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Melee was a valid option in S1, they're not gonna remove it in S2
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Several of the things on your list we already have in Starfinder.
5. If it will be galactic adventure rules for rolling up planets (and other celestial bodies) including with hostile environments. (Players vs planet)
In the Galaxy Exploration Manual
6. Mega-structures
Absalom Station: 5 miles across.
Idari 2.5 miles long.Conqueror's Forge: 2.5 miles long
Supercolossal Starships: 6 miles or longer.
7. Starship combat with fleet rules.
In the Starship Operation Manual.
8. Fabricators
We have U-kiosks for making anything from UPBs
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I've also got an additional wishlist in no particular order, though I generally don't care too much how this is achieved mechanically:
1. Power armour that is optional, but worth specializing in
Power armour is extremely cool, but I don't want it to be the default thing any "heavy" type of character would invest in. I want it to be just a bit special.
2. Oversized double-barrel shotgun
Having read way too much Lancer over the last days, I now want a unnecessarily big shotty. Only two shots, but I want whatever I shoot at to no longer be there. Bonus points if the shell ejection is powerful enough to qualify as an additional attack. Add some support for such a playstyle and I'm happy :D
3. Varied ranged weapon combat
As ranged combat looks like it will be the default assumption in SF2, I'm not too worried, but it still bears highlighting. In PF2, what feels like 90% of ranged weapon actions boil down to two things: I shoot a few more times or I shoot once with slightly more damage. Different, deeper or more complex interactions are rare and usually much higher level than comparable melee options. This very often leads to extremely same-y playstyles for ranged characters, which I'd like to have the option to avoid.
4. Options for variable ammo
This is another one of the instances where I want things to differ from PF2. In PF2, anything but the very basic ammo has a prohibitive cost in both money and additional actions. In 99,9% of cases, there is basically no reason to even consider using it - outside of some few outliers when using reload 0 weapons. Even if it costs a bit of money or requires certain feats and only gives small bonuses/changes to my weapon's stats. I'd like it to be a choice what I load my weapon with. This is closely connected to my next point...
5. Extensive weapon/armour/equipment customization
Different focusing lenses that change my weapon's attack pattern from line to cone (or vice versa), shotgun chokes, longer barrels that extend the range, shortened barrels to reduce range but increase spread/portability, scopes, better cooling, holsters, chest rigs, and so on. Guns and gears has made a valiant first foray into this territory, but I'd like to see much, much more. Normal weapons are cool and all, but I'd like to adjust things to match my playstyle even more. It's not too high of a priority for the CRB, but an armory-type book should have it as an optional system at least.
Edit: Forgot one.
6. Transhumanism options
Cybernetics, biomods, "totally legal and save" futuristic gene therapies, "uploading" your consciousness into a machine, or replacing parts of your brain with an AI, which will totally not have disastrous consequences. Transhumanism (or whatever it is called when applied to other species) is perhaps my favourite Scifi element. I want as much of that as I can :D
Some of my wishes:
Scifi is not a coat of paint to add to objects. A sword is a sword, adding a "chain saw" or making it out of energy doesn't change things.
1. The problem with melee. Sure your character has an energy great axe, don't expect to live long enough to use it.
The game probably will have armor e defensive tecnologies that is more effective vs range than melee. For example, imagine an energy shield that's more effective vs small projectiles and laser weapons but is useless vcs heavy masses like from melee weapons. (basically this is a high-tech version of Wall of Wind).
2. The technology level should exceed what we have today (combat drones and optics for shooting from cover, ballistic computers that adjust target rectical by distance), should be how we think of a bow and arrow today.
Yes but at same time that defensive technologies will also better. Drones could be disable by EMP, optics could be scrambled and the good old cover will still a good option for many cases.
3. Make medicine int instead of wisdom. Medicine even for the ancient Egyptians and Greeks was recorded and transferred as book knowledge, they where not always right but that is true with all science-based persuts.
