Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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My comment on staying aggressive so that starship combat doesn't run over 10 rounds shouldn't be seen as a knock on the system.Ok,but what about the fact that only one player (the pilot) could make any use of your advice?
The other players can also that advice:
For example you fist fill the pilot role and then you move to fill up gunner slots (as these kill the enemy) before even considering the other roles.For a 4 player party a group of Pilot/Gunner/Gunner/Tech guy (Engeneer/Science officer) will almost always be better than a Pilot/Gunner/Captain/First mate for example (especially before level 6)
Which also means if your "science guy" has a decent gunnery bonus (for example +8 while having a +16 engeneering/computers) he is still better as a gunner than the other "science guy" (with +5 Gunnery and +13 engeneering/computers) So the better choice is for the first player to do the gunning and the second being the science guy as this leads to ending the combat faster.
You can still swap around if you REALLY need to fix that system.
Engineer: Starts off somewhat effective if boring at healing shields. As you level incoming damage greatly outpaces shield regeneration and this becomes less and less meaningful.
Engineer, can bring back the shields, fix systems that are damaged by critical hits, and divert power to engines is useful when you need that extra 2 movement to be able to get into the right position. All three of those options I've seen done quite often in starship combat.
Chief mate: aids the gunners
Hard turn, maintenance panel access, and targeting aid are all options I've seen used effectively in starship combat when the situation warrants them.
Magic officer: aid another the pilot
The precognition action is most useful, but I've also seen eldritch shot make a big difference especially when that heavy damage short or medium range weapon is just out of range.
Captain: aid anothers the gunner. I've seen multiple captains just say "I can't fail the check to aid. I aid the biggest gun. Getting coffee.."
I've been the captain several times and I like to use the demand action as much as I can before I use encourage. I frequently use it for the gunner, but I also use it for the pilot if it is a situation where we want to win initiative. I like to use taunt also, because it's just fun to think up a short monologue to taunt the enemy with.
“This is Admiral Kirk. We tried it once your way, Khan. Are you game for a rematch? Khan! I'm laughing at the 'superior intellect'.”
science officer aid anothers the gunner
Lock on is the most useful action once you get it, but balance is also very useful and scan is useful too.
Gunner has most of the effect. The pilot has a fair bit until the higher levels, when the ability to pound through a shield makes positioning far less relevant. The pilots effect can also largely be negated if the opponents ship regularly rebalances shields.
Gunner is straight forward, once you get broadside that is usually the clear choice, but there are odd times you might use fire at will depending on what quadrants of your ship your weapons are located on. The pilot still has a big effect on the battle even if the opponent is rebalancing shields if the GM actually follows the rules and doesn't tell you what they are doing. Since the pandemic I've played a lot of PBP Starfinder and the GM's tend to just show us all the rolls they are making. Unfortunately that invalidates the mechanic of having to scan the enemy to see what their shield levels are. That adds another level of strategy and potentially brings in to play the minor crew action quick rescan
I haven't seen them used yet, but I think the open crew actions prioritize calculation and range finding can be useful in certain situations also.
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Engineer, can bring back the shields, fix systems that are damaged by critical hits, and divert power to engines is useful when you need that extra 2 movement to be able to get into the right position. All three of those options I've seen done quite often in starship combat.
1) That wasn't questioning your knowledge of the system, just pointing out that everything that was fun or decisive went to one person, the pilot. You're re enforcing my point that the pilot has all of the control and decision making.
2) Most of these just don't work for various reasons.
Hard turn, maintenance panel access, and targeting aid are all options I've seen used effectively in starship combat when the situation warrants them.
Hard turn can be useful, but is very situational because it occurs before you even roll initiative. The same problem with diverting to engines/ maintenence panel access. Once the engineer can spend a resolve to divert to everything but weapons, maintenence panel access becomes divert to weapons.
The precognition action is most useful, but I've also seen eldritch shot make a big difference especially when that heavy damage short or medium range weapon is just out of range.
Eldritch shot occurs in the engineering phase. you won't know if your shot is going to be just out of range until later, baring some unusual circumstances. Most pilots given their druthers will get the ship within range.
I've been the captain several times and I like to use the demand action as much as I can before I use encourage. I frequently use it for the gunner, but I also use it for the pilot if it is a situation where we want to win initiative.
Other players do not find a slightly more efficient aiding another worth sitting around the table for. They can also specify they save the demand for the pilots first flyby while getting java.
I like to use taunt also, because it's just fun to think up a short monologue to taunt the enemy with.
While fun, its only going to matter to a roll once every other starship combat on average.
Lock on is the most useful action once you get it, but balance is also very useful and scan is useful too.
But again, not very choiceworthy. In round 1 you scan because there's nothing else to do. Other rounds you lock on if you can. You can always trash talk on the coms as a free action without spending an action.
The pilot still has a big effect on the battle even if the opponent is rebalancing shields if the GM actually follows the rules and doesn't tell you what they are doing.
Hard Disagree, almost to the point of being an objective no.
