What shirren GM wouldn't want more combat options?
What player Would want to use guns under those ratios?
Fight 1 Mr. Laser D. Akka is terrible in this fight while Chompy Chomp goes to town at 90% effectiveness
Fight 2 Mr Laser D. Akka is terrible while Chompy Chomp goes full boar.
Fight 3 Mr. laser D Akka is still notibly behind Chompy chompy. (because Laser is shooting through cover with just weapon damage while chompy is using weapon +str damage with no cover flanks and possible Aoos)
The system is balanced with 3 as the baseline fight and melee still has a pretty big advantage. Tilting it even further frustrates a gun reliant chracter's player.
Characters don't just pick up or put down weaponry at the drop of a hat. Their ability scores, feats, classes, and gear are selected with being able to do a particular combat style in mind. SOMETIMES thats going to go off model and they have to adapt. But that's a very tricky spice to use.
Look at it from the other direction. Imagine being Worfs player on the next generation. EVERY time there's a fight you uselessly get slammed into a bulkhead just to show that the big bad is the big bad and brute force won't work.
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Simple solution for Fight 1 or 2. Don't only have one objective.
Chompy Chomp says to Mr. Laser D. Akka, "Get the codes while I hold off this overgrown tow-headed bar fly."
Worf vs. the bulkhead EVERY time there's a fight. The whole point was to create encounters with more variation, I completely agree, don't do the same thing "EVERY time."
Melee can definitely throw out more DPR, but there is a significant tradeoff in giving up specializing more on Dex defensively.
Enemy NPCs have so much +hit that your dex and armor won't make a difference. With my melee I've found a collection of DR and energy resistances or a non AC mechanism (mirror images for the melee operative, A regen tank mechanism for my melee mystic) do a lot more to keep you in stamina.
Also that in starfinder, losing a little stamina or a lot of stamina have about the same effect.
Simple solution for Fight 1 or 2. Don't only have one objective.
Chompy Chomp says to Mr. Laser D. Akka, "Get the codes while I hold off this overgrown tow-headed bar fly."
As a writer/director with sole control over the scene, characters, and motivation that works very well.
As the DM/ cat herder.... thats very group dependent. Does Mister Dakka have the skills to get the codes, are they a player that wants to get the codes, and do they know they're in a genre where anything but deadifying someone else is an optimal tactic.
You can definitely MAKE encounters like this. I can think of a few SFS scenarios that go this way. (one of them has tanked reviews because it tried to do this) But the game isn't built around HAVING to be creative (smart will generally do). That would be a slightly different genre than heroic space fantasy.
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Worth nothing that "one person engages with the system fully while everyone else just rolls some checks" is one common criticism of starship combat too.
I know I'd be pretty bummed if I put together some interesting and fun build only to be relegated to just making computers checks because the GM decided to hamstring my particular combat style.
And while saying the goal isn't to alienate anyone is all well and good, that's still the practical implication of some of the suggestions that have been put forward here.
Now if everyone buys into this ahead of time, that's fine, but this still kind of stacks the deck in a way that I think Starfinder is very well equipped to handle. This sort of storytelling is better for games where everyone can do a bit of everything, whereas Starfinder characters tend to be a bit more specialized.
I think we're straying a bit off course. If I remember rightly, the original posting is more about relying on combat in general, as opposed to guns in specific. Ultimately, they were asking 'What do you think of having some adventures that are weapon free or at least start out that way?'.
Now, naturally, there are ways to prepare for that too. But I think the overall gist is to ask whether there are campaigns that can be set up so you don't just shoot your way out of them.
You can certainly run a game that is heavy on RP and skill checks with little to no combat, but Starfinder as a game (just as PF1 and PF2 are) are designed for a focus most of their rules on combat and combat related stuff.
There are better game systems if you want to run an adventure that has 0 or minimal combat.
That said, you can still do it in Starfinder it's just kind of shallow on rules if you remove the combat stuff.
Though to be honest, rereading the OPs post it comes across less as asking for a no/minimal combat campaign and more as asking "what if the PCs were unprepared for combat by not having their stuff".
Again, it's something you can do with the game but Starfinder isn't the best system for it.