I'm surprised you're running into that much trouble, your build seems fine. Good Dex + full BAB on your tracked target should be enough.
Deadly Aim is generally considered not worth it in these parts, but you're not even using it. Weapon Focus would help a bit, augmenting Dex when you can, etc.
I'd question whether you're not misreading or misusing something, because even a soldier wouldn't be much different short of a sharpshooting laser specialist : there aren't that many accuracy boosters to begin with. And I'm not sure what's happening with your action economy that you're that limited.
If you absolutely want to change classes, well you seem to have some - rather acccurate - ideas already.
Operative would indeed be much better than the Soldier at the sneaking and hacking bits, obviously. Maybe more focused on trick attacks than quadruple attacks, though.
I am playing an exo that is almost identical to yours. Get that laser sniper rifle and overcharge it every round. I average about as much damage as our operative but way behind the melee soldier.
I went a few levels without weapon focus but you don't really need it as an exo-mechanic. Our targeting computer gives us full BAB.
The character started with an 18 dex and has since added a +4 augmentation and most of the time I only miss on a 4 or less (at level 9).
I am a but confused about you not being able to hit anything, as well. Unless you are always trying to shoot through cover because you are trying to engage from extreme range when you can't get a position that gives you good fields of fire?
Ah. I'm afraid that a class change won't help much with that. Even a fully optimized soldier is going to have accuracy problems when the dice gods frown too hard.
Computers is all of one skill and one of your tricks so far (aren't you missing one, by the way ?), plus what the exocortex gave you for free. But that's up to you, really. Not liking a class's playstyle happens.
Now, you won't get hugely better at combat, but the gain should be noticeable.
Do keep something to do in ships.
The loss of skills might be painful when going soldier, while operative is the skill-monkeyest there is.
Beyond that, not sure what the question is though, as you seem to have a good handle on the system.
The question is basically, which class would fit the build concept for a sneaky hacker sniper better? And still be well effective in combat, soldier or operative?
Operative.
You probably don't need strong small arms. After all, trick attack is the operative's main source of damage. Better small arms help, but better armor helps more.
Maybe one decent small arm, and a few low level ones of varying types of damage.
The question is basically, which class would fit the build concept for a sneaky hacker sniper better? And still be well effective in combat, soldier or operative?
In my opinion, none. And I think it's what everyone points out. You won't get much more than what you already have because your playstyle is not much combat oriented.
Sneaky sniper = low damage. Nothing you can do about that. Damage comes from melee or heavy weapons. Operative don't do much damage. Soldiers do, but they don't use longarms.For me, if you don't start rethinking your weapon of choice, you won't get more damage.
Something extremely basic would be to go heavy weapons + unwieldy. Then, you will be a sneaky sniper... with an artillery laser :D
For example, you can go to 3d12 damage with an ice launcher of your level, which is a bit better than the 2d6 you get from a corona laser rifle.
You're aware that an operative trick attack is getting a flat 4d8 to damage on top of base damage, ontop of damage boosts from weapon specialization?
So, with a level 8 small arm, it's 4d8 + 2d6 + 4 (average 29).
The Mechanic with a level 8 heavy weapon does 3d12 + 2d6 + 8 (average 34.5).And the Mechanic is full bab, not the Operative.
And the Mechanic can shoot as a standard action without losing much damage output.
Are we playing the same game?
One move action but it stays on for the rest of the fight, short of specific conditions - or someone's death. And that's kind of why you grabbed overcharge : a better standard action attack.
Still, not every playstyle suits every player : if that's not your thing, changing is the right answer. No point in debating it.
As long as you don't expect to get suddenly crazy better at combat, since exocortex mechanics are already quite decent.
If Operative interests you more, go for it. It's gonna be different, but it might suit you better.
1 exocortex mechanics dont have heavy weapon proficiency.....2......they dont have full bab without the aid of an ability that costs a movement action. No, we clearly arent playing the same game.