If the DM doesn't tell you (It's not actually a rule. Rescan would imply it but it's never stated) and you're not willing to forgo lockons +2 to have someone do the minor scan action you have greatly REDUCED the pilots importance, not maintained it. There is less need to get to the right quadrant where you don't know which one that is. This completely negates the need for the pilot to fire on the correct quadrant, which means they just need to point their big gun at the other ship. If the big gun is a turret, we have achieved the dreadedly dull deathsphere where the pilot choices barely matter.
Those are all examples of how the other roles have fun choices that can have an affect on starship combat since you said my original advice only applied to the pilot.
For each of the roles you originally mentioned I gave examples of how they have more potentially relevant choices available to them as opposed to the limited ones you stated.
It's just a matter of opinion now whether you like starship combat or not. None of us know what the actual consensus opinion of players is.
I've frequently seen you talk about putting all the ship's weapons in the turret ruins the game. It can be overpowering, but if you interpret the rules for critical hits on weapons meaning that all crits on weapons hit the turret and apply to all quadrants of the ship and not just the quadrant the attack landed on, that makes the turret more vulnerable. I frankly don't understand why people think that crits to the turret only apply when the turret is shooting in the quadrant they took the damage from.
However, the biggest way to balance the starship with all weapons in the turret is this rule from the Starship Operations Manual:
Weapons (35%): Careful optimization of a starship’s weapons can result in utterly devastating arsenals capable of completely destroying a potent enemy starship with a few good shots. Limiting a starship’s maximum firepower extends combat by a few rounds without severely impacting the ship’s lethality.
In addition, consider turrets’ extreme versatility: by moving most of a starship’s weapons to a turret, the ship’s facing becomes less relevant, and starship combat becomes more static. Consider allowing no more than 15% of a starship’s BP to be spent on turrets and turret-mounted weaponry in order to encourage movement and stunt use.
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For each of the roles you originally mentioned I gave examples of how they have more potentially relevant choices available to them as opposed to the limited ones you stated.
I think they make my point more than yours. Eldritch blast MIGHT be negating a -2 penalty to someone else's roll if you correctly predict where you end up. I don't think that's something worth keeping in mind, or even fun in the veritable celestial alignment if it winds up being useful. Trying to sell that hopped the space shark i think.
The thing is once you hit level 6 you have something useful you can do with a resolve point. before level 6 very often the most useful thing you can do is shoot a gun yourself to avoid penalties to the big gun.
The opportunity costs makes many of the options irrelevant.
I don't find aid another all that fun, and thats all they amount to. I love helping other characters do things, but not with a +2 on a d20.
It's just a matter of opinion now whether you like starship combat or not. None of us know what the actual consensus opinion of players is.
Not all opinions are equal. Evidenced opinions are better than unevidenced ones, or worse counterevidenced ones. I believe on going on the best evidence available.
In numerous personal games where, even if i say nothing, starship combat gets a chorus of groans. I have NEVER walked into a cheerful WHOO HOOO of starship combat as part of an SFS game. Ever. 0 incidents in.. 200 ish games so 50 with ssc? That's the online bag of mixed nuts, conventions accross multiple states, on top of discord rooms and message boards. I know a server that runs starship combats for fun, but I believe they eliminate the problem by having each player have a ship and a crew, not a crew member.
Which I think someone pointed out here or in another thread that the system is fine for one player vs one player where each have a ship, but breaking the ship up among 5 people doesn't leave enough for everyone to do.
Furthermore Look over the thread, there's not only "I hate starship combat" but also everyone I know hates starship combat.
One of the more POSITIVE messages for starship combat is i didn't find it fun but i set out to like it, but its hard because everyone hates it. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
I've frequently seen you talk about putting all the ship's weapons in the turret ruins the game.
It vastly increases the play to be more like 2 deathspheres shooting at each other where positioning doesn't matter. If positioning doesn't matter, the pilots choices don't matter, and neither do a lot of other options like the chief mates hard turn.
It's also kind of irrelevant for society play because you go to SSC with the starship you have not the starship you want. (Which is very understandable, because when PCs build their own ships everything gets blown up before you can say helm phase)
But i think its telling that the section of SOM you quoted basically agrees with my reasoning.
In addition, consider turrets’ extreme versatility: by moving most of a starship’s weapons to a turret, the ship’s facing becomes less relevant, and starship combat becomes more static.
It can be overpowering, but if you interpret the rules for critical hits on weapons meaning that all crits on weapons hit the turret and apply to all quadrants of the ship and not just the quadrant the attack landed on, that makes the turret more vulnerable.
Never seen someone try to play the other way, but this is absolutely not the achilies heel of the turret. At all. IF you take a critical hit effect, AND it hits the weapons, AND your engineer can't get it fixed, then you're taking a small penalty to guns. This is both unlikely and not that big a deal. Yes it exists. But like the plethora of unused niche options you're trying to sell as fun and relevant, I don't think mere existence provides fun or relevence.
