to wander around #4, #5, and #6 (I think).
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My group tends to be around #2, #4 and #5.
I tend not to give my player's freebies when the baddies / random encounters have actually executed a plan against the PCs. Just as I would not give the baddies any freebies when the PCs actually execute a plan.
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Most of these are things that you could notice, but not necessarily immediately or on time to act on them. So in all cases a Perception check is appropriate. The Perception skill in Starfinder splits into three main tasks:
1) Notice stuff that's happening around you. Things you can notice without actively looking for them. You get a Perception check even if the player doesn't think to ask for it. Maybe the GM rolls it in secret to avoid giving away that you did (not) notice something.
2) Pierce Disguise requires a Move Action to do and is basically Search but against creatures that might not be what they seem.
3) Search for things that aren't noticeable without active effort. Takes a Move action.
Let's look at your examples:
Do your players notice a drop in temperature when you have a slow pressure leak?
Could be noticed without actively watching out for it, therefore the players get a Perception check. Good one to do in secret, and let the result determine how long it's been going on before they notice.
Do your players horripilate as if from fear when they near a static electricity trap?
Finding traps requires active searching so Search as a move action (or have something like Trap Spotter).
Do your players sense the awkwardness of a ship's HVAC going dead, or the slowly increasing temperature that will gradually cook them when the waste heat life support dies?
Again, can be passively noticed.
Do your players note the glint of the sniper's scope as the sniper tries to reposition (with a -20 to their Stealth DC)?
Stealth to Hide or Snipe is always opposed by a Perception check; if the perceiver wins then they perceive something.
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On this note, I'd like to point to one of may favourite things DnD 4E did: Passive Perception; it makes sense that a player shouldn't have to ask for a Perception check for their highly perceptive character to notice things.
I don't know how they implemented it. Should be done carefully. For example:
Five PCs all have a +1 Perception. There's a DC 12 to spot hazard and the GM makes secret checks for the players. If they all roll, each one has a 50% to pass, so the chance that they don't notice is 0.5^5 = 1/32th. Not likely at all. If the GM makes all of them Take 10 though, they're guaranteed to all fail to spot the hazard.
If you're going to Take 10 on passive perception, you should give the best perceiver a bonus for each other PC, to make the odds more similar to when all of them would have rolled. Maybe a +2 for each one that's almost as good, and a +1 for all of them that could have (with difficulty) succeeded themselves.
Yeah, passive perception in games I've played (5e) does not prevent you from noticing, it is supposed to be a benchmark for what a character sees without rolling, not a baseline 'I'm searching for traps' modifier.
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Yeah the thing is, if the whole party is doped on passive perception, they will (speaking in terms of probability) see less than if they're all rolling.
Which is okay if your game design philosophy is that "passive perception misses some things that active perception sees". But it's not good if the GM thought that everyone Taking 10 was just efficient use of gaming time but otherwise equivalent to everyone rolling.
Like in my example: if everyone rolls there's only a 3% chance they miss the hazard, if everyone takes 10 there's a 100% chance they miss the hazard.
If making these perception checks is actually important, such a big difference in odds basically encourages the players to continually roll active perception checks anyway. Which is tedious, but the mechanical incentive is sooo strong.
So I think a better (as in, more fair in probability terms) solution is for the GM to make a note of everyone's perception bonus, then, if there's a hidden feature they might spot, to roll a secret check for each player and if anyone succeeds, inform them that they see something.
This is also a good solution if the party is going through a big area actively searching. Instead of having everyone roll for each 10x10ft area, you can just roll in secret only for the areas that actually have a feature, and skip all the other rolls, without telling the players beforehand that this particular square was the interesting one.
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I have used a version of passive perception for years at my table. I use a perception +5 as the default as the PCs aren't necessarily paying attention, but certain things could get their attention. I use +5 instead of +10 to account for the players being in a relaxed or distracted state (like walking through a space station talking amongst themselves and only passively paying attention to their surroundings) and the active use of the perception skill and taking 10.
It has worked very well for us.