Agreed, love that section.
I agree that more of "that" in general would be nice. The write-ups were interesting, though lacked a bit of vision. It felt very "20 minutes into the future" for my tastes.
Also, and I mentioned this in my review, but there were some significant questions more applicable to Starfinder groups in general that didn't get answered:
- How does environmental support work on armors that aren't sealed against vacuum?
- Are robotic enemies hackable and if so do they behave just like drones or is there something that prevents them from being hacked
- How do infospheres differ from our standard 21st century OSI model? Missed chance to just say it's all "point-to-point device cloud computing" and make players uncomfortable that their comm units might be datamining in the background while they're on planet.
I had a reply to this and honestly I just deleted it. If your response to critique of material written from an in-character point of view is "those are game mechanics, don't ask questions" there's not a whole lot I can say that'll ever see us meeting halfway on it. FASA managed to do it with Battletech and Shadowrun. I have every confidence that a Paizo writer could do the same.
My opinion stands. You're welcome to your own, though I think it lacks imagination.
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I had a reply to this and honestly I just deleted it. If your response to critique of material written from an in-character point of view is "those are game mechanics, don't ask questions" there's not a whole lot I can say that'll ever see us meeting halfway on it. FASA managed to do it with Battletech and Shadowrun. I have every confidence that a Paizo writer could do the same.
My opinion stands. You're welcome to your own, though I think it lacks imagination.
My explanation to players trying to do so:
For one any robot manufacturer worth their salt should have a vast number of anti hacking measures including preventing robots from directly connecting to networks so they can't be hacked without direct access. Of course a combat round prevents direct access, and an active robot will attempt to prevent any entity from gaining access (via combat). There are limited ways to shut down a robot that doesn't fry their systems or result in their destruction.
Which tends to fill both perspectives. The players know that hacking a robot is only mildly easier than performing brain surgery on an enemy mid combat, and from the gamist perspective it doesn't make robots especially vulnerable to hack focused characters. It still means PCs could hack and control robots, but only in specific situations so the GM can avoid giving their level 7 characters a level 9 minion if they so wish.
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Space can be an inhospitable place, with countless dangerous
worlds within it. Unless otherwise specified, all armors protect
you from a range of hazards to ensure that you can survive for
at least a few days if you must make emergency repairs to the
hull of a starship, explore an alien world, or endure exposure to
an environmental breach in a space station. Some armors do this
through an environmental field (a minor energy field specially
attuned to pressure and temperature that does not reduce
damage from attacks), while others can be closed with helmets
and airtight seals.
Thats the bit from CRB about environmental protection. So basically the light armours which look like clothing and the like have basically 'force fields' style effects to protect them. A bit like Star Lords helm in GotG
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I agree that more of "that" in general would be nice. The write-ups were interesting, though lacked a bit of vision. It felt very "20 minutes into the future" for my tastes.
Also, and I mentioned this in my review, but there were some significant questions more applicable to Starfinder groups in general that didn't get answered:
- How does environmental support work on armors that aren't sealed against vacuum?
- Are robotic enemies hackable and if so do they behave just like drones or is there something that prevents them from being hacked
- How do infospheres differ from our standard 21st century OSI model? Missed chance to just say it's all "point-to-point device cloud computing" and make players uncomfortable that their comm units might be datamining in the background while they're on planet.
1) The answer is probably "Armors that don't seal against vacuum don't exist." This can likely be explained with "Environmental protections on armors protect against almost all possible hostile environments as a result of the progression of technology. Similar to cameras on current age cellphones., it is just a standard feature."
2) No, they are not hackable in the sense of a mobile device with any wireless connectivity disabled, or essentially air gapped. Physically connecting and hacking would be up to the GM. Reasons why it would or would not work are easy to come up with. Paizo coming out and saying one way or the other via flavor would remove the power from GMs.
3) The OSI model is probably still mostly the same. The difference is the time in which information is transferred. The methods of relaying information is both electronic and magical. So, conceptualizing the intricacies is a struggle for me. Note: the drift is also used.
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Fluff books were one of my favorites in Shadowrun.
But I don't think they will work for Starfinder. Simply to little attention has been paid when the game was first creates to have a world that makes sense. Instead of you have gameist systems everywhere like the whole economy which do not make any sense from a in character point of view, so it is hard to write fluff which meshes with the system.
Tech Revolution proves you undeniably wrong from the start.
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Your continued use of the word fluff is telling as always, you hate the setting, we know, that doesn’t mean the setting doesn’t work, nor does it mean we can’t get more flavor again, as this very book shows.
As for transmissions, you know those aren't instantaneous the longer the difference and also subject to interception even with encryption. If anything the physical passage makes a safer bet if anyone.