Nothing to discuss anymore, we are just arguing over opinion now. You don't think aid another is fun. I don't have any problem with it because I've seen so many instances where just a +1 has made the difference between success and failure.
I've played all the SFS scenarios in seasons 1,2, and 3 and parts of four different adventure paths and I haven't run in to any problems with starship combat once I figured out how to approach it. These games have been with a group that played together regularly before COVID and with numerous random players on PBP.
I can understand that some players don't like it, but I don't think it is broken or not fun to play once you get the hang of it.
Your experience is vastly different than mine so there is no way we can claim a consensus opinion. I believe the consensus is probably somewhere in the middle.
Myself and the SOM didn't disagree with you on turrets being over powered that's why I said this in my last post:
However, the biggest way to balance the starship with all weapons in the turret is this rule from the Starship Operations Manual:
Weapons (35%): Careful optimization of a starship’s weapons can result in utterly devastating arsenals capable of completely destroying a potent enemy starship with a few good shots. Limiting a starship’s maximum firepower extends combat by a few rounds without severely impacting the ship’s lethality.
In addition, consider turrets’ extreme versatility: by moving most of a starship’s weapons to a turret, the ship’s facing becomes less relevant, and starship combat becomes more static. Consider allowing no more than 15% of a starship’s BP to be spent on turrets and turret-mounted weaponry in order to encourage movement and stunt use.
So, I see the turret issue as being adequately addressed.
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Another thing that annoys me about starship combat is that in all the published Starfinder Society and (admittedly fewer) AP volumes I've read, there are never any real stakes in the plot for losing a starship combat. Enemies never just blow up your ship even if you somehow lose and become disabled. It's always "a friendly ship happens by to tow you to port" or "you're able to effect just enough repairs to continue on to your destination planet (but you'll lose some credits after the scenario is over!)" or something.
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Nothing to discuss anymore, we are just arguing over opinion now.
Most things that are discussed are opions. The point of a discussion is to show that those opinions are well evidenced, factually founded, and sensible. If your opinion is the only evidence for your opinion then no, there would never be a point in discussing this or anything else.
Dismissing evidence, sense, and reason by reducing every idea to an equally groundless and vacuous mush of opinion is rude, dismissive, and ultimately dishonest. Its a polemic employed when evidence sense and reason aren't with the opinion someone holds and not at any other time.
You don't think aid another is fun. I don't have any problem with it because I've seen so many instances where just a +1 has made the difference between success and failure.
This is a d20 based system. We know exactly how often a +1 makes a difference between success and a failure. 5% of the time. The amounts to roughly one time every other starship combat. At best.
Making a 10% difference IF you correctly guess starships position vs. DEFINITELY making a 10% difference in a shot by picking up a gunnery position yourself is simply a losing proposition. That eldritch shot exists , that it is an option, and that it does something is a mathematicians answer.
I don't think a character that can only aid another is being very useful or fun. I have seen characters that do that (usually with abilities that increase the amount aided) but they're too few and far between to conclude that being shoehorned into an aid another is a good thing.
I've played all the SFS scenarios in seasons 1,2, and 3 and parts of four different adventure paths and I haven't run in to any problems with starship combat once I figured out how to approach it.
What are you defining as a problem here? And again. The problem is not that people that dislike the system don't know how it works. That's a very often repeated ad hom that really needs to be chucked in the rift.
These games have been with a group that played together regularly before COVID and with numerous random players on PBP.
Emphasis mine.
This seems to be a very large difference. Both you and Hmm are the biggest advocates for SSC, and both play a lot of PBP.
PBP removes a lot of the problems with starship combat, especially when in a group of random mixed nuts. in terms of
DM bandwidth. (Shield tracking, spinning shields, status tracking sometimes on multiple ships etc)
Looking up oddball options
Spending 4 minutes to calculate the usefulness of oddball options
players communicating the effects of said oddball options
players being able to both role play and articulate the very specific effects SSC has.
Settling on a group meta OOC as you go. For example should the captain try to organize the group or just let people that know the job do the job?
I can understand that some players don't like it, but I don't think it is broken or not fun to play once you get the hang of it.
Having the hang of it does not seem to matter. The people that dislike it the most don't seem to be any less proficient at it.
Your experience is vastly different than mine so there is no way we can claim a consensus opinion. I believe the consensus is probably somewhere in the middle.
1) Golden mean is a fallacy, not a goal.
2) We don't just have two people here, we have other folks chiming in with their experience and with the experience of their players.
3) This comes up a lot on discussion boards around the net and every time the base system SSC comes up it gets panned
4) Even IF we assume the general midpoint between our two positions are correct, something where the ringing endorsement of a system is -I don't see the problem- and -This system is so bad I don't want to run/play this- does not by any means amount to put it in a quarter of scenarios (or half of them this year...)
Neither of us have any definitive statistical data that tell us how the majority of Starfinder players feel about starship combat. All we know is that you and some others here on the boards don't like it and I don't have any big issues with it. I also wouldn't have any issues if it stayed the same or Paizo changed the rules. We've covered why you don't like it and I why I think there are ways to approach the issues you've brought up and changes Paizo has made to also address those issues.
