Charges and Damage

[KahlessNestor]

I sat down to play my first game of Starfinder yesterday. It was the first scheduled game in our Society, though some had played at GenCon.

I played a Vesk soldier with an azimuth artillery laser, damage 1d10, charges 20, usage 2. I was told that because because it is usage 2 and shoots 2 charges, it is actually 1d10 per charge, so each shot was actually 2d10 of damage. I hadn't recalled that rule, but admittedly I had to read through the rules rather quickly to be ready and could have missed it, and they had played at GenCon and I hadn't. But I went back and scoured the weapons section and couldn't find anything that says that.

Were they wrong? Should I be doing only 1d10 damage instead of 2d10 when standard action firinh with usage 2?

[Darkling36]

Yes, they're wrong. The usage represents that some weapons draw more power, shoot in burst, or such. That artillery laser deals more damage than say a laser pistol, but also takes more power to do so. The damage listed is per attack not per charge.

Otherwise why would anyone use say a paragon reaction cannon for 12d10 to a single target when they could use a blue star plasma cannon to deal 80d10 in a 10' explosion. Fun though that could be :)

[KahlessNestor]

Thanks. Yeah, it seemed weird to me when I couldn't find anything.

[Claxon]

Yeah, the azimuth atrillery laser deals 1d10 per shot. It holds 20 charges, and it uses 2 charges per shot. So each charge deals "1d5" essentially. And you only get 10 shots.