Generally speaking, APs are focused on the PCs and not their ship. The ship is usually a convenience/method to get from one planet/star system to another, with the occasional encounter during travel or against a creature too large to fight any other way.
Attack of the Swarm!, despite being the "military" AP, doesn't have a lot of starship combat. Devastation Ark has a couple starship fights and even a mass battle, but it's only 3 volumes.
You can definitely include more starship combat to an AP if your players like that sort of thing (such as hunting stellar protozoa to add cytoplasm launchers) by replacing some of the "standard" encounters. Or you can even create a campaign focused on ship-to-ship combat (or even a multiple PC ships "Wing Commander" style campaign), but this would probably appeal to a smaller audience if Paizo tried to make an AP.
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I was wondering if a starship combat-focused AP would make ship combat more interesting than just some encounter while traveling between points a and b. Could cover all the different types of ship combat, and let the PCs chose which ships, and make adjustments to them for each mission.
Maybe instead of a full AP just a standalone adventure, that has a squadron, armada, ship boarding, and a few normal ship-to-ship combat with different types of ships.
The starship combat system from the core rules hasn't gotten the best reception, so I'm not surprised the APs have cut down on it a bit.
Which AP has the most starship combat?
and or which one has the most interesting starship combat enounters?
I think Dawn of Flame had some interesting starship encounters. (Albeit not all combat).
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I think Dawn of Flame had some interesting starship encounters. (Albeit not all combat).Which AP has the most starship combat?
and or which one has the most interesting starship combat enounters?
I saw the first starship encounter from Dawn of Flame watching Things in Space, which was more interesting than just there are 2 ships in your way.
If I remember right, think they tried to fly into the giant space shark or whale's mouth.
It also mixes things up. I mean there’s a few regular ones, but in my opinion the mix of encounters is better than most. They’re also prevalent without seeming forced in.
(Ironically, I ran this one with zero combats as I had a guy who did not like starship combat at all).
Think you are right on why APs have cut down on it. Has any other TTRPG ever tried to run starship combat this way?
The overall system is a lot like an old star trek fighting game, but there each player had a ship and here they all have a role. It means people that aren't the pilot are doing about 1/5th the amount of involvement otherwise.
The overall system is a lot like an old star trek fighting game, but there each player had a ship and here they all have a role. It means people that aren't the pilot are doing about 1/5th the amount of involvement otherwise.
Think you are right on why APs have cut down on it. Has any other TTRPG ever tried to run starship combat this way?
Was it you that came up with the summation:
“The pilot makes all the decisions, the gunner has all the impact. Everyone else just helps.”?
I’ve used that a lot but never remembered who I got it from.
I’ve used that a lot but never remembered who I got it from.
I THINK that and deathsphere came from my brain. But my brain is saying that and I'm not sure how much to trust it.
(Deathsphere is when your starships turret and rebalancing the shields make facing, and thus the pilot, irrelevant)
Cheers.
(We just call it ball of death).
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I wonder if making ships easier to damage but harder to outright destroy, so more of the crew was needed for healing others, and damage control, and doing so wasn't just saying you doing so, but actually moving around the ship to get to people to help or damage to fix, which might be blocked by damaged doors, areas with lost air and pressure or other hazards from the battle. would also give more time to RP for offering surrender, using escape pods, or ship boardings, and more scrap for Junkers Delight.
Fly Free or Die uses stuff from Starship Operations Manual and also has regular starship combat - at least in book 2, which I'm currently GMing.
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one question that keeps popping up in my mind is what would Dr McCoy do during ship combat on a starfinder ship.
It sounds like over time Paizo is putting fewer ship combats per AP, but I'm wondering if they are finding ways of making the encounters more intresting. Using the Starship Operations Manual I'm sure helps but wondering how much encounter design matters in ship combat too.
I sort of wonder how much of the negative reception to starship combat is the system itself and how much of it is the context of it. The rules as they were printed in the CRB were kinda busted and some of the early starship combats in Dead Suns weren't tuned very well. In that respect it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
At least anecdotally when running better tuned starship encounters and explaining everything well the first time the experience is pretty fast and enjoyable and new players tend to like it.