I've played many starship combat sessions in person in addition to PBP. Once we figured out how to work efficiently together we never had issues with slowness of play. The challenge is to be able to truly work together as a team, which I can understand is not easy for everyone. The one piece of advice I can give you to possibly address this is to put a time limit on how long you have to take your turn, like a shot clock in basketball. My group played at our local game store so we had to be mindful of time because we had to finish by the time the store closed. We had 4 hours to complete our sessions. Yes, the GM's job is potentially harder to do in starship combat, but the GM has to accept that and prepare ahead of time.
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Neither of us have any definitive statistical data that tell us how the majority of Starfinder players feel about starship combat. All we know is that you and some others here on the boards don't like it
We know a LOT of people here on the boards don't like it
We know that people that people here on the boards talk to don't like itI know people in several discords that don't like it
I know people in several discords play with people that don't like it.
I know its almost universally panned on reddit.
I know people talking about it on redit say their groups don't like it either
I know its often listed as the low spot of starfinder in many reviews.
(and yes there is more than a little overlap there)
You keep dismissing the information we have as just from individuals but it's not, they're also reporting in for their groups (even the people that LIKE it personal sometimes say their group wants to torch and pitchfork the system)
Would I run a nuclear reactor based on that information? No. Okay well maybe. I'm in the part that's sealed off and shielded right?
Would I buy a car based on that level information? Yes. I think that level of due diligence is more than sufficient to reach a conclussion.
The options are not reading the minds of thousands of players or nothing. I think the data present is more than sufficient to conclude that the amount of SSC we have in society play is detracting from the experience. I don't think its unreasonable to suggest that if that hypothesis were incorrect that we should see an equal upswing with OMG STARSHIP COMBAT IS AMAZBALLS YAAAAAAYYY... that we don't.
The positive reviews are damnation by faint praise and the negative reviews are kill it with fire.
I don't think you have a legitimate argument here. You have an objection. There's a difference. Without some actual substantive argument I cannot give your objection any credence, at all.
We've covered why you don't like it and I why I think there are ways to approach the issues you've brought up and changes Paizo has made to also address those issues.
The context here is society play, and society play really hasn't addressed those issues, outside of offering a new ship that's built with the new rules. That ship model will make starship combat last even longer, and gods help you if you run out of missiles.)
COM has addressed a lot more of it apparently.
The ways you have suggested to approach it objectively do not work for me. They have been tried, it's not working. Direct testing trumps well meaning suppositions and assumptions.
The challenge is to be able to truly work together as a team, which I can understand is not easy for everyone.
You are simultaneously arguing that all of the evidence pointing to a negative experience with SSC in SFS is insufficient to reach the conclusion that we have too much of it, but based on ZERO evidence, at all, you are willing to lay the blame on players for disliking teamwork...
Yes, the GM's job is potentially harder to do in starship combat, but the GM has to accept that and prepare ahead of time.
And DMs for allegedly being unprepared.
No. Disliking being a masterwork tool or a computer nodule for another player is NOT indicative of a lack of teamwork. That is far and away a level of impact insufficient for most players.
Disparidging players and laying blame at their feet for no reason is seriously not cool.
Difficulty in herding cats that all have different ideas of what working together looks like is just not avoidable in SFSs bag of lovable mixed nuts. It doesn't mean anyone is unwilling to work as a team, it just means different people have a different idea of HOW to work as a team. This is why you have to train a team as a team, you can't just train individuals for "teamwork" and have them meet up and go. (especially when local areas train them differently...)
It's not wrong. Its not usually particularly difficult, but it IS required bandwidth.
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I mean, at that point you are basically saying "everyone with positive opinion on it is wrong" and that is mean
Not said, hinted, or implied in any way shape or form.
What said was outright wrong was the idea that knowing the rules and being proficient with it would fix peoples experience with starship combat. The idea being pushed, AGAIN, that its players fault for not liking starship combat because they don't know it or aren't prepared for it as a DM. It's a back handed insult that isn't getting any more factual just because its being insinuated a lot.
The idea that "I really like starship combat" does not require further validation. I mean, I might think you're one of those people that like black licorice and step away from you slowly, but you cant really be wrong about what you like or don't like.
But the idea that "most players like starship combat all of your information is off" is a separate question. What I'm suggesting is by all observable evidence is probably wrong is the idea that most players really like starship combat. If someone has a reason for disagreeing with that I think SOME rationale or argument is warranted to counter the evidence we do have.
If I'm pressing my rationale a bit hard, it's because I don't like people dismissing information they disagree with just because it isn't perfect and downplaying the amount of information we do have. It's not just one person reporting, its multiple people reporting multiple venues. Epistemic nihilism bothers me, even moreso when its selective.
It's not insulting that there are people playing starship combat differently than you and are enjoying it.
