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I'm struggling to decide what to do with 1500 credits my character here has just obtained.
Everything in this game feels so expensive, I'm not sure I can afford major upgrades to what I already have. What do you folks suggest?
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Go with smoke grenades they have lots of benifits.
Are you melee or ranged?
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Ranged, primarily. I was inspired by Osprey Adventure's book Bug Hunts and I imagined his weapon of choice to be something like this, described on Page 61 of the book:
The SI-160 was designed with hordes of fast-moving bugs in mind, fulfilling the need to increase target hit probability by firing high-rate multi-round salvos. Even on the move, the carbine can be fired with remarkable accuracy. Recoil is amongst the lowest for a military-grade weapon of its size category, while jamming and overheating are virtually unheard of. Rounds are fed into the weapon from a magazine that lies below and parallel with the barrel. The rounds are oriented vertically (at 90 degrees to the bore) and are fed upwards into the rotary chamber where they are rotated 90 degrees for firing. This electronic process is powered by and arc-stabilized plasma core and, coupled with a cyclical multi-round breech, results in efficiency unmatched by traditional loading mechanisms. The weapon achieves optimal accuracy in semi-automatic fire mode, firing three-round bursts. On full-auto mode, the 80 round magazine can be emptied in 4.2 seconds. The ammunition itself contains a charged plasma core, activated via an explosive tip, which causes massive internal damage due to a targeted energy release system without compromising armor penetration.
The SI-160 carbine is fitted as standard with a simple reflector sight. However, for extreme battlefield conditions every marine also carries a snap-fit optical sight with low-power magnification and thermal reticule display.
In addition, every marine carries an underslung grenade launcher, which snaps into the underside of the SI-160's barrel, and carries six 28mm fragmentation grenades, with an effective launch range of 220m. It is unusual in practice for a marine to carry additional grenades, as the reloading procedure is tricky and time-consuming. Accordingly, the grenade launchers are usually prepped and readied before entering the combat zone, even though the fitting of the launcher results in a minor reduction in accuracy.
Obviously I'm nowhere near able to assemble something like this at my current level but it's something to strive for.
There's also an added wrinkle in that our group's next adventure is taking us to a planet primarily covered by water with no major land-masses, so if I want grenades...what grenades would be the most likely to work underwater?
What loot system is your party using?
If you're ranged, armor is just a place to put upgrades. While you might get attacked occasionally, its rarely enough to go into HP. Trying to keep your AC up is both expensive and pointless. Your armor is that vesk standing in front of you providing the enemy cover
Buy armor at I level 7th level when it increases your radiation protecion or you want more slots.
For 1400 credits you can increase your dex, and thus your hit by +1 with a personal upgrade. Even better, these are the only thing in starfinder where you can upgrade the +2 version to the +4 version, so there's no dumping money down da hooole, you buy it you keep it for your career.
As politely as I can say, this is terrible advice. Its Starfinder, not Pathfinder, and the vast majority of foes will have ranged attacks.
There is nothing polite or productive about a blatant, unbacked, ad hom calling me and every DM I've played with in starfinder "particularly bad". Nor is claiming that I must be playing an entirely different game because that simply can't be true.
NPCs in starfinder have a LOT of hit. Even wearing decent armor you're probably going to get hit anyway. Not getting hit is rarely an option, the idea is that you don't get hit enough to not run out of staminia.
If you are in the back, with melee in front of you, yes, you CAN be attacked. The other guy can 5 foot step away from the vesk beating him in the face with a doshko, shoot (probably through cover) with a secondary attack (probably with lower hit and damage) and hit you.. instead of full attacking the guy in his face . If you're in the back against a bunch of people with guns yes, they can shoot at you (splitting their fire between you and the melee) and if its a problem you can drop prone behind cover for +8 to your armor class. If you are STILL (for some reason) taking more damage than you'd like, you move further back behind better/more cover.
... unless someone in the back is particularly irksome to the NPC, taking an AOO in the face to get away from the tank and go after someone else doesn't make any sense. Nor does 5 foot stepping away and trying to shoot around the tank, And its not going to be all that effective anyway. Even all ranged only parties can trade off being in the open vs around the corner
Because this isn't pathfinder, armor you buy once is obsolete in a level or two. It's not an investment you keep its a consumable. So you have to look at what it does compared to what it costs over your career. (I think the whopping cost for the meh effect is why PF2 crits work the way they do). Buy a case of calden cayden healing serums for the occasion you need to heal up HP and drink till you feel better one way or another.
I've done this in SFS with a mystic (level 11, stayed in second skin till level 8?9), a ranged shooty envoy (level 8), two versions of a melee strength operative (level 5/6) (though she does cut,run, and use thrown weapons from a distance once she hits HP). My problems with HP have been from spells, crits, or the mystics habbit of running in and handing someone a bucket of his own HP.
But of course, your theorycrafting is better than my theorycrafting and my experience, because it was all under particularly bad dming.
What loot system is your party using?
If you're ranged, armor is just a place to put upgrades. While you might get attacked occasionally, its rarely enough to go into HP. Trying to keep your AC up is both expensive and pointless. Your armor is that vesk standing in front of you providing the enemy cover
Buy armor at I level 7th level when it increases your radiation protecion or you want more slots.
For 1400 credits you can increase your dex, and thus your hit by +1 with a personal upgrade. Even better, these are the only thing in starfinder where you can upgrade the +2 version to the +4 version, so there's no dumping money down da hooole, you buy it you keep it for your career.
As politely as I can say, this is terrible advice. Its Starfinder, not Pathfinder, and the vast majority of foes will have ranged attacks. Unless your GM is particularly bad, they *will* shoot at targets other than just the Single Scary Melee Guy. . . and if you forgo armor, they *will* hit you, range or cover be damned. Put aside any expectations from broken Pathfinder games of armor making you immune to attacks. Armor "only" preventing around half of hits is armor doing exactly what its intended, because the alternative is being hit *all* the time rather than only half the time.
A ranged attacker intelligently using position and cover does not need as *much* armor as a melee attacker, yes. "Not as much" does not mean "Don't bother buying armor except for upgrade slots". It means "you don't need to buy new armor as often, because you effectively have the equivalent of an extra +2 to +6 most of the time".
This is really an 'it depends' situation rather than a 'the one true way' situation.
Running some adapted enemies in dead suns post book 5, ranged combat became a thing that enemies utilized to great effect in trying to deal with the PC's 'back row', however, until then, adventure design gave the spotlight to the melee bruisers, and therefore made it so the back row could ignore armor for quite some time (they didn't, but they could have).