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The issues people complain about aren't the DCs though, it's 'you just repeat the same single action every turn' 'only people who matter are pilot & gunners', 'I can be replaced as a player at a table by just writing an action on a piece of paper and walking away', etc.
one question that keeps popping up in my mind is what would Dr McCoy do during ship combat on a starfinder ship.
It sounds like over time Paizo is putting fewer ship combats per AP, but I'm wondering if they are finding ways of making the encounters more intresting. Using the Starship Operations Manual I'm sure helps but wondering how much encounter design matters in ship combat too.
On a crew of a few hundred mccoy is in sickbay keeping the deathcount from exploding work stations down to a dull roat.
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On a crew of a few hundred mccoy is in sickbay keeping the deathcount from exploding work stations down to a dull roat.one question that keeps popping up in my mind is what would Dr McCoy do during ship combat on a starfinder ship.
It sounds like over time Paizo is putting fewer ship combats per AP, but I'm wondering if they are finding ways of making the encounters more intresting. Using the Starship Operations Manual I'm sure helps but wondering how much encounter design matters in ship combat too.
In normal starfinder combat, even a mystic at some point is likely to pull out a gun and start shooting, what if ships had more guns for every one to use, might not be the best option every turn for a mystic but would let them jump in on he fight when needed.
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On a crew of a few hundred mccoy is in sickbay keeping the deathcount from exploding work stations down to a dull roat.one question that keeps popping up in my mind is what would Dr McCoy do during ship combat on a starfinder ship.
It sounds like over time Paizo is putting fewer ship combats per AP, but I'm wondering if they are finding ways of making the encounters more intresting. Using the Starship Operations Manual I'm sure helps but wondering how much encounter design matters in ship combat too.
for a very large ship, you could run starship combat like a castle siege, have none of the PCs start as pilot or gunners, having the PCs heal or replace gunners or the pilot as needed but having ship damage as obstacles in the way. There could be victory points for how many people McCoy can save, how many guns the PCs can repair and or keep manned, same for keeping life support, engines, other ship systems, running.
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The issues people complain about aren't the DCs though, it's 'you just repeat the same single action every turn' 'only people who matter are pilot & gunners', 'I can be replaced as a player at a table by just writing an action on a piece of paper and walking away', etc.
That's kind of a bizarre assertion, given that the character most likely to repeat the same action every round is the gunner. Seems like there's something more going on.
The issues people complain about aren't the DCs though, it's 'you just repeat the same single action every turn' 'only people who matter are pilot & gunners', 'I can be replaced as a player at a table by just writing an action on a piece of paper and walking away', etc.That's kind of a bizarre assertion, given that the character most likely to repeat the same action every round is the gunner. Seems like there's something more going on.
I don't see how that is a bizarre assertion, the way you are phrasing that implies some sort of contradiction. Everyone is just repeating their actions & the only ones who matter are pilot & gunners are both statements I consider true.
That only 2 roles have actual impact != that those roles are free from repetition.
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Starfinder spaceship combat is 'fine'
The trick is that players need to stay in their lane.
What I tell my players is that the only person who is allowed to talk outside of their turn is the Captain.
Too many backseat drivers is what destroys a pretty simple system.
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I think Starfinder spaceship combat also suffers from the "arena-mode" of most pre-made ship combats.
Let me explain what I mean with "arena-mode":
Almost all ship combats in the books take place on a plain battlemap with no special effects or environmental obstacles. This removes all tactical depth from it and make it to a "dice roll competition".
From my experience with wargames (especially BattleTech) I can say that adding things like environmental obstacles, triggered effects or timers can add a lot to the fight.
And you can even empower the other crew roles with such ideas.
How about adding a nebula which can be ignited (and by this do damage for this round) by overpowering the engines (engineer action) or some micro-anomalis which deal constant damage each time the ship moves unless the science officer scans them? Or very basic: Nebulas/asteroids which block LOS/give mali to checks.