Make sense but this probably won't happen because of PF2 compatibility. Yet this could be done by some skill feat that allows to use int instead of wiz for medicine checks or like cirurgeon alchemists that can use craft in place of medicine we could get something that allows to use a lore instead.
4. The primacy of the synthetic. What is stronger, muscles or hydraulics? Cyborgs, robots, and exoskeleton should be doing things meat sacks can't. Not "fair", just borg up.
"Exotic" super strong ancestries, biotech, and magic still there too.
5. If it will be galactic adventure rules for rolling up planets (and other celestial bodies) including with hostile environments. (Players vs planet)
This already happens in SF1, and in PF2 due the great amount of different biomes, planes and even other worlds that you can access through aiudaras.
6. Mega-structures
Like Absalom Station?
7. Starship combat with fleet rules.
We don't know yet. Maybe SF2 Core book will deal with starships maybe this will put into another more specific book. But I'm certain that we will get this sooner o later.
8. Fabricators
Sorry but what do you mean when you say "Fabricators"?
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I'm thinking... "just a bit special" power armor sounds like archetype bait. Like, the idea that Power Armor is the kind of thing that you need to invest some time and attention into getting good at before it's worth wearing? That feels right somehow. Possibly make it the sort of thign where you can buy the power armor itself, and then independently buy augmented components and/or add-ons, so that the character who's really into power armor can(if they choose) sink a major fraction of their WBL into upgrading and customizing their suit.
For power armor in particular... I feel like it should be possible to have a character where their power armor eats up half of their feats, two thirds of their money, and some sizeable fraction of their item investments, and you feel like that's all resources well spent.
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Basicly game designers bending over backwards to make melee relevant.
Yeah you want a game other than Starfinder.
That's the point, EMP shielded and radation hard electronics exist today. Shooting from full or 95% cover should be allowed. Modern ballistic target rifles for civilian use are accurate at over 1 mile but a scifi laser is not.
2. The technology level should exceed what we have today (combat drones and optics for shooting from cover, ballistic computers that adjust target rectical by distance), should be how we think of a bow and arrow today.Yes but at same time that defensive technologies will also better. Drones could be disable by EMP, optics could be scrambled and the good old cover will still a good option for many cases.
For laser and some energy weapons an interesting suggestion is to make them having a different distance penalty of ballistic weapons. These weapons usually doesn't loose precision due the distance, specially if they get auxiliary target systems but its perfectly acceptable that light and some energy beams looses power over the distance so their distance penalty could come in form of diminish the damage dice size.
So a laser pistol instead of lose precision after 40 ft it can diminish its damage to d4 if the target is between 40-80ft and to d2 if the target is between 80-120ft and them no damage after this.
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For the "starships throw off the economy", I think it would make sense that those work off of a completely different currency than credits, if not even more abstracted as it seems to be in SF1. I mean, higher level gear is pretty pricey, but compare the price of a fancy rifle to something like a fighter jet. And that's the most basic ship, with cost increasing to absurd degrees the higher you go. The comparison doesn't work 1:1 with how it works today, but I think you get the idea.
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1. The problem with melee. Sure your character has an energy great axe, don't expect to live long enough to use it.
I've seen this a few times,but only lately and have to wonder where it's coming from. In starfinder melee does more damage (Strength or strength and a half), has more bonuses (flank, prone) , and fewer penalties (prone. Cover) and I've only seen getting to the enemy be a real issue once. (in a sniper alley, and people with rifles had the same if not more trouble getting to the snipers: because people with rifles don't but as much value on movement).
To be clear, I've run over 150 games in starfinder society, a starfinder home game, played at least that many games, and PBPsted through a bunch of the adventure paths. I do see the occasional battle turtle that didn't take movement into account, but they're rare and more than make up for it once they get where they're going.
between blitz soldier, cheap enhancement bonuses to movement, jet packs, heel thrusters, and the ultimate leveler of the haste circuit* starfinder melee can easily close the distance and go to town, particularly with a reach weapon. Getting melee with reach next to casters and gunners forces them to soak up aoos moving away/shooting or to switch to backup weapons.
