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Finally got my gaming group together for a session 0 plus quick demo run, as it includes 2 new brand new to table top roleplaying game players. This was prior to the 3rd wave FAQ release. I'll be running Cosmic Birthday for the group over the coming month or two (some of the players travel a lot, so can't meet each week). This particular group also includes one experienced Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2e player, one experienced Pathfinder player who has played a few sessions of Pathfinder 2e.
Given the compatibility, the experienced Pathfinder 2e player asked to play a Pathfinder 2e class (Ysoki Corporate Agent Eldritch Trickster Rogue). This didn't strike me as a big problem, so I said yes.
Second most experienced player just wanted to shoot things from long range, and didn't want complicated turns, and wanted to play a fox alien. Lacking fox aliens, I OK'd the Kitsune ancestry, and is playing a Kitsune Grifter Sniper Operative.
The two new players gravitated towards a caster and someone punchy.
We were discussing Wizard, Mystic and Witchwarper as options for one player. The higher hitpoints and armor proficiencies kind of sold them on the Starfinder options, and after discussing the 4 magical traditions settled on a primal caster (blasting and heals), so the character ended up as a Pahtra Doctor Elemental Mystic. And yes, they also took the heal spell on top of Battle medicine and Vitality network.
The player who wanted to play something punchy eventually settled on a Solarian, being the one primary melee class in the rulebook. Eventually settled on a Shirren Spacefarer Radiant Solarian, with an eye to getting Shirren flight if the group continues on to higher levels.
I ran the playtest free demo (the Golarian World one) for the group, just to introduce the new players to how things might go, get a feel for how their characters play and if they want to make any changes to them and figure out what modifications I want to make to the playtest rules to make this fun for everyone.
So this admittedly essentially a single skill test hazard and single combat scenario, but several pieces of feedback came out of even this minimal test.
Characters made it mostly through the "trap" of the encounter with only 5 damage taken, which Dr. Elektra (the Mystic) just vitality networked away - she'd be back at 9 hit points in the network on the 1st round anyways. The way I had them come in, and how perception checks worked out ended up with the fight starting around a distance of 55 feet between players and closest of 3 enemies.
The encounter was entertaining. Mystic won initiative (high Wis helps perception), proceeded to move into range and cast Electric Arc for 4 and 2 damage to two targets. Solarian followed 2nd, Stellar Rushed into range, made a single attack and missed. Rogue moved up past the concealment squares left by the Solarian, and cast Slashing Gust, and missed with double 3s on the two d20s. 2 out of 3 enemies went, focusing fire on the Solarian, and dealing 6 damage. Sniper moves past concealment squares and aims (Mobile Aim), shoots and misses, and reloads. Last enemy goes, dealing 4 damage.
Next round, Mystic moves closer (as enemies had moved out of the 30 foot arc range), heals the Solarian up to nearly full with Transfer Vitality, and takes a shot with laser pistol, hitting for 6. Solarian attacks first, misses, takes an action to attune Photon (realizing should have done that earlier so they could Supernova), and finishes off with a swing, that crits for 22, but against a target that would have died to minimum damage (i.e. only had 5 hit points left).
Rogue casts Slashing gust, again, getting double 6s on the dice, thus missing. Sniper misses again (aim, shoot, reload).
2 remaining bad guys to an impressive 15 damage (crit landed in there), on the Solarian. Mystic uses a ranged Heal for 10 on Solarian, takes another pot shot, dealing 3 damage. Solarian strides and uses 15 foot version of Supernova, rolling a 7 on the damage, killing 1, and the other saves. Rogue moves up and casts Gouging Claw, and finally rolls a 12 to hit, deals enough damage with the bleed to finish the last target.
Moving on to commentary, the Rogue isn't Starfinder content, so I won't be passing along feedback on it.
The players felt it was unclear how strong the Sniper Operative would have been, given the terrible rolls. On the other hand, they rolled the fewest d20s (or caused saving throws) and did the least. Essentially they made one shot a round, and the other 2 actions were there to support that single roll - aim and reload. It precluded the character from doing something interesting like, demoralizing the target, or even a second shot or anything.
The players did agree the Mystic was MVP of that demo. The player liked Electric arc as their signature baseline move, as it felt zappy and effective. I will also note, it averages to more damage than Supernova at 1st level, with no risk of friendly fire, and didn't require an extra dead action, plus move actions, to just be able to utilize it (Solarian had to attune to get back to photon attunement during the fight). Also, they were able to contribute damage every single round while also single handedly keeping the Solarian alive. Solarian was unable to make use of supernova first turn since it required a double move to get out of range of allies while being within range of at least 2 enemies. And 2nd turn ended up being a mis-play, not realizing they had to attune back to photon attunement first before using it.