Item level restrictions are a metagame construct for PCs, not NPCs working day jobs.
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These are things the game literally says 'okay so it works like this in setting, but that's bad for balance so mechanically it works like this'.
No spaceships aren't free just because they don't want it competing with adventuring gear wealth. No, they aren't fine with random people having nuclear weapons, especially since we literally know that the flavour of things like Level & Tier limits are abstractions with you in-charactergetting legal permits or criminal connections to access things.
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Why is it so impossible for Joe public to have hover cars and a domestic drone? There is no life span for a Domestic, so nothing says they can't have been around for a while in the family. How long would it take for someone in reality to out right buy a car by saving up first? With rough numbers, unskilled labour can potentially do it with a year in Starfinder.
Like in real life, I would say banks are still a thing for stuff like loans.
If you treat the level as 'easily available' for PCs, as in no background checks, no waiting for it to be commissioned and such, cutting the back log queue. It still works as a world. Why does a domestic family have that Domestic Drone? Loans and waiting X time for delivery.
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In addition to Milo’s points there’s metagame constructs in every game, in order to not have any you’d have to not have a game, but a novel.
“ Starfinder is full of them and they cause the game to be vastly different than how the lore presents it, because the PCs can never match what they are supposed to be able to do according to the lore.”
Your pettiness aside, this is complete nonsense.
Also people would still buy food and drinks, cause taste exists.
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Keep at it, I think he's almost convinced
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In this setting, my favorite answer is "the gods make it so", considering how much they intervene with regular folk. It's worst than the Iliad
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Ouch... 35 credits is really going to break the poor average joes bank... He might have to save an extra fortnight to get full flight on his vehicle, rather then hover... Seriously, the difference between a Hover and flight hybrid is 5%... since the base cost for a level 1 vehicle is 700, Hover would be 770, while hybrid flight is 805... Average unskilled joe can Save about 100 credits a Month (Half is wage covers home/food and such) if he really wanted to. So less then a year for 1 guy to buy a Flying Ford Focus. Sounds doable to me.
Starships are not valueless, they are considered more value then a PC can realistically save and buy, thus they tend to be story based rewards with the same being upgrades.
If you want to take a loan out, thats up to your GM. Personally, if my PCs with their shady backgrounds and such want to approach a bank for a loan, they can... But not everyone can get a loan and that 're-owned' Starship you mentioned won't make good collateral.
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When you cobble together the cheapest option with the new vehicle rules, sure. When you stick to actually published vehicles it gets a bit more expensive, especially when you do not use Dawn of Flame and instead of the Performance Cruiser your cheapest option for a flying car is the Police Cruiser.Ouch... 35 credits is really going to break the poor average joes bank... He might have to save an extra fortnight to get full flight on his vehicle, rather then hover... Seriously, the difference between a Hover and flight hybrid is 5%... since the base cost for a level 1 vehicle is 700, Hover would be 770, while hybrid flight is 805... Average unskilled joe can Save about 100 credits a Month (Half is wage covers home/food and such) if he really wanted to. So less then a year for 1 guy to buy a Flying Ford Focus. Sounds doable to me.
So.... If the new rules address some of your complaints, do you really still have those complaints?
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Yeah, if you point requires ignoring certain books, it doesn't have ground.
I don't expect a Core book to give me every concevable option on vehicles if its barely 10% of the game. They add a book with fluff on flying cars, which also gives you the option to obtain said common vehicles.
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Fascinating backstory for one of the pregens in the Starfinder One-Shot #1: Band on the Run
“Though it came out of nowhere, the enercycle was gone as quickly as it had struck Sem. With one accident, her promising mercenary career came to an end. She was off her feet for almost a year, and the loss of an arm seemed harder to accept than she anticipated. Even worse, her financial support fell through a few months in, so she had to find a way to provide for herself during the slow recovery process.”
[...]
“Scrimping and scrounging every credit, she saved up enough for her cybernetic arm. To Sem, this represented the first step toward starting her life anew.”
Not only long-therm injuries (!), but also losing a limb as something still life-changing and expensive. I mean, a prosthetic limb costs 100 credits and one hour in a clinic, and it works exactly like the old one.
It feels very disconnected from the setting and its rules. Kinda nuts.
Should’ve gone for the psychological trauma angle.
I agree with ragi too here.
Some setting conceits like the cheap serums of healing, nutritious food, ubiquitous magic, and replacement limbs should affect some of the way a lot of stories are written.
Some vehicles being a bit too expensive to afford for low level characters are fine though.
While it's fun and all, I do hope that some corrections/improvements will be considered in the future:
1) The Nanocyte should receive a Feat that allows him to shape 2 forms at the same level while in Gear Array. That would ease up the item level juggling, and can turn him into a swiss army knife. Upgrades could grant him 3 forms per Array, but a maximum of 2 major ones (2 major, 1 minor / 1 major, 2 minor / 3 minor), and then 2 Major and 2 Minor.