I don't think it is outright wrong to say that players knowing the rules better and GM's preparing more ahead of time for starship combat would enhance their enjoyment of it. That is my opinion.
I have never said, "most players like starship combat all of your information is off." What I have said several times is we don't know how the majority of the player base feels about starship combat. All your observable evidence is very limited because it still only represents a small portion of the player base.
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It's not insulting that there are people playing starship combat differently than you and are enjoying it.
But it is incredibly insulting to say that we're not enjoying it because we're worse at it, which is what you say every. single. time. you bring up prep and knowledge as the reason people don't like it or suggest that's the issue. You aren't claiming to be playing differently, you're claiming to be playing better.
But somehow, when you're completely unable to show, demonstrate, or hint at your alleged superiority. Quite the opposite. But for some reason that isn't a problem because its the solution you prefer. And yet when someone can show a rationale for a conclusion you don't like well then we'll have to dismiss the evidence we do have because it's not a scientific survey.
You're dismissing with NO rationale an evidenced position and wholeheartedly embracing an unevidenced one. That isn't a place a discussion can happen at all because there's no possibility of appealing to a common reality. Your position determines your evidence and that makes it impossible for evidence to be discussed.
I never said you or anyone else were worse at starship combat. I've said time and again that when I've played I've enjoyed it and I've shared what I do in starship combat that makes it enjoyable for me.
Everyone makes their own judgement on whether they feel they know the rules or not. I've played in several games where the players didn't know what the rules were and that hampered their enjoyment of starship combat. That is my observation.
Go ahead and look at my profile and then check out my aliases. All of them are my Starfinder characters and with several of them I've taken part in low, mid, and high level starship combat on the Paizo boards, so there are records of the starship combat I played in. They represent some of the reasons why I've enjoyed starship combat. I welcome anyone to critique the starship combat I took part in because I don't mind hearing others opinions and I like learning new strategies I can employ.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I usually win (as player) starship combat handily and efficiently and I still think it's a total drag.
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Here's an idea for how I think it could have been, and what might have been much more fun.
1) Assume most Drift-capable ships are not that maneuverable and that in actual combat, small fighter ships are just more effective. Get some Battlestar Galactica inspiration. Consequence: everyone gets their own little fighter to fully control, or maybe make it a two-person thing if it has a lot of complex tricks.
2) These fighters are equipped with escape pods that have a very low energy signature so they're really hard for enemies to detect, and they're well armored. Consequence: if your own fighter gets disabled (but not instantly destroyed), you can eject and escape, and be retrieved later on. But you'll be out of the fight, so ideally don't let that happen. But this gives a space battle some more granular stakes than "our one ship gets disabled" or "we win completely".
3) Each turn is atomic; you do all the engineering, pilot and gunnery steps in one go instead of going back and forth between enemies and players. Just like ordinary combat really.
4) Since you have your own mothership to defend, and enemy fighters and an enemy mothership to fight, there's a lot more tactical depth to deal with. Also, you might have to take some rotations to give some PC fighters time to regenerate shields while others take the brunt for a bit.
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Go ahead and look at my profile and then check out my aliases.
Ok, so lets look at some of the different variables that might account for different experiences.
First off, unless something really weird is going on, The folks here that don't like starship combat (including myself) have as much experience as you do playing it, or more. So I don't think you can chalk the difference up to people needing to be more familiar with it. There simply isn't a very high level bar of proficiency and anyone that does it fairly often is going to clang into it, so I think its highly unlikely that you're more familiar with the rules or better at starship combat than team kill it with fire.
Secondly, a lot of your experience is with play by post. I hadn't thought about it much before this thread, but that format takes the sting out of a lot of starship combat's flaws.
And most importantly I think is that you're experiencing starship combat as a player, a lot of the problem is exacerbated for the DM. The DM has a whole other ship, or ship(s) to keep track of doing the same job as 5 other players, as well as adjudicating rules and keeping the cats herded. It's a vastly different experience, and one that takes starship from meh as a player to fun sponge as a DM. (Gods help the players that start at fun sponge...)
Most starship combats don't simplify the mechanics for the NPC ship. It's a fully crewed ship using ALL the rules of a PC ship. The anvil that broke the camels back was multiple ships without any sort of concession to ease of use.
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lastly there's personal taste in games. I don't find that aid another is enough effect or agency. You do. When half of the roles in starship combat wind up using that mechanic, it leads to vastly different experiences. I don't find it very fun, and a lot of other players don't either. I've had more than a few players that are old hands at rpgs but new to starfinder play a few rounds of starship combat and be like "wait what.. all that and I'm a +2 bonus?"
Note that "aid another" is vastly different from the more generic helping other party members. Just because you don't like being aid another doesn't mean you're against teamwork. There are ways to have team work that have proximate and ultimate choice as well as agency and effect (a high level envoy for example)
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia
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I think my main issue is even if you DO want to be a character that specializes in this stuff, you're not doing Starship combat with enough regularity to really justify taking say the starship-oriented Mechanic options.
