Designing Player Starships
Source GM Core pg. 229
Player starships must be built to provide the necessary tools to overcome the scene.
Necessary Tools: Make sure the starship can satisfy the victory conditions for the scene. If there's a need for Computers checks to obtain successes to end the encounter, there should be at least one role and associated action that enable the PCs to obtain those successes. To give the PCs more of an edge, you might decide to grant a starship bonus to Computers, which can assist the PCs and compensate for groups that might not have full mastery of one or more necessary skills.
Survivability: A player starship should generally skew to higher Hit Points if its AC is low and slightly lower Hit Points if the AC is higher. You'll want to compare these values to the damage output of the threats in your scene as detailed later in this chapter. A starship should be able to survive for multiple rounds in an encounter, unless the encounter is intended to be short or the PCs critically fail several key checks.
Action Variety: Create starship actions that use different skills and can be spread among different roles. Letting a pilot role focus on checks that involve Piloting is obvious, but you might combine that with an Escape the Area action that allows the science officer to perform the same action but using Computers instead. This lets multiple PCs contribute to the encounter.
Try to make sure that most actions, with the general exception of ranged gunner attacks, have multiple skills that a crew member can employ. Include some basic skills like Crafting and Athletics for some engineering tasks while also keeping Perception in mind as something most classes have training in. More esoteric skills, like Lore skills and skills related to magical traditions (Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion), should generally tie to a magic officer role or bespoke actions like scanning related cosmic events
Necessary Tools: Make sure the starship can satisfy the victory conditions for the scene. If there's a need for Computers checks to obtain successes to end the encounter, there should be at least one role and associated action that enable the PCs to obtain those successes. To give the PCs more of an edge, you might decide to grant a starship bonus to Computers, which can assist the PCs and compensate for groups that might not have full mastery of one or more necessary skills.
Survivability: A player starship should generally skew to higher Hit Points if its AC is low and slightly lower Hit Points if the AC is higher. You'll want to compare these values to the damage output of the threats in your scene as detailed later in this chapter. A starship should be able to survive for multiple rounds in an encounter, unless the encounter is intended to be short or the PCs critically fail several key checks.
Action Variety: Create starship actions that use different skills and can be spread among different roles. Letting a pilot role focus on checks that involve Piloting is obvious, but you might combine that with an Escape the Area action that allows the science officer to perform the same action but using Computers instead. This lets multiple PCs contribute to the encounter.
Try to make sure that most actions, with the general exception of ranged gunner attacks, have multiple skills that a crew member can employ. Include some basic skills like Crafting and Athletics for some engineering tasks while also keeping Perception in mind as something most classes have training in. More esoteric skills, like Lore skills and skills related to magical traditions (Arcana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion), should generally tie to a magic officer role or bespoke actions like scanning related cosmic events