In PF2 Melee seems to do ok. the three action economy puts move move whack on the table. Strength to damage and flanking/off target bonuses kick in.
So are people just reading the blurb of starfnder as the game with the pew pew lasers and assuming melee doesn't work? There's some meta in PF2 i don't know about where melee is dead? Assuming that PF2 where melee works + Starfinder where melee works somehow= melee doesn't work?
* if you haven't looked at starfinder haste? They increased its power in some respects. Its now a pounce that doesn't care about corners. You can run 60 feet to the center of a maze and doublewhack someone.
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First wish in the system: Wow me with the skill uses. Especially combined with a class ability.
Neither Starfinder or PF2 really do this.
In starfinder you can put resources towards you favorite skills and get a really good chance of succeeding. It's in a good balance in between pathfinders absurd bonuses and pf2s bounded accuracy. That's good but its not really wow.
I think THIS, not their skill supremacy, is the real problem with the operative. They're good at all of the ordinary skill stuff and that's fine, but there's no extra ordinary skill stuff for the mechanic to do with engineering/computers or the biohacker TO be good at in their respective fields. Mechanics have remote hack and that's about it. The operative take 10 i win button makes the resulting "if you fail" abilities irrelevant.
Pathfinder 2 skill feats just aren't exciting to me. By and large they're
a +2 (the only mathematical increase allowed. barely noticable on any one given night),
A solution in search of a problem ( Like allowing pick pocketing or planting evidence, which were sleight of hand) I have hated this approach since ultimate intrigue.
Ridiculously situational ( you stealth through overgrown terrain and only in forests. Like.. you're going to need to leave the blackberry bush to get somewhere eventually)
One possibility is that instead of their class bonus to skills being normal, have it count once towards the die roll, and a second time towards counting as a critical success (One of the features in the pf2engine that i really like). That way the mechanic can sometimes do something nuts like take over the robot or suit of power armor they're fighting. They don't just shut down the security system they turn it on their opponents. Everyone else can too, but the mechanic is twice as likely as any other specialist to pull it off.
You could also have class abilities do the same thing. take over the computer take over the robot. Have it gain sentience and empathy. Go nuts. Skill feats should be used to make skills be amazing, not functional.
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1. The problem with melee. Sure your character has an energy great axe, don't expect to live long enough to use it.
I've seen this a few times,but only lately and have to wonder where it's coming from. In starfinder melee does more damage (Strength or strength and a half), has more bonuses (flank, prone) , and fewer penalties (prone. Cover) and I've only seen getting to the enemy be a real issue once. (in a sniper alley, and people with rifles had the same if not more trouble getting to the snipers: because people with rifles don't but as much value on movement).
To be clear, I've run over 150 games in starfinder society, a starfinder home game, played at least that many games, and PBPsted through a bunch of the adventure paths. I do see the occasional battle turtle that didn't take movement into account, but they're rare and more than make up for it once they get where they're going.
between blitz soldier, cheap enhancement bonuses to movement, jet packs, heel thrusters, and the ultimate leveler of the haste circuit* starfinder melee can easily close the distance and go to town, particularly with a reach weapon. Getting melee with reach next to casters and gunners forces them to soak up aoos moving away/shooting or to switch to backup weapons.
In PF2 Melee seems to do ok. the three action economy puts move move whack on the table. Strength to damage and flanking/off target bonuses kick in.
So are people just reading the blurb of starfnder as the game with the pew pew lasers and assuming melee doesn't work? There's some meta in PF2 i don't know about where melee is dead? Assuming that PF2 where melee works + Starfinder where melee works somehow= melee doesn't work?
* if you haven't looked at starfinder haste? They increased its power in some respects. Its now a pounce that doesn't care about corners. You can run 60 feet to the center of a maze and doublewhack someone.
