I agree with every criticism listed here. I generally find it strange that the one melee class in the game, who is more melee-restricted than even the most melee-centric classes in Pathfinder (Barbarians get Raging Thrower, Champions get Nimble Reprisal), has no inherent means of dealing with ranged enemies that are out of reach, a common occurrence given that some ancestries can fly at level 1, until level 9... and even then, only on one subclass. The fact that you can't cycle either I think makes the feature clunky as well as poorly-positioned.
My take on this is that out of all the classes in Starfinder, the Solarian is probably the one most deserving (and in need) of flight at level 1. Not only that, but their 1st-level revelation from their arrangement ought to be a gapcloser of some sort, whether a dash/teleport for photon Solarians or the graviton subclass's pull. In a game where nearly every enemy is easily capable of shooting from as far as 120 feet away, and from atop buildings or even just mid-air, all in a 1st-level encounter, the Solarian needs a basic means of closing that gap and using their class's mechanics to get in melee. I'd gladly shift their Solar Shot and Solar Nimbus to their feats if it meant letting them close gaps competently from the get-go.
I think its fine that Solarian needs a jetpack or fly spell in order to catch up with flyers. They could also just use a gun. (Or Solar Flare gets propper range increments.) Not everyone needs a solution for every problem. You have a party of 4+ after all.
I think the issue right now is that "flying enemies" are an extremely common problem, and even just the playtest scenarios are full of flying enemies who can also shoot. If the Solarian is not equipped to address this basic problem at all, short of firing a gun worse than pretty much any other Starfinder class, then the solution to the problem is to just not play a Solarian at low level.
This is not a solarian issue. Many Witchwarper cantrips cap at 30 feet range.
And many Witchwarper cantrips have twice as much range (e.g. daze, frostbite, needle darts, and slashing gust), so if range is your concern, I don't see why you would deliberately go for the worse ones in that regard.
A witchwarper can't use many of his features against flyers as well.
Warp Reality can target a burst in the air, and has a range of 100 feet. The class can also use a variety of effects within that quantum field that damage enemies.
I think thats why we can cast gun.
Casters are certainly encouraged to "cast gun" in this game, and can do so capably because they'll want to increase their Dex anyway. The same I don't think should be expected of the Strength-based class that is specifically designed to fight in melee range.
We can also always run away. Run through the next door and wait on the other side. Attack with AoO when the enemy passes through the door. Or get in to a space with low ceilings. And we should be fighting in places with low ceilings a lot. I imagine most fights will take place in starship corridors and buildings. If you are outside you should have access to flying cars, hover bikes and other cool stuff (or you run to the next building, cave, whatever to force the enemies down.)
I think there are a number of issues to this:
This is a Starfinder playtest. You can bring in Pathfinder 2e cantrips but you have to assume that there will be player who only own the SF Core Rulebook.
As noted at the very beginning of this playtest rulebook:
To cram as much playtest content as we could into this book, the Starfinder Second Edition Playtest Rulebook requires two other books to run. This includes:
• Pathfinder Player Core
You have to have Player Core or access to the core rules to run this playtest. This includes references to Pathfinder 2e spells, as noted in both the Mystic and the Witchwarper's bonus spell lists. The finalized Starfinder Player Core rulebook is guaranteed to include spells from Pathfinder, and there is no reason for it to exclude all of the aforementioned cantrips at once.
Warp terrain can target the air but its still capped at 100 feet. Get em from the envoy is caped at 60 feet. At some point class Features will stop working and only long range guns work.
Sure, but 100 feet or even just 60 feet will let you cover the majority of ranges you'll get in most combat scenarios, and will certainly cover more situations than a hard-capped 30 feet. Let's not pretend that there is no meaningful difference in being able to do stuff with your class at twice or more than triple the range of another.
I think casters are just as much encouraged to invest in their dex as solarians.
You can think whatever you like, the Solarian's explicitly stated focus on melee, medium armor proficiency, access to heavy armor, and Strength KAS all point to the Solarian being expected to focus on Strength rather than Dex, whereas casters will need to significantly boost their Dex just to have good AC. That the Solarian needs to use Dex at all makes the class far more MAD and less flexible than they could be if they were given the proper tools right from the start.
Well sometimes you are stuck in a s+#@y situation. But when you are waiting for the enemy to approach and the enemy waits on you, the party which gets impatient first, usually looses. (Or the party with the most rations wins.)
Does this strike you as a particularly fun scenario to run in an actual game? Like, let's take a step back from our little internet conversation and actually think about what you're saying here: do you seriously think it is reasonable to expect the players at the table to have a staring contest with their GM and just do nothing until someone eventually caves out of boredom? Because that doesn't come across to me as a particularly good use of gaming time, nor as particularly good game design if that's the intended playstyle.
And on that note: yeah, in Pathfinder you can get stuck in a bad situation where some of your class features won't work. If you're a Scoundrel Rogue and you're fighting an ooze, you won't be able to deal precision damage to it or use Feint. But guess what? You still get to play your class, even in that absolute worst-case scenario. You can still use Surprise Attack, even if you won't benefit from Sneak Attack, you can still use Debilitating Strikes, and you can still Nimble Dodge out of the ooze's Strikes, along with a host of other Rogue feats you can take that can still help you out. The reason I'm singling out the Solarian is because in the situations where they can't get in range of a target, they get nothing from their class. There are a grand total of three abilities that let you do anything to an enemy more than 30 feet from you, two of which are subclass-exclusive and two of which can only be used once per hour. That's not just a bad situation, that's a situation where you genuinely cannot play your class at all, and in Starfinder that's liable to be a common situation at that.
The Solarian might need to take cover but the flyer needs to spend actions on staying in the air.
... and? Everyone gets three actions, so Flying and Striking twice a turn isn't beyond the capability of a flying creature. A Solarian taking cover the whole encounter, aside from not getting to do much at all, is still liable to get hit, and won't be getting any closer to harming that flying enemy.