I think what SF spaceship combat really needs are three things:
1. Remove the turn order (allows for more tactical team play in combat)
2. Remove the round-by-round initiative and exchange it with the standard inititive system (maybe with a special action which allows/forces a initiative re-roll)
2. A Splat-Book with A LOT of environment/timer/trigger ideas to spice up the combat.
@Peg'giz
Environmental obstacles and the like only matter to the pilot. If I'm stuck in engineering on my mischief of ysoki it doesn't matter if the pilot is flying through open space or asteroids, my turn is the same. Regen the shields, regen the shields, regen the shields, wait for something to break, duct tape it, regen the shields...
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The issues people complain about aren't the DCs though, it's 'you just repeat the same single action every turn' 'only people who matter are pilot & gunners', 'I can be replaced as a player at a table by just writing an action on a piece of paper and walking away', etc.That's kind of a bizarre assertion, given that the character most likely to repeat the same action every round is the gunner. Seems like there's something more going on.
Whether you matter because your role has any impact on the fight and whether you're doing different things each round are orthogonal to each other. You could do one, both, or neither.
Low level captain: Does the same thing every round, encourages the gunner. Has little impact on the fight. (neither)
Gunner: does the same thing every round but has a lot of impact on the fight (literally) (Impact but no choice)
Pilot Does something different every round and has a fair bit of effect on the fight (has impact and choice)
The mystic officer has a lot of abilities that.. really don't do much. (Choice but no impact) +1 to initiative will matter once every.. 4 starship combats?
In normal starfinder combat, even a mystic at some point is likely to pull out a gun and start shooting, what if ships had more guns for every one to use, might not be the best option every turn for a mystic but would let them jump in on he fight when needed.
Up until level 6 this is what smart groups will do: even having a bad second gunner is better than taking full attacks at -4 -4.
But after that the gunner is FIRE THE EVERYTHING with broadsides so taking a gun away from them to fire yourself is probably detrimental to your ships chance of hitting.
I've said it before and I will say it again. If you don't have a crew fit for starship combat it an sometimes take a few hours to resolve. Players hating this and I have seen a handful of people quit the game because of this.
so, as a result of the complaints starship combats are never difficult for an average skilled crew.
But they are also a downright waste of time and way too easy with an optimized starship crew. This just came up again in Waking the Worldseed. The Starship combat was a waste of time. The players never felt threated and there was literally no threat to them at all. They took a total of about 10% of their shields damaged. The drones barely put a dent into the ships shields and the combat was over. We played 3 rounds and then everyone was bored the players starhsip was in no danger what so ever, so instead of spending 3 more rounds playing out the inevitable result - (Drones destroyed and about 10% of the players shields taken down) . I called it over, why waste another 20 minutes of everyone's time when everyone knew the result and we were just rolling dice to get to the result.
To make it not a waste of time when the inevitable is obvious there has to be a mechanic that if it happens the players are at risk. a randomness factor that no matter what is happening, no matter how lop-sided there is always a chance this bad thing will happen. For example a confirmed critical hit bypasses all shields and goes right to the hull.
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Environmental obstacles and the like only matter to the pilot. If I'm stuck in engineering on my mischief of ysoki it doesn't matter if the pilot is flying through open space or asteroids, my turn is the same. Regen the shields, regen the shields, regen the shields, wait for something to break, duct tape it, regen the shields...
Why restrict the effect (or useability) to the pilot?
Let the engineer create a graviton pulse which shatters an asteroid so it scatter to every adjanced field and no longer blocks LoS but give a penalty an gunnery and count as difficult terrain?Or let the science officer scan the "strange glowing" asteroid, just to find out that he could detonate it with the right frequency (doing damage to all adjanced ships).
Or how about the Riker Maneuver? (combination of engineer, science officer and pilot action)
Just watch some Star Trek episodes, throw in some technobable and let your fantasy run wild (of course the players have to do the same and the DM have to embrace it).
If you run starship combat straight by the numbers it is boring, but you can spice it up with some creative thinking and technobable. ;)