At 7th level, Exocortex mechanics can gain a drone mod which gives them either Heavy Weapon or Advanced Melee proficiency. A single feat then gets them specialization damage to heavy weapons (which they could take at 3rd, 5th or 7th level). So a 8th level Exocortex mechanic with heavy weapon proficiency is totally reasonable, in my opinion.
At the end of the day, the damage numbers seem to come out reasonably close. Operatives lend themselves naturally to a more mobile playstyle. Because of its tracking, a Mechanic will tend to be more static. They'll either move to track, standard attack (or Overcharge), or prefer to full attack. These are different play styles and people are going to have different preferences.
Personally I'm considering an Exocortex Mechanic going power armor and heavy weapons, with multiple weapon types looted from his enemies, hopefully including unwieldy and wieldy weapons to use the better depending on action economy. Throw in a computer interface from the armory and have the computer toss some explosive rounds (admittedly low save DC, and thus low damage) at no action cost.
Operatives are also very good at their play style as well.
I wouldn't worry so much over Damage Per Attack and all that other fiddly crap, as at the end of the day that means maybe it takes one more attack to down a baddy...MAYBE.
What the real issue is in playing a sniper however is targets of opportunity. If you're hiding 300+ feet off from the rest of combat sniping people, most bad guys aren't going to take the time to find you, run to you, or waste a shot at that range firing at you, meaning they're going to turn on an ally that isn't 300+ feet off, meaning someone is getting double-teamed or worse. If you can constantly keep the kill tally up you can mitigate this but sniper's lose the ability to "one-shot, one-kill" at about CR 2 foes, so you're going to leave an ally getting beat up. This is no bueno.
I have a player who constantly wants to play stealth-snipers not realizing what he is doing to the rest of the group, when he is no longer keeping his share of bad guys busy. Sniping in games with tubs of hit points like Starfinder only work in the opening volley of combat and only if the entire team can take advantage of it.
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Yeah, sniping is always hard - at best - no matter the game. It's not even a system thing, it's just the concept of it.
Either the encounter is built around it, usually because it's an ambush set up by the PCs, or it's not at all.
There's not much room for middle ground.
With snipers in the party you might find yourself in a countersniping scenario, maybe.
Longarm range is enough if you want to stay far from the front-line and still be a part of the game. With the right weapons, that's already eighty to a bit over a hundred feet, usually more than enough.
Snipe range is superfluous almost anytime you're not 100% in control of the circumstances - which makes sense.
It's an interesting option to have, for sure, but it's much too conditional to rely too heavily on.
Good gunner with a sniping option ? Nice. "Pure" sniper ? I'd advise against it, strongly.
Which suits both the Operative, baseline, and the Mechanic with some investment - but more damage potential, amusingly. To get back to the topic.
At the end of the day, the damage numbers seem to come out reasonably close.
Not at all if you want my opinion. The maximum damage an Operative can do is the minimum expected damage from a Mechanic.
Roughly, if stars are aligned (you have a full round action, you can position yourself properly with a move action, your weapon is loaded, the enemy is preferably not already flat footed, you're not prone, etc...) the Operative can do one single attack with numbers close (and not even equivalent) to a Mechanic. I'm ok, it doesn't ask for a big star alignment, but if you have just a single grain of sand somewhere, your damage potential drops to a third.If you look at the Mechanic, there is no single situation where he won't be able to dish out a proper amount of damage. If he has a move action, then he's a bit ahead of the Operative. And now, you can start improving that: The Mechanic can full attack, the Mechanic can use area of effect weapons, the Mechanic can further improve his weapon through Miracle Worker, the Mechanic can use Overcharge on allies' weapons...
The thing is, for stars to be aligned with the Mechanic, you need a bit more planning (Operative is just hyper easy to play, the Mechanic is not). But you can get +50% damage output if you manage to get in the proper situation.
So, no, there is no way you can consider an Operative to be competitive with a Mechanic in terms of combat efficiency.