Right now, the only way to "cheat" is to use maze cores to group together multiple items... and last time I've checked, there's no preventing you from grouping 2 items using a maze core... that both already contain separate maze cores.
2) That feat could lead to a Knack that allows the Nanocyte to use TWO major forms to shape ONE armor upgrade. It's fine for weapons and shields, but a jetpack would be a fun add-on ;)
3) Mechs and starships interactions, and possibly a modification that allows a starship to transform into a mech. Tiny starships are approximativaly Gargantuan and Small starships are around Colossal.
4) Being able to pilot a Gargantuan or Colossal Mech alone, unless you can have an AI companion that can serve as the copilot (a.k.a. the 2nd required operator).
5) Being able to channel spells and solarian abilities through a Mech.
4) Furyjumper, a Phase frame is Colossal and appears to only have 1-2 pilots
4) Furyjumper, a Phase frame is Colossal and appears to only have 1-2 pilots
You... are correct O_O
Although, I'm... leaning toward an error than the actual rule ^^;
Since there is very little benefit to being larger then Huge (AC drops for maybe 2 damage on melee attacks and an extra point of hardness) I don't see why it would be an error. All it really does is make you a bigger target
Since there is very little benefit to being larger then Huge (AC drops for maybe 2 damage on melee attacks and an extra point of hardness) I don't see why it would be an error. All it really does is make you a bigger target
The catch is that the Gargantuan Phase Mech (Blinkstriker) still requires 2 to 6 operators, so it feels pretty weird that both the Huge and Colossal Phase Mechs require 1-2 operators, but not the model in between.
That's why I think it's a copy-paste error ^^;
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If mechs are further expanded, I'd like them to break their components even more, to give more customisation for players.
For instance, let's say I want a Laser Sword. Well, there should be an option to take the Plasma Sword, change its damage from "E&F" to "F", reduce its damage from "high" to "medium", but reduce its cost from "3.5 x tier" to "2 x tier". It would be the same thing if you want an Electrospear (Frostspear) or Cryogauntlet (Thundergauntlet).
Like, break it down and go nuts :P
I would like the ability to go with the usual Starfinder method. A two handed weapon which actually does damage. I know the one handed ones cost more, but thematically, Physical and two handed weapons tend to do more damage as a base for usual weapons, it would be good if that also translated with Mechs.
I do like the idea of being able to modify weapons, increasing or decreasing the multiplier to alter something
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I like the idea of physical data transports. Opens up a complete new area of pirating.^^
In another scifi RPG I read they have a similar system in place, but there they have "data-stations", which are located at Hyperspace entry points. They store data on crystals/mini-probes and "shot" them into the Hyperspace toward the destination station.
I could also imagine a similar system in Starfinder too (of course only for non-sensitive data like news feeds etc.).
I would like the ability to go with the usual Starfinder method. A two handed weapon which actually does damage. I know the one handed ones cost more, but thematically, Physical and two handed weapons tend to do more damage as a base for usual weapons, it would be good if that also translated with Mechs.
I do like the idea of being able to modify weapons, increasing or decreasing the multiplier to alter something
I'm actually surprised that the battlerod isn't such a weapon, and I agree that there should be a rule to increase the damage threshold by one step if wielded in 2 hands, provided that the hands are free.
Look, for mechs, they have the foundations, so they can only go up from there:
- Ability to operate a Gargantuan or even Colossal mech with only ONE operator; yeah, Gundam fans... might be disappointed to know that most Mobile Suits are technically Gargantuan in size :P and most are piloted by one person.
- Ability to channel an operator's abilities through a mech, such as a solarian's weapon, spells and such. One key omittion is how an operative cannot attack in a mech as swiftly as it can on foot, because there is no "operative weapon".
- Upgrade to increase a mech's size by ONE size when combined with other mechs. I get the feeling that most combiners we see (like in Power Rangers and Transformers) are larger than any of the componant mechs :P So if we could get 5 Huge mechs to combine into a Gargantuan one (with an upgrade), that would work.
- A way to carry your mech. Right now the ONLY way I could find is to take a Motosphere pack, modify its 4 Enercyles to transfrom into Huge mechs (which is possible from a Large Vehicle to a Huge mech)... and find a way to have the batteries last more than 1 hour :)
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On a flipside, how about a Magic Revolution book to shake things up?
We could get a lot more hybrid items and possibly a civilisation which has evolved to counter technology, if not merge the two. Even beter, there could be a situation where technology got absorbed and re-emerged into something different. Imagine if old starships that crashed on Aucturn returned as eldritch aberrations XD