I like Starship Combat, especially as time has gone on and Starship combats with non-deathmatch formats have been added.
But I can tell you it induces groans EVERY single time I bust out the hex map, way worse than the chase cards in PF1, way Way worse than actually well-received subsystems like the Influence system.
It's not something that been well-received and its likely in the best interests of the campaign to make Starship Combat about as rare as vehicle chases.
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I guess for me, it is what it is.
Sci-fi has space. In order to travel through space you use ships. If there is any conflict, you are going to have space ship fights. Because, if you didn't, things would feel very weird. It would feel significantly less sci-fi.
At the end of the day, dogfights aren't interesting. At the end of the day, if you're not the pilot, you are unlikely to be doing any fancy things. If you do, you are likely going to be doing them over and over. Or you are shooting the guns over and over.
If they add more things to do, it will likely turn ssc from tediously simple to tediously complex.
And, most of all, I can't puzzle together a solid alternative. If I don't have a better option, I will not complain about what is there.
I get that people don't like it. I get why. Do you have a better, non-complicated alternative? If not, then join me in sucking it up and using the current system to have fun. Because there has not been a system that I have played (no matter how bad) that I could not make fun. The genre of tabletop games is not mechanics, it is a genre of game that hinges on the players' ability to be creative and imaginative. That is the only thing that all tabletop games share. Therefore, that is what the genre is.
I hope you don't get agitated by this, but my in person group decided everyone had a time limit to make their decisions including the GM. This was because we had a time limit to finish our game before the store closed. This kept the game flowing.
Our decision making was simplified because we all agreed we were going to fly aggressively and go for fly by actions if we lost initiative. The fly by strategy was proposed by a different player in the group, so I give him all the credit for coming up with it.
Maybe my in person group was just easy to please. We would get so hyped when we hit with a heavy damage weapon because then we would have to go through our dice piles and find, for example, like 10d8 and watch the gunner roll all the dice and count up all the damage. That took us longer than actually deciding what we were going to do on our turns because we got so excited seeing all the dice rolling and we would start chanting the dice roller's name.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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I don't regularly play SFS and thus SSC is even rarer for me, but I personally find one particular problem with it: It's effectively a subsystem, not part of the actual game.
It's kinda like in 2e the library research or influence scenes. You know they exist, but they aren't in every scenario (they are actually pretty rare, which corresponds with SSC considering that scenarios including SSC get run less). As a player, you aren't supposed to learn a system that isn't regularly used - the GM should be able to either give you a handout or explain it simply enough when it pops up.
SSC? Way too complicated for a short handout and a drag for a GM to fully explain each and every game. And even when you do get teached or read up on how SSC works, you only get to apply this knowledge every once in a while and it just doesn't stay fresh in your memory.
Aiding other characters can be fun, when it's your decision to aid them [instead of doing something else]. SSC largely takes away player agency by giving 1 person actual decision making powers, and reducing the rest of the party to "I roll to hit" and "I roll to see if the other guy gets a bonus for his roll."
You can't take risks. You can't pull off cool stuff. You can't pull out specific gear or spells or resources that suddenly turn the tide or grant you significant advantages.
It's just so far removed from the actual SFS combat where I can decide between using a breath weapon and giving my drone full attack, or moving closer and calling my reach weapon to my hand to threaten the ranged enemies, or picking up the sniper to threaten the enemy commander in the back ranks, or boosting my allies weapon, or throwing an AoE, or healing up myself or an ally, or boosting our defenses with cover, and so on and so on.
Lack of player agency, combined with the fact that your rolls -have a chance- to grant a small bonus -which may or may not matter-, makes it dull.
EDIT: It Feels like SFS SSC ships have 4-6 stats, and everyones character is reduced to become one of those six stats. You could then write simple botting instructions to automate the whole SSC based on those stats. And that doesn't feel good
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Wouldn't a skill challenge take away even more agency?
Depends on how you write the skill challenge. The simplest one, where everyone just rolls some skills and you count successes, yeah there's not much agency involved in that. (Which is fine; not everything is about agency. Jumping a few fast hoops can be exciting on its own.)
The key to agency is having something to choose between, like taking an easy bit low reward path and a hard or risky but potentially higher reward path. Or which side to back / which enemy to focus on. And you can do that with skill challenges too. The key is to avoid making one choice so much better or more right, that the other choices aren't really real anymore.
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The key is to avoid making one choice so much better or more right, that the other choices aren't really real anymore....wait so... what kind of characters do you play such that regular combat isn't also like that?
I believe Lau is talking about the writers rather than the players when he talks about making sure there is agency.
To give an example:
You exit the Drift and, as expected, the blockading ships are still orbiting the planet. There a few things you could do. You could try to use your sensors to map their blind spots with a computers check. You can try to dodge through the debris field with a piloting check. You could attempt to modify your shields to prevent their sensors and weapons from being able to get as firm a lock on your ship with an engineering check. If you are feeling confident you can attempt all three.
