Homebrew doc.
The Solarian I think has had a fairly troubled development in 2e: in the playtests, the class was weak, rigid, and outright non-functional in encounters against flying enemies, but at least had something unique going for them in the form of their AoE revelations. On release, those revelations got removed from the class, whose core chassis ended up becoming that of a worse Fighter in space. The class is heavily feat-taxed, needing Stellar Rush for the mobility they desperately need to close gaps and Solar Rampart for heavy armor proficiency, and generally appears to be quite stingily-balanced, with sub-par class features in a game where it's not uncommon for classes to become legendary in two different proficiencies. In my experience, the class's playstyle doesn't really flow well, and a great deal many feats don't make use of the Solarian's different attunements at all.
All of which is to say: I feel the class could have been done quite a bit differently, and this is a feeling I've expressed as well for other SF2e classes, such as the Witchwarper and the Technomancer. The Solarian brew I put together gives an explanation of what I was going for towards the start, but here are the general features:
1. The Solarian gets built-in flight and a Speed bonus at level 1, so that they can consistently get within melee range of enemies. It won't always be easy, but it would at least always be possible.
2. The Solarian only gets their solar weapon as a starting manifestation, but their solar weapon can be any melee weapon you can access. This means you can wield a solar doshko or a solar puzzleblade depending on your ancestry.
3. The Solarian gets heavy armor proficiency and Shield Block from the start. Further manifestation feats let you get a solar flare, a solar shield, and solar armor, which let you choose any ranged weapon, shield, or suit of armor you can access respectively, and a 6th-level feat lets you even choose advanced solar weapons.
4. The Solarian gets baked-in AoE from the start in the form of Stellar Nova, which has the functionality of both Black Hole and Supernova depending on your current attunement. Rather than a frequency, the action has the disharmony trait, letting you use it multiple times per combat.
5. In general, feats are completely redone to be more active, have you cycle much more frequently, and feature attunement-specific benefits whenever possible. To avoid having less to do in one attunement, feats that only provide benefits in one or the other particular attunement are condensed. In addition, many feats can be used even if you're unattuned, giving more options after using a disharmony action.
6. The brew adds a whole bunch of feats to further deepen your playstyle: feats like Spiral Arm or Music of the Spheres let you use your skills in uniquely Solarian ways, whereas the Broken Cycle feat at 1st level lets you commit to just one attunement if you want to play a purely graviton- or photon-based Solarian.
The general aim of this brew, besides making the Solarian more functional, is to give them a more distinct niche from the very beginning as this hyper-mobile, flexible stance-dancer who can provide both single-target Strike damage and AoE. Many of your actions would have the flourish and cycle traits, meaning each of your turns will often revolve around choosing which big, flashy move to use, and how to string those actions together to make the most of both your attunements. In my playtesting experience, this not only made the Solarian feel a lot better to play, but also made them feel more active and flexible overall, with much more of a feeling of flow when stringing cycle or disharmony actions in the right sequence.
The doc you posted is formatted weird and the second column of text on each is cut off, could you edit it? I would like to read all of your ideas.
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