Is there any way to have more than one ship in Starfinder?

Question

This question stems from How much does a spaceship cost? and is a side question that came up in discussion there.

I know that you build, upgrade, or replace your ship with build points.

However, that seems limiting and non-economic. I'm not looking for a solution that would involve splitting the build points into a few useless rowboats. I can figure out how to build a bunch of ships that are useless compared to my level on my own, thank you.

I am looking for any other way to acquire multiple ships.

Is there any monetary way to control more than one ship? Any feats or other acquired abilities that let you control more than one ship? Can you use the leadership feat to control the captains of other ships? Could one, eventually, control a fleet?

Of the possible solutions, it seems to me that the Leadership feat might be the only way but that too is limiting unless you can cascade it (you control two captains who control two captains each, etc.).

Answer 1

There are detailed rules for parties with multiple ships now that the Starfinder Starship Operations Manual is available.

The previous answers to this question are well done, and they were accurate; however, they have been overcome by events with the Fall 2020 publication of the Starfinder Starship Operations Manual. This rules expansion contains a section on what is called "Squadron Play," in which the party is allowed to have as many as one starship per character. It contains detailed rules on how to balance the tiers of multiple ships, upgrade them whenever APL increases, and how to create "HQ ships"--large ships in which smaller ships can dock so that the players can interact face-to-face, travel long distances together, spend down time, etc.

In addition to rules on building and balancing multiple ships for a single party, the section also details new crew actions designed for cooperation between multiple ships in combat, such as flanking and flying cover for a wing man. There are also new starship upgrade systems designed for multiship parties, including a system that allows multiple ships to fuse together into a single large ship and break apart again into the constituent ships.

The book also has a section on armada combat, which is basically mass starship combat in which each player can control entire units of ships. Armada combat is for specific engagements in which the player characters find themselves taking military leadership roles, not for long term campaign play--which I believe is the kind of multi-ship party the original question was asking about.

Answer 2

The rules don't spell it out but they provide rules for balancing out the PC's have multiple ships on page 326 of the core rulebook.

If the PCs have more than one starship, use the highest-tier ship’s tier as a base and add 1 to this value for each additional starship within at least 2 tiers of that starship. If none are within 2 tiers, add up the tiers of all the additional starships and add 1 to the base value if the total is equals or exceeds the base starship’s tier. Use this modified value when determining the encounter’s difficulty.

As long as their math adds up that the combined tier of all ships is less than their APL, I feel it's just fine to let them build another ship. The only credit cost I would apply would be for hiring the additional crew they might need to operate at full capacity.

I.E. If the party went from level 2 to level 3 and you start discussing upgrading their tier 2 ship but they say "Nah, we want to have 2 ships instead", I'd let them build another tier 2 ship since by the rules mentioned above, 2 tier 2 ships are effectively tier 3. Alternatively, you could say they can only build their second ship to tier 1 or 1/2 to make it less appealing since, by rules, they're still effectively a tier 3 ship when combined.

Answer 3

No, there isn't

The rules published so far allows the PCs to only own one ship, and every mention of the party's starship is on singular (their starship). This suggests they can only own one starship at one time.

As the PCs go on adventures and gain experience, they need an increasingly powerful starship to face tougher challenges. When the characters’ Average Party Level increases, so does the tier of their starship. The PCs receive a number of Build Points equal to the Build Points listed for their starship’s new tier – those listed for its previous tier, which they can use to upgrade their starship.

Starships have no price because their power is relative to the party's level, a single BP at later levels is worth more than the same BP at earlier levels, because more (and stronger) options are available.

Personally, I believe the starship rules are somewhat simple in design, which allows for easy customization and creation of new rules. This means that we will soon see more rules about them.

House Ruling

However, this doesn't mean the GM could not work something out with the players, like splitting the BP or allowing them to command/lead a few NPCs that have their own starships (but not owned by the players). Splitting BP doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but it's something to consider because even if they have two starships, the PCs are still limited in number and couldn't possibly fully operate both starships without the help of NPCs (GM territory).

If you wish, you could make up a price based on the starship tier and BP points. First, do notice that starships get a big upgrade to their Hull every four tier increments (at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16 and 20th), at the same time they get HP increments, which we should call it rank upgrades to make it easier to understand. Then you can price it like 1k credits multiplied by the ship's rank and BP. So a rank 1 starship's BP would be worth 1k credits, while a rank 2 starship's BP is worth 2k credits, and so on. A few examples:

• Tier 1 starships (rank 1): 55k credits;
• Tier 4 starships (rank 2): 230k credits;
• Tier 8 starships (rank 3): 615k credits;
• Tier 12 starships (rank 4): 1,400k credits;
• Tier 16 starships (rank 5): 3,000k credits.
• Tier 20 starships (rank 6): 6,000k credits.

A common starfinder land vehicle costs around 1k credits, while a hovering vehicle costs around 15k credits. These prices are similar to starship costs in Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars: Edge of Empire system. This creates starships with comparable prices with anything short of dreadnaughts and similarly overpriced star wars ships.

But despite the name and size, a starfinder dreadnaught has a 500 crew limit, while a star wars dreadnaught has a crew limit anywhere between 12,000 and 60,000. Those are much larger ships really, and the prices reflect that difference.