Succeeding on any of these checks would give you bonuses or penalize them if you get into combat. However, if you fail you will be the ones starting out behind. If you do well on all three checks, you actually think you can slip down to the surface completely undetected.
Alternatively, you could simply engage them in combat right now and blow a hole in the blockade. You can attempt any, all, or none of the checks, what would you like to do?
You could do something similar with no potential for combat. If you are on a deadline you could choose to attempt something risky to shave time off your trip (but risk adding time) or take the safe route.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
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A skill challenge doesn't offer much agency either, true, but it's also simpler and faster, and usually feels more interesting to describe because every round of the challenge there's new circumstances that need to be addressed, versus "you miss again. Next round."
I mean, a good GM can make both of them sound exciting, it's just easier for the GM to do it in skill challenge because the situation changes and you usually have a good description of what is happening next.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't have SSC, I'm just saying the one we currently have doesn't always feel good, or exciting.
I think the idea of multiple 1 or 2 person ships might be much better.
Alternatively - and remember, I don't have much experience in SSC so these may have been done already, all the ones where I've been have been 1vs1 fights - We could have SSC combat versus multiple small enemy fighters that are destroyed in just a single hit or two, making positioning and manning different guns more important, or sort of combining skill challenge and SSC: "You have 4 rounds to take them down as they try to make their escape, with every round bringing new circumstances to the field" like first having an asteroid field, and once that's cleared, solar flare temporarily wiping/weakening yours and the target ships shields, etc.
IF something like these have been done already, I would love if someone would point me to the relevant scenarios so that I could give them a try!
(It's been a while, and I wasn't the GM so I'm not 100% sure if they just left something out, but I think the ones I've been in have been basically "empty map, 1vs1 or 1vs2, basically no terrain or obstacles or any changing circumstances, just rolling to see whose ship gets blown up first")
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In a different space opera gaming setting a long, long time ago in a galaxy possibly not as far away there were still the roles (Pilot, Engineer, Gunners, etc) for 'space combat'.
In that system, things weren't codified as firmly as SFS, but rather went on individual player initiative (so you could have the engineering sort trying to boost the engines but being slower on the uptake so they're going at the dead bottom of the round --- which helps for the next round).
There *was* still that sensation even in that more free-wheeling system that one kinda 'lost' agency, but there was a *definite* motivation because the idea of capture (in most cases) or ship destruction was Very Real and Very Terrifying.
Combat moved reasonably quickly there, but one of the things that definitely did NOT exist was massive penalties for atmospheric combat (abbrev. to atmo here).
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One is driving ships that can handle not being in atmo with micrometeorites and whatnot, Why does atmo suddenly turn SFS hulls/shields into confetti? What kind of piss-poor engineering allows ships to handle the rigors of launch, high speed maneuvering, and Drift travel without a hiccup but as soon as the weather starts getting *rough* it's time to look for the escape pods?
Futilely trying to apply real-world logic
Conveying that to a science-fiction setting, most ships Starfinders fly are probably designed to be able to land and takeoff but aren't very aerodynamic. Because what you really care about is functionality in vacuum. Shields, for example, probably present a really big surface area that wreaks havoc when it hits wind. Physical and energy weapons lose efficiency when they aren't traveling in perfectly empty space.
I would guess there are atmospheric fighters, and maybe hybrids that are OK (but not good) at both vacuum and atmospheric combat. We just haven't seen rules for those yet.
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Newbie's point of view on starship combat, I've never played yet, and just now making my first complete ready to play a character for SFS.
I started building my character using starfinder on my phone, and just printed out all the official characters sheets could find to see which one I like best. Other than the choice to pick Ace Piolet there seems to be no obvious starship combat options within the character making process or on the sheets. Even the massive Character Folio which includes a page for ship stats, doesn't have a set place for characters to prep their starship combat actions.
I made a Shirren Mystic without even once having to think about starship combat. I don't want to sacrifice mystic skills or feats to pick up starship combat feats, I feel it should be a whole other section of character creation separate from picking a class.
(I'm a Shireen, I become a Mystic, then I decide to join the SFS, there I pick up starship skills.)
Doing so would give players more buying and have starship combat rolls prepared on their character sheets.
Newbie's point of view...
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You don't need to spend feats on starship combat. The few feats that affect starship combat that I"m aware of do things in or out of starship combat.
Percussive maintenance: fixes things the old fashioned way. KABONG.
Sky jockey Increases the speed of starships by 1 hex and the speed of anything else you fly or ride by 10 feet. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee brakes are for wimps!
Skill increasers like skill focus or skill synergy can make computers or engineering a class skill, but the skill is boosted all the time.
For most rolls you'd make in starship combat the modifier is your skill modifier. If nothing else, you can use Mysticism to aid your pilots initiative check. (This was not an option when the game started, leaving most mystics with nothing to do in Starship combat (SSC)) )
For a new guy, the only number you would need that's not on your sheet is your gunnery modifier. That is the bigger of
Base attack Bonus + dexterity modifier
or
Piloting ranks + dexterity modifier
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Newbie's point of view on starship combat...