Stellar Rush was actually a detriment to the party, as the allies had to move around it to get clear shots, while the enemy just focused fire on the Solarian (who was down to 5 hit points at one point, but 9 and 10 points of healing helped), and also moved the Solarian out of their prefered attunement state - the graviton effect didn't do anything, and they wanted to get back to photon mode. In hindsight, they would have been better off simply striding twice as it would have saved 2 actions for the team (one for the attune on the Solarian, and one for the Ysoki stepping past concealment - sniper has mobile aim so wash either way). In other words, simply a strength based chassis with the same proficiencies and no abilities or feats could have arguably done better.
Instead of action compression, it ended up costing players actions, either Stride or Attune, while doing literally nothing to the enemy, since they just shot or swung at the Solarian. This is not exactly the best look for the class when being handed to a beginner.
The player could have in theory started in Graviton attunement - but I hadn't really gone through exploration phase stuff yet, and people were trying to keep an explicit lookout for the enemies they were told about, so were making perception and stealth rolls. In any case, not being able to contribute to a party's out of combat success simply because of the possibility of combat and needing to start in a different attunement is also not a good look to a new player, especially when none of the other classes had to do anything like that. Even the ability to summon a weapon instantly isn't all that helpful when everyone has weapons out already since they've been told some bad people are right over there.
In summary, the group thought the Mystic was really strong, flexible, and fun to play. Sniper Operative was unclear and much less flexible. The Solarian needs help, badly, both in terms of meaningful abilities and survivability. For the campaign, the simplest thing I could think of was let the Solarian also pick Fighter feats as if they were same level Solarian feats. This makes Sudden Charge available at level 1, which with how they want to play the character, means its a non-cycle action and also action compression. With that action compression, picking up a commercial carbon shield means they might actually have an AC that isn't tied with everyone in the party, even if they can't block with it (and given Photon Attunment Solar shield doesn't actually do anything reliably, not losing much).
More thoughts from just me as opposed to the group: I was looking at the abilities an Elemental Mystic gets as epiphany spells makes me really wonder at the Solarian's abilities. Elemental summons a leveled weapon (+1 to hit at level 1 now with tactical weapon at 1st!) that can eventually take upgrades. Where as Solarian is still buying a weapon - a core solar crystal. Sure it takes a full turn of actions, but if you're in a situation where your weapons have been taken away, seems superior to me. If the party gets any heads up at low level before a combat, they are actually better off simply having the Mystic cast Elemental Weapon and hand the Solarian a +1 to hit with bonus +1d4 elemental damage, especially with a 10 minute duration. And if you're not in a situation where your weapons haven't been taken away or can't be brought, what exactly is the benefit of a Solar Weapon over a normal weapon or a weapon picked as the prefect counter as a 3 action summon versus 10 minutes of downtime?
Or look at elemental barrier being strictly superior to an equivalent level Solar shield in terms of protection. 2 actions for +1 to AC for 10 rounds, versus 1 action per round. If a fight lasts at least 2 rounds, the barrier is more action efficient, blocks more (i.e. has higher hardness and hit points once available at 7th). I mean, it feels like the Mystic Elemental connection focus spells nearly invalidate everything supposedly unique about the Solarian. Elemental Nova may not have the side effects that Supernova and Blackhole have, but it does equivalent damage to Supernova in any elemental damage flavor you want, and to be honest avoiding resistances and hitting weaknesses is its own kind of benefit.
I'm really worried that Paizo is afraid of stepping on the Barbarian and Fighter class stuff (both get Sudden Charge for example) since they're aiming for compatibility, when the system is meant to also be stand alone, and should be taking things things that work from currently existing Pathfinder 2e melee classes, and sticking that into the Solarian. In some cases, they look like they're trying to remix things in, but the final result is just straight up inferior. Combat Assessment vs Meditative Analysis (whose actual point, to choose which attunement you are in, should just be baseline in the class), Stellar Rush vs Sudden Charge, Solar Barrage vs Double Slice (or Double Shot), and so on.
If Starfinder 2e is meant to be stand alone, then a Solarian needs to be able to fulfill what you'd typically assume is a melee type playstyle. Able to get in front, stay alive up front, and meaningfully contribute while adjacenet to enemies. It needs some of the basic capabilities the Fighters, Barbarians and Champions have in that case. In 1st edition, this was done by giving them equivalent abilies like Stellar Rush making charge a standard action without penalties (with bonus bullrush effects). It also gave them a choice of primary effects, whether weapon (which eventually with more books became one of the highest damage options) or armor (which helped the light armor mobility options keep up in survivability).
If Starfinder 2e is not meant to be stand alone, then a Solarian can be different classic melee classes, but still needs to numerically keep up, especially at low levels.
Lastly, I will also note the Solarian has the fewest feats options at the moment with only 33. Envoys have 40, Mystics have 40, Operatives have 59, Soldiers have 57, and Witchwarpers have 46. Solarians have fewer feat options than the casters (and almost half the options of the actual martial Soldier and Operative classes), although each class gets the same 12 pages in the book for the base class. Which I think means there's too much word count being spent on low impact and/or low importance abilities that other classes solve by simply purchasing a backup ranged weapon or backup melee weapon. Or in the case of casters, get to push word count into the focus spell list instead of the class description area.