Over time you will want at minimum long arms and possibly heavy weapon if not using the hover drone.
The damage increase from both the weapon and the specialization over time are just huge boost over small arms. Small arms are fine to run with early on when the gap is small but it is something you will outgrow at some point and it will be very worth swapping to long arms.
One nice thing with drones is you can rebuild them every time you level up so its very possible to try something and if it winds up not working out the way you want next time you level scrap it and rebuild it differently.
I honestly think long run paizo may want to rethink the half effectiveness on small arms specialization. As it stands I think the lower damage on pistols is already incentive enough to encourage people to use bigger weapons if they can. But to double dip penalties on them seems like it almost excessively pushed people towards long arms maybe faster than they would want to otherwise.
One thing to note if you are going drone mechanic you could in theory almost do both have the drone pack the big gun and you can stick to small arms to save feats for other stuff. But as the previous poster said one issue mechanics have is you tend not to do a lot of full attacking as you are trying to manage both yourself and your drone.
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I honestly think long run paizo may want to rethink the half effectiveness on small arms specialization. As it stands I think the lower damage on pistols is already incentive enough to encourage people to use bigger weapons if they can. But to double dip penalties on them seems like it almost excessively pushed people towards long arms maybe faster than they would want to otherwise.
I don't think they're likely too. Beyond the boost that would be to Operatives, who don't need it, pistols have some advantages that they pay for with their lower damage. They only use one hand, which is far from minor with changing grip now being a swift action. They take fewer feats for most classes, which will only increase in importance as more feats become available. And they weigh significantly less, which is important for any low str character or one wanting to carry a variety of options.
If you are going to dip 1 level consider going for 3 levels if you are going melee, at 3 you can get melee striker which is +.5 your strength bonus to damage.
The more I look at it I think I might go 1 level in soldier into bombard,blitz, or sniper. The extra prof and free grenade will be awesome, even if just a smoke grenade at later levels for bombard would be fun/interesting
Smoke grenades are fairly cheap, justifying actually buying them (unlike basically every other grenade). I'd suggest Blitz, Sharpshoot, or Arcane Assailant instead of Bombard.
The more I look at it I think I might go 1 level in soldier into bombard,blitz, or sniper. The extra prof and free grenade will be awesome, even if just a smoke grenade at later levels for bombard would be fun/interesting
Actually if you want free grenades there is a mechanic trick that lets you rig weapons/tech stuff you acquire as an impromptu grenade. The bombard one is similar and both are ilevel equal to your class level so its not a great dip other than for free smoke grenades if you 1 level dip bombard.
The extra proficiencies are really nice though so could still be worth it but you may want to pick a different spec since mechanics can easily do the free grenade stuff themselves. Basically sellback on weapons you loot is terrible anyway so very easy to pick up some extra pistols to rig and throw as needed.
Actually it's just a mechanic trick you can take at level 2 that allows making powered weapons into grenades of the items level. There's no restriction that I can see dependent on you mechanic level.
19 of them to be exact ...
You are correct mechanic trick is on weapon level soldiers is on their soldier level.
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Actually it's just a mechanic trick you can take at level 2 that allows making powered weapons into grenades of the items level. There's no restriction that I can see dependent on you mechanic level.
Of course, if at level 2 you turn the level 19 artillery laser into a grenade then please know the soldier will probably toss you bodily into each group of enemies from now on. And that they are probably in the right of it.
I can just see it now,
GM: Bad guy approaches, what do you do?
Player 1: I grab my pistol and shoot him
GM: You search frantically for your pistol... it's not there
Yoski in the party: I huck the laser pistol I lifted earlier at the guys face!
Player 1: I HATE you...
Yoski: Eh it was old anyway, I'll pick you up a new one when we get to town
Player 1: The beginning of my life of crime...
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Well in general the mechanic probably if they are level 2 not going to chose to rig the 18 heavy laser as a grenade because I am pretty sure they would find a way to wield it and use it normally instead.
Its mostly for taking random weapons like pistols off people you fight/kill and getting some use out of them as selling them is generally not worthwhile.