One of the smartest things Paizo did (in my opinion) was to NOT make a whole bunch of feats and abilities that were only useful in Starship Combat. That means starship encounters don't have to be tuned to prevent characters specialized in starship combat from utterly dominating them. Such tuning would in turn would mean that groups who hadn't specialized would have a harder time.
They have added some options over time (the trailblazer mystic connection makes for a pretty good pilot, and mechanics have quite a few tricks related to starships), but so far it isn't too much.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Newbie's point of view on starship combat...One of the smartest things Paizo did (in my opinion) was to NOT make a whole bunch of feats and abilities that were only useful in Starship Combat. That means starship encounters don't have to be tuned to prevent characters specialized in starship combat from utterly dominating them. Such tuning would in turn would mean that groups who hadn't specialized would have a harder time.
They have added some options over time (the trailblazer mystic connection makes for a pretty good pilot, and mechanics have quite a few tricks related to starships), but so far it isn't too much.
** spoiler omitted **
I kinda wish starship boons did not exist for the same reason, particularly some are pretty darn strong and the differences between a group that has a good mix of powerful boons and one that does not is noticeable.
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Here is my beef yet again...
This is a science fantasy setting. It is clear that technology (with a little magic) makes the mechanisms of society go 'round. There is conflict, because if there wasn't it would not be the fairly combat centric game that it is. There is space and a multitude of planets and systems. In order to get to those planets and systems one must travel. The vehicle of travel is a spaceship. Because conflict exists, peoples have strapped weapons to the spaceships. Because of the weapon strapped starships, starship combat exists.
The logical train above seems to me to be obvious. As such I am positively perplexed by complaints like "My character can't contribute in starship combat" and "Why is this scenario gate locked by a computers/engineering check". Is the setting not blatantly obviously clear about what it is? Am I some sort of intuitive genius such that I understand that if I do not choose a tech related skill at character creation, my character will struggle to interact with the setting of the game? I'm so confused.
Edit: I would like to express that I am ernest in my confusion. Have I leapt to the conclusions I drew?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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As I understand it, Ashbourne's complaint wasn't that "I don't see any feats to take for starship combat" it was more that "the character sheet draws no attention to starships".
We've all met characters that were built without starship combat in mind. And it's usually not making things more fun when starship combat breaks out. And then we say things like "oh well you should definitely keep X, Y and Z in mind when making a new character". But why didn't we draw attention to X, Y and Z in the first place?
If a character sheet had a box on the first page with your starship combat scores, that would draw peoples' attention to it. It's this obvious empty bit and when you go to fill it in and notice you're not good at any of these roles, you might reconsider some of your build choices.
How many characters do you meet that forgot to buy armor altogether? Armor class is a box on the front page, it's noticeable if you're forgetting it.
Good character sheet design can highlight the way to more satisfying characters.
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As I understand it, Ashbourne's complaint wasn't that "I don't see any feats to take for starship combat" it was more that "the character sheet draws no attention to starships".
We've all met characters that were built without starship combat in mind. And it's usually not making things more fun when starship combat breaks out. And then we say things like "oh well you should definitely keep X, Y and Z in mind when making a new character". But why didn't we draw attention to X, Y and Z in the first place?
If a character sheet had a box on the first page with your starship combat scores, that would draw peoples' attention to it. It's this obvious empty bit and when you go to fill it in and notice you're not good at any of these roles, you might reconsider some of your build choices.
How many characters do you meet that forgot to buy armor altogether? Armor class is a box on the front page, it's noticeable if you're forgetting it.
Good character sheet design can highlight the way to more satisfying characters.
More of an observation than a complaint, but you are dead on about my point about the character sheets.
The other point I'm trying to make is that if starfinder generally assumes that, even first-level characters have access to starships, then some form of starship training should be assumed too, separate from class. I'm too new to starfinder to have a solution for that.
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As I understand it, Ashbourne's complaint wasn't that "I don't see any feats to take for starship combat" it was more that "the character sheet draws no attention to starships".
We've all met characters that were built without starship combat in mind. And it's usually not making things more fun when starship combat breaks out. And then we say things like "oh well you should definitely keep X, Y and Z in mind when making a new character". But why didn't we draw attention to X, Y and Z in the first place?
If a character sheet had a box on the first page with your starship combat scores, that would draw peoples' attention to it. It's this obvious empty bit and when you go to fill it in and notice you're not good at any of these roles, you might reconsider some of your build choices.
How many characters do you meet that forgot to buy armor altogether? Armor class is a box on the front page, it's noticeable if you're forgetting it.
Good character sheet design can highlight the way to more satisfying characters.
I've seen a bunch of characters starting out buying the cheapest armour that still provides environmental protection. "Gonna have to replace it anyways, why spend most of my life savings on it?"
As far as Starship Awareness, I could see the Society having training courses, but that still doesn't help the starting players who aren't setting savvy.