Question on Technomancer Hacks for clarification

[someweirdguy]

There's a debate going on in a Starfinder Facebook group about the Technomancer Hack Empowered Weapon and Starship weapons. I'm going to copy/paste the original question, and I'll save my commentary for after others have answered.

Original question wrote:

Dumb Technomancer question. For their powers that affect weapons, such as the Empowered Weapon magic hack, can these be used to affect/modify starship weapons?

EDIT: This would be for Starfinder Society play so if you could cite a source or forum post by a developer or someone in authority, that would be helpful. Thanks!

[Deadmanwalking]

I'm just about positive this doesn't work. It probably runs up against the 'class abilities don't work in starship combat unless they specifically say so' thing, but even if not, I' don't think you can be said to 'wield' a Starship Weapon on a mechanical level. You certainly fire them. But wield them? No.

[NumenorKing]

In addition to Deadmanwalking's points:

CRB - Starships - Sidebar: Shooting Starships wrote:

Starship weapons and regular PC-level weapons work on different scales and aren’t meant to interact with each other. If characters choose to shoot at a starships with their laser rifles (or cast a Spell on it) while it is on the ground, the GM should treat the starships as an object (a particularly massive one, at that). At the GM’s discretion, if starships weapons are ever brought to bear against buildings or people, they deal Hit Point damage equal to 10 × their listed amount of damage. However, starships weapons are never precise enough to target a single individual (or even small group) and can, if the GM decides, be simulated as deadly hazards instead of weapon attacks.

Basically: no.

Even if it did work, 1d6 of damage on the player scale is still pretty negligible when firing against a Starship because it does not equate to 1d6 of Starship damage.

[Metaphysician]

I imagine this type of thing is what Paizo had in mind when writing the "unless otherwise stated" rule, moreso than stuff like "Can a drone crew a station".

[sabelonada]

Also in the discussion is whether or not a PC in the Gunner role “wields” a starship weapon. The argument for being that the control console is part of the weapon so by using it the player is wielding the starship weapon.

No, this isn’t my logic.

[sabelonada]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

I'm just about positive this doesn't work. It probably runs up against the 'class abilities don't work in starship combat unless they specifically say so' thing, but even if not, I' don't think you can be said to 'wield' a Starship Weapon on a mechanical level. You certainly fire them. But wield them? No.

I argued for hours that the fact the character does not physically touch the weapon means the character doesn’t wield it. There is one person who stubbornly holds that the controls are part of the weapon and using them meets the criteria for “wield” according to RAW.

[someweirdguy]

Looks like everyone here agees with my interpretation of the rules. As has been said, someone was trying to argue that you were affecting the weapon, and not the crew action, so you could do it because you were "wielding" the ship weapon. Pointing out that the word wield is never used in the Starship combat chapter did nothing to dissuade him, and he said he wouldn't change his opinion until there was official word. I just wanted to get more input from others before fully writing him off as a troll.

Hi, sabelonada. If you're who I think you are, I'm the one who suggested we just stop feeding the troll.