Based on their posts, CrimsonKnight seems to think the fact that melee is viable is a FLAW in the game, not that melee is too weak.
Based on their posts, CrimsonKnight...
Ahhh ok. Thanks!
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I mean, melee is always going to be relevant no matter how good guns are because when you're within arms reach of someone a knife (or a tech knife) is a lot more effective than a gun- it's quicker, more accurate, and just as deadly. Like there's a reason real world special forces people carry serious knives.
Plus, melee combat is all over classic sci-fi. Whatever monster you're fighting might want to grab you, everybody in Dune knows how to swordfight because of how the personal shields work, the Jedi lightsaber is iconic, Worf has his Bat'leth, etc.
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Ranged combat has the problem of being hard to make interesting. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot that goes into hitting someone with a rifle or pistol, but it still just LOOKS like standing there and shooting. The best I've seen ranged be is Boxy but Good. In starfinder it feels a touch underpowered.
Melee has always had all the cool feats for shifting positions or doing combos or grabbing people and throwing them accross the room or doing martial arts inspired stuff. There's a lot more to visually see describe and work with.
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My analogy for "the starship economy" would be cryptocurrency (with the notable difference that there is a use for starships.)
During the height of the crypto boom it was very easy to get people to give you cryptocurrency for other cryptocurrencies. It was (and remains) terribly difficult to get people to give you actual money for your cryptocurrency.
The people who sell ships and ship parts have lots of ships and ship parts, and are generally unwilling to acquire more except in exchange for other ships/ship parts. They are happy to take your credits, but they are loath to give you credits for ships/ship parts since they already have ample inventory.
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Skill monkey isn't an aspect exclusive of AD&D. This concept appears many times in media with all kind of skill monkey specialist.
Yet IMO PF2 already made the necessary steps to get from this direction. Today is no more necessary to have a skill monkey in the party like we have in D&D/PF1/SF1. For example currently each char is able to become legendary in 3 skills and expert in 1 skill and with exception of Lore a 4 players party is able to get all the 16 skills available. OK this requires a all party members agree to take all the skills and depending from what attribute the skill is based it will be weakened (this happens with skill monkeys too) but this already allow the most party covers a large number of important skills to adventure without need to have a skill monkey like a rogue/investigator/thaumaturge in the party. Something thats is difficult to meet even with a skill monkey in PF1/SF1/3.5 with their respective list of 26/20/36 skills.
So I don't see a problem if SF2 take the PF2 skill system as basis. I just hope that they get away from skill feats that enable some secret checks using some skills (like Lie to Me) from players because almost alway me or the players forget that these things was in someone sheet until is too late.
Make the skill system even more easier risks to banalize the entire skill system risking the skills becomes more a matter of luck than choice.
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Basicly game designers bending over backwards to make melee relevant.Yeah you want a game other than Starfinder.
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So instead you want to tell the players who like the Artillery, sniping, BFGs, or whatever other ranged-focused sci fi trope you can think of. That they're wrong and they're going to have a bad time because that's how things work in the game is pretty well guaranteed to make them feel bad, and also shuts off all the cool stories.
If one persons idea of a cool idea requires that everyone else just instadies for getting too close to their awesome... yes.
Ideally you balance different and incomparable advantages and disadvantages into melee so that both are fun and viable in different ways.
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Most of the premade stories so far (and all the ones I've played in) have had the two sides basically on top of each other. abilities and encounters are thus limited to such short ranges.
This actually has nothing to do with mechanics.
The maps have limits to how big they can be, because of the books they’re printed in. Because of the table they’re played on. You can only have the combat areas be so big.
Can people using homebrew on a virtual tabletop go around that restriction for a sniper fight? Absolutely, but that’s the exception rather than the standard.
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To put this in perspective, snipers in Starfinder, even on a completely open flip map, are not even at topical sniping range. For a modern long-range sniper, the typical range they start shooing at would take 21 30-inch flip maps placed end to end. With long-range shots needing up to 33 flip maps.
