Ranged attack spells and objects

[Saint_Yin]

Bit of a simple question. Ranged attacks deal half damage to objects before reducing from hardness. Elemental spells deal half damage to objects before reducing from hardness. Source

If you cast a ranged spell, does it deal a measly 1/4 damage to objects before hardness? Alternatively, if you use a ranged attack that deals only elemental damage, does it get reduced to 1/4, or 1/2? Does the similarity in wording mean it doesn't stack?

[voideternal]

Ranged weapon attacks do half damage to objects. I believe rays are not weapons. I may be wrong.

To highlight my point, the feat Weapon Focus says:

Weapon Focus wrote:

Choose one type of weapon. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple (or ray, if you are a spellcaster) as your weapon for the purposes of this feat.

We can see from the text that rays normally do not count as weapons, but they are specifically allowed as an exception specifically for this feat.

Edit. Never mind, I think I'm wrong according to this FAQ.

[Nefreet]

Indeed. It's a combination of rules that most people don't think about. Half damage for ranged, half damage for elemental (though that 2nd part is subject to GM discretion, such as Scorching Ray against something particularly susceptible to fire damage).