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Interestingly I have made a hacky mechanic (this character). Funny thing about the hacking is that this character was so good at hacking that the hacker operative that I played with got jealous because I was a better hacker. SUCK IT OPERATIVES! Sorry I had to get that out there.
Also...I have made a sniper and built with the soldier class. I'll scrounge around for it but I have given advice before on building a sniper. The summary at this point is don't unless you are dedicated to the concept for the character and okay with dealing decent damage most of the time, and great damage occasionally. (The great damage comes from my soldier taking 'Technomatic Dabbler' and picking up the ability to cast supercharge weapon. Interestingly, as a one turn build up, Supercharge Weapon and Improved Overcharge would add +6d6 to the weapon damage if you hit.)
All-in-all the changes to make to your character (in my opinion) would be to ditch improved initiative (I've never been a fan, and in SF it is even less important) and pick up weapon focus. Also, I don't know where you put your personal augmentations, but they should be +4 Dex, +2 Int. By my calculations, at level 8 (with the level 5 ability boosts I'm pretty sure you did) you should have...
11 Str
23 Dex
12 Con
20 Int
12 Wis
8 Cha
The augmentation with the weapon focus will bring your to-hit to +13 (+15 when you are combat tracking). Your Computers bonus should be about +20 (at a range to hack of 40ft no less, or 20ft if you hack with your exocortex AND are still fighting at a +13 to hit while having full actions in combat).
The key thing that is important to remember is that if your fellow party members are melee, you will never be able to match their damage as long as you play a ranged character. If they are also ranged characters and doing a little more damage than you, take solace in the fact that you can probably do almost any skills short of face skills better than them.
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At the end of the day, the damage numbers seem to come out reasonably close.Not at all if you want my opinion.
At 8th level, making the trick attack is basically automatic, which means the target counts as flat-footed, and if the operative wants, flat-footed for the entire party if they hit. Assuming the party includes no other way to make target flat-footed (i.e. Envoy), you can associate any misses that are turned into hits due to flat-footed as coming from the Operative. They've increased the party's damage output.
If they're not making them flat-footed, you should give them the benefit of their trick attack exploit replacements, such as bleeding shot. I mean, if the Mechanic is using overcharge, why can't the operative use bleeding shot, which adds 8 (or more if it lasts round to round) bleed damage?
In addition, the Operative can wield a ranged weapon in one hand, and a melee weapon in other, allowing for AoOs while basically doing identical damage.
As far as I can tell, for 3d12 damage, your mechanic example must be using the level 9 White Star Conqueror plasma weapon (only weapon that does 3d12 anywhere near level 8), so for a fair comparison we should use a level 9 small arm, say the level 9 laser pistol.
3d4 (laser pistol, level 9) +4d8 (trick)+4 (spec) + 8 (bleeding shot exploit) = 37.5 avg (after 1 round)
or if there's no other source of flat-footed
3d4 (laser pistol) +4d8 (trick)+4 (spec) = 29.5 avg
plus
2.25 to 3.75 from other players increased chance to hit
for 31.75 to 33.25
I get that from a 50% chance to be flat footed (i.e. you hit), 10% more chance to-hit for 3-5 other players. Assuming a laser rifle for everyone else, that is 0.5 times 3 to 5 times 2d6+8 (15 avg) times 0.1, so an extra 2.25 to 3.75 expected damage, although its really much more bursty than that. Actual combat capable characters will increase that number. That of course assumes everyone shoots at the same target. In actual play, the benefits will vary alot based on situation, but it will happen, and will turn some misses into hits.
So now we compare to the Mechanic with the White Star Conquerer plasma weapon.
3d12 + 2d6 + 8 = 34.5
Now if the stars align, and there is an ally next to you, you can use your move action to overcharge their weapon as well, for another 2d6, but again effectiveness will very there.
Anyways, those look to be in the ballpark of each other to me. Especially when compared to say, a Technomancer or Mystic just firing a rifle at 15 average damage (with -2 to hit comparatively speaking).