I think to have a real sniper battle on a 24-30-inch map. Each side would have obstacles or buildings to hide in, and in the middle of the map, have a section blacked out diving the map, with a note saying this line is 1/2 mile wide.
For normal long-range combat in Starfinder, you would have to have each side start apart at a distance so that if both sides took a move action, they would still not be in short-range weapons range. Assuming a move, and short-range being 30 feet, you would have to start at greater than 24 inches apart on a flip map. About the only time that could happen is in open terrain or a long street map. You could shorten that to 18 inches on the map if one side didn't move. Or 12 inches if one side only had melee weapons and the other side didn't move. And it's hard to place a lot of 12 to 24 inch rooms on a single map.
Funny thing is most of the guns in the field test actually need reloaded MORE often than the guns in Pathfinder do at the moment. Hopefully they iron that out, but I did find it funny.
For the record, a follow-up to the field test made it extra clear that you only have to reload when your magazine or battery is empty. So no, the four whole guns alpha-previewed thus far are more powerful and have to be reloaded less often than their PF2E equivalents.
As for my wishes, I only just got a chance to start playing Starfinder, funnily enough — I decided to join the play-by-post some friends started up a day before SF2E was announced on the horizon. (Just made a super lucky full attack with a flare rifle as the first turn my manic astriapi Mystic took in Dead Suns. ¯\_('v')_/¯)
So I don't know much, but it really seems like a neat system, and I hope the DCs aren't as punitive nor the capabilities as restricted as in PF2E, because I think it does make sense for Starfinder to be the wilder and more power-fantasy-happy game. (The comments on flight likely being a starting-level option are encouraging in this sense.) Hopefully they can adapt the unique character systems of Starfinder forward in one form or another, too~.
Edit: oh, duh, the FAQ makes the assumptions bit explicit as well.
Are there going to be different baseline assumptions between Starfinder and Pathfinder? Absolutely. Starfinder Second Edition is going to use the same rules engine as Pathfinder, but that doesn’t mean that the games will have the same assumed baseline. Technology is prevalent in Starfinder, and we’ll be including all manner of bespoke tech gear, personal augmentations (like cybernetics or biotech), as well as upgrades for armor and weapons. Ranged weapons are also far more plentiful, and many of them have the capacity to fire multiple times in a row without reloading. We’ll also be looking to open ancestries in ways that don’t fit as well into Pathfinder’s assumptions: like access to innate flight for species who naturally fly.
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To put this in perspective, snipers in Starfinder, even on a completely open flip map, are not even at topical sniping range. For a modern long-range sniper, the typical range they start shooing at would take 21 30-inch flip maps placed end to end. With long-range shots needing up to 33 flip maps.
I think to have a real sniper battle on a 24-30-inch map. Each side would have obstacles or buildings to hide in, and in the middle of the map, have a section blacked out diving the map, with a note saying this line is 1/2 mile wide.
For normal long-range combat in Starfinder, you would have to have each side start apart at a distance so that if both sides took a move action, they would still not be in short-range weapons range. Assuming a move, and short-range being 30 feet, you would have to start at greater than 24 inches apart on a flip map. About the only time that could happen is in open terrain or a long street map. You could shorten that to 18 inches on the map if one side didn't move. Or 12 inches if one side only had melee weapons and the other side didn't move. And it's hard to place a lot of 12 to 24 inch rooms on a single map.
They had ONE scenario at appropriate ranges for a sniper duel. If you were a sniper it was fun. The rest of the party spent several rounds running to get where they could do something useful.
Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)
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We're exploring a lot of different options with combat types in our playtests. We recently had a really solid encounter, where the PCs ended up battling some foes at close range, with some PCs engaged in a back/forth firefight over a downed log. With 5 feet between them, the two groups exchanged fire and then took cover, which led to a really interesting dynamic.
