Starfinder Starship Operations Manual Announced

In July 2020, Paizo will be releasing the Starship Operations Manual hardcover for Starfinder. It includes new starship weapons and systems, new starship combat rules, and a whole bunch of new starships.

​

Blast off into space with the Starship Operations Manual, Starfinder's latest rules expansion hardcover! Outfit your beloved starship with more than 100 new starship weapons, expansion bays, alternate armors, and systems like drop pods, ramming prows, mines, ablative armor, virtual intelligences, and more. If you're looking for a new ride, you'll find profiles of leading starship manufacturers as well as statistics for more than 40 new starships found throughout the galaxy.

The Starship Operations Manual puts you at the controls, offering bold new ways to present starship combat, from dogfights in planetary atmospheres to daring chases through asteroid fields to pitched battles between huge fleets. New rules allow crewmembers to get even more out of their skills and feats, unlocking thrilling critical success results that add excitement to starship combat. Take your adventures into the great unknown and beyond with the Starfinder Starship Operations Manual!

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I rather wonder how Starfinder ship combat would seem if you actually had a computer program to track it, its own mini video game. It might not be so hard with something to do all the grunt calculation involved.

I hope they can get it to work out, because for a while I really enjoyed the ship design in Pathfinder, and I might yet enjoy it again in the future.

Speaking of computers, why aren't they doing all of the ship-to-ship fighting? They're faster and better than us at that sort of thing. Or they darn well should be in a universe with starships! (Ok, that would be boring as all get out for the players, but still...)

 

[Derren]

I rather wonder how Starfinder ship combat would seem if you actually had a computer program to track it, its own mini video game. It might not be so hard with something to do all the grunt calculation involved.

I hope they can get it to work out, because for a while I really enjoyed the ship design in Pathfinder, and I might yet enjoy it again in the future.

SFs ship combat is lacking not because of tracking all informations is hard or something like that. But because:
1. There is a clear winning strategy superior to everything else (Turret weapon + Shields) which is so strong that you can throw all encounter guidelines out of the window.
2. The ship combat is very rigid in how you are supposed to use it and falls apart quickly when you deviate from it (one PC ship vs. one enemy ship, no ship to ground combat at all. When you have a 200 ft. Kaju monster you, according to the rules, have to engage it on foot and not with your ship unless it has ship stats, then it can only be fought by starships).
3. Most roles on a starship roll the same check round after round as either this action is by far the best or because most of the time its the only action you can take.