By rules as written, weapon critical effects happen when you score a critical hit, so would not happen against undead, constructs, etc.
By "rules as they should have been" and how my group has rolled since third edition, undead, constructs and such still have joints and other physical structural weak points. Rather than being immune to criticals they should have either "fortification" (percent chance to ignore crits), or an effective KAC/EAC of +5 against critical hits. The only things that should be outright /immune/ to critical hits should be amorphous and incorporeal entities, like oozes.
Fuzzy is correct - immunity to critical hits means the critical hit functionally does not happen, no matter how bizarre this might seem. An undead with immunity to critical hits does not catch on fire from critical burn, does not "bounce" electricity from critical arc, does not fall down to critical knockdown, and so on.
It's a lot like how PF rogue's sneak attack had rider effects that only functioned if the sneak attack dealt damage. Think of it as, "It doesn't matter how hard you stab someone in the kidney if their skin is too tough to break or they immediately heal afterward."
Everybody's correct about the rules, and the rules are wonky.
You could have a wood elemental, with vulnerability to fire, and never set it on fire with a crit due to it being an elemental.
And you could have a golem made out of rocks or adamantium who ignites and gets hurt (DR only), while a robot made of adamantium (w/ Hardness instead of DR) ignites, but is generally unhurt by that.
It can be cool to houserule here, especially in a looser game, but note there are other mechanics that (supposedly) balance these factors.
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Ummm, guys, undead aren't immune to critical hits in Starfinder.
UNDEAD IMMUNITIES (EX)
Undead are immune to the following effects, unless the effect specifies it works against undead creatures.
* Bleed, death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, and stunning.
* Ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, exhaustion, fatigue, negative levels, and nonlethal damage.
* Any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect
works on objects or is harmless).
Constructs aren't generally immune either. The only types that are immune to critical hits are elementals, oozes, swarms, and incorporeal creatures.
The argument is the oozes don't have vital organs and other things that cause them to take more damage from being criticaled, and swarms are collections of tiny creatures so you're not really damaging the swarm by hitting one of it. Elementals are a strange one but they're generally made of a substance that is immune to vital organs (in the same way that an ooze is, yes I recognize this is weird for things like wood elementals and for things that particular elemental would be vulnerable to.) Same re: incorporeal.
Starfinder Design Lead
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Critical Hit effects, right-hand column page 183 Core Rulebook, makes it clear critical hit effects are part of a critical hit.
"Some weapons have an additional effect that applies when you score critical hit."
So if a creature is immune to critical hits, it is immune to critical hit effects, as the name would suggest.