As for long-range combat, while our short-ranged firefight was happening, one PC was engaging enemy snipers with their own sniper rifle in shots that were on average about 200 feet away from one another.
The whole thing _felt_ really cool. It's also the type of game we're going to look at overall. While Flip-Mats and table mats are something we have to keep in mind, we're going to look at ways to expand on how all varieties of groups can try out different combats. Perhaps even the dreaded 1 Square = 30 Feet will return! :D
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with some PCs engaged in a back/forth firefight over a downed log.
Note: Invest in sf2 future forestry future. Lumber prices will be insane.
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We're exploring a lot of different options with combat types in our playtests. We recently had a really solid encounter, where the PCs ended up battling some foes at close range, with some PCs engaged in a back/forth firefight over a downed log. With 5 feet between them, the two groups exchanged fire and then took cover, which led to a really interesting dynamic.
As for long-range combat, while our short-ranged firefight was happening, one PC was engaging enemy snipers with their own sniper rifle in shots that were on average about 200 feet away from one another.
The whole thing _felt_ really cool. It's also the type of game we're going to look at overall. While Flip-Mats and table mats are something we have to keep in mind, we're going to look at ways to expand on how all varieties of groups can try out different combats. Perhaps even the dreaded 1 Square = 30 Feet will return! :D
Shotguns using actual cones is a big improvement over PF2e scatterguns that has me extremely excited to play a soldier in SF2e. I'm ready to be a tanky frontline dwarf pump chump
We recently had a really solid encounter, where the PCs ended up battling some foes at close range, with some PCs engaged in a back/forth firefight over a downed log. With 5 feet between them, the two groups exchanged fire and then took cover, which led to a really interesting dynamic.
I liked that scene in REAMDE, too.
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To put this in perspective, snipers in Starfinder, even on a completely open flip map, are not even at topical sniping range. For a modern long-range sniper, the typical range they start shooing at would take 21 30-inch flip maps placed end to end. With long-range shots needing up to 33 flip maps.
I think to have a real sniper battle on a 24-30-inch map. Each side would have obstacles or buildings to hide in, and in the middle of the map, have a section blacked out diving the map, with a note saying this line is 1/2 mile wide.
For normal long-range combat in Starfinder, you would have to have each side start apart at a distance so that if both sides took a move action, they would still not be in short-range weapons range. Assuming a move, and short-range being 30 feet, you would have to start at greater than 24 inches apart on a flip map. About the only time that could happen is in open terrain or a long street map. You could shorten that to 18 inches on the map if one side didn't move. Or 12 inches if one side only had melee weapons and the other side didn't move. And it's hard to place a lot of 12 to 24 inch rooms on a single map.
They had ONE scenario at appropriate ranges for a sniper duel. If you were a sniper it was fun. The rest of the party spent several rounds running to get where they could do something useful.
One option would be to give the rest of the party a noncombat objective that the sniper is trying to stop them from achieving.
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One of my biggest disappointments in SF1 was how hard it was to play say a fighter pilot and have that matter. Many of "our" classic sci-fi heroes are fighter pilots and with the starship system as it is , that is really hard to do.
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One of my biggest disappointments in SF1 was how hard it was to play say a fighter pilot and have that matter. Many of "our" classic sci-fi heroes are fighter pilots and with the starship system as it is , that is really hard to do.
Having the party's main ship be able to dock one or two smaller fighter craft could help that.
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In a party-oriented game, it's hard to make that concept work unless everyone is a fighter pilot.
My major concern is that they'll wipe the slate clean and start over instead of converting everything for S2E...
We just got the Evolutionist as a new class, for instance, so I do hope that they don't remove it. There are only 13 classes in Starfinder, so no need to ditch some.
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They’re not gonna launch with a 1,000 page book no
Sniper rifles that work for operatives or the operative-equivalent class right out of the gate. In SF1e, we had to wait for the release of the Sniper alternate class feature before operatives could mesh their core class feature with one of the quintessential sneaky weapons.