In order to keep Operatives from outshining Mechanics at what a Mechanic is supposed to do best, we implemented a house rule that any class granted insight bonus, including Skill Focus feats granted by their specialization, do not apply to an Operative's checks to Craft Item, and their Operative's Edge bonus counts as a penalty to their skill ranks for purposes of determining the highest level of gear they can create, UNLESS it specifically has to do with their role, such as hacking kits, demolitions, etc. for breaking and entering, or something related to their specialization. Common sense applies.
So a surprise round occurs when combat begins and not all individuals were aware of their opponents. By the rules, this means those aware get a surprise round in which they may take a move or a standard action, but not both.
Therefore, RAW, before normal combat, you may not:
>Use the Sniper property of a weapon to attack with its longer range
>Use the Automatic property of weapons to initiate combat
>Trick Attack an opponent that you have caught completely unawares
There are other things out there that would also be affected, I'm sure, but those are the ones immediately obvious to me. Since none of those things make any sense to me I propose the following house rule:
In a surprise round, those who were aware may act normally in the first round of combat, and are not flat-footed. Those who are unaware are flat-footed until they become aware, regardless of features that say otherwise, and make a Reflex save against a DC = 10 + the CR (or average party level) of the encounter, at the first indication of hostilities. (ie, they are attacked or witness an attack) On success, they may take reactions from that point on, and are no longer flat-footed if features say they may not be flat-footed. Those that failed the Reflex save must make a Will save against a DC 10 lower (though penalties if the surprise round went poorly are appropriate) the next round to make an initiative roll and act normally. If they fail that check, they act as if Confused for 1d3 rounds, and if they fail by 10 or more, they are instead Panicked until they pass the Will save.
Since military trainers realize the danger of surprise, they have the following (Downtime) training to counter or at least off-set the problems:
Emergency Response Training: Units (parties) drill on how to respond quickly to the emergence of a sudden threats, ground forces focusing on ambush by hostile combatants, detonation of IEDs, and other situations requiring rapid effective action to keep the unit (party) from being eliminated as combat effectives, ship's crews training on damage control, repelling boarders (most likely when docked with a significant portion of the ship's complement on liberty), and so on, to reduce the number of people who stand around stunned when the fecal matter impacts the air circulating mechanism.
Benefit: If the entire unit(party) uses this down time training once per week, they gain a +3 circumstance bonus on the saving throws, and reduce the number of rounds confused by 1 (to a minimum of 0). Damage control checks and boarding action checks gain a +1 circumstance bonus.
In addition, allies that have gone through this training together may, as a swift action, allow another to make another saving throw check it they are within 15 feet and passed the check themselves.