u/SirMayday1

I'm developing a TTRPG adaptation of a popular video game franchise and, in the interest of keeping true to the source material, I want to break out of the d20 mold. Problem is, that's the only system I've played; even pre-2000, I only ever played TSR's AD&D and ALTERNITY, which are fundamentally precursors to the turn-of-the-millennium d20 system and its WotC successors.

So, what are some core mechanics others have enjoyed over the years? What made those mechanics enjoyable? I'm leaning toward essentially replacing the d20 with 3d6 to reduce the impact of luck on task resolution, which I think is fine, but I don't want to leave it at 'fine' when 'great' might be a reddit post away.

The Deep Space Encounter update has me breathing new life into my army of alts and my Romulan science toon is pretty out of date. I'd like to put him in something more modern, but not necessarily cutting edge. I'm looking for a ship that:

1. Is a T6 warbird...
2. ...with a secondary deflector slot...
3. ...without a hangar bay...
4. ...that is good for space magic...
5. ...but doesn't rely on a bunch of active console spam...
6. ...and can be had for a T6 coupon or a pre-2020 Event Campaign reward (that I was shocked I still had).

The character is an alt that'll mostly just run a few DSEs a day, so I'm not looking to sink a bunch of resources into chasing DPS or meeting the meta, just a fun space wizard that keeps the Romulan feel. I think I've got it more or less narrowed down to the T6 Temporal Warbird (the... newer R'Mor) or T6 Dyson Science Destroyer. Am I missing something, and even if not, between the two, which is better for using space magic as its main mode of attack?

EDIT: Thanks for the quick replies! Is there some sort of tool I'm overlooking that I should've used to find the info myself (besides just browsing the wiki), or am I just among folks who really know what's out there?

Once or twice on Strange New Worlds, Pike wore and more conservative, updated version of the lime green command tunic Kirk wore in about half of the Original Series episodes. That newer variant hasn't made its way to STO yet, right? I'd like to update my TOS toon's look with what I consider the sharper looking option, but I don't think that's possible.

I'm starting up my first ever Starfinder campaign in a couple of weeks and a player asked if astrazoans can shapechange into tiny ancestries, which did not exist when the astrazoan ancestry was written but of which two examples--novians and raxilites--have been added since. Rules-as-written, the answer seems a simple 'no' (since those ancestries aren't small, medium, or large), but should that be taken as an intentional limitation on the trait or simply an artifact from when the ancestry was written?