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No. They aren't identical small arms.
I expect the requirement for identical weapons is to avoid averaging damage and avoiding exactly this type of question.
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Attacks made in automatic mode can't be critical hits.
In addition to making ranged attacks normally, a weapon with this special property can fire in fully automatic Mode. No action is required to toggle a weapon between making normal ranged attacks and using automatic Mode.
When you make a full attack with a weapon in automatic Mode, you can attack in a cone with a range of half the weapon’s range increment. This uses all the weapon’s remaining ammunition. Roll one attack against each target in the cone, starting with those closest to you. Attacks made with a weapon in automatic Mode can’t score critical hits. Roll damage only once, and apply it to all targets struck. Each attack against an individual creature in the cone uses up the same amount of ammunition or charges as taking two shots, and once you no longer have enough ammunition to attack another target, you stop making attacks.
For example, if you were using a Tactical X-gen gun with 27 rounds remaining, you would target the nearest 6 creatures in the cone and use up all 27 rounds.
If more than one creature is equidistant and you don’t have enough cartridges remaining to shoot at all equidistant creatures, determine randomly which one you target. You can’t avoid shooting at allies in the cone, nor can you shoot any creature more than once, even if you have enough cartridges to fire more shots than you have targets. Attacks in automatic Mode take the same penalties as other full attacks.
Aside from critical effect fusions, I'm not sure what else there is to effect the enemy.
But yeah, a GM could definitely fall back on "They're not identical".
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There is an augment to be able to critically hit on automatic attacks.
Additionally, there are a lot of fusions to account for that aren't critical effects.
There are damage type changing fusions to account for.
The cruel fusion takes effect on every hit. Fusions like axiomatic or holy that can prevent resistances from being effective would be relevant. For the invigorating fusion, you would need to figure out which weapon you dropped a target with. Nullifying takes effect on every hit. If you were using fusillade with needleguns, and only one of them had a potent fusion, it would raise questions.
If only one weapon had selective, you'd need a houserule for reducing the damage against your friend, instead of not attacking them at all. If only one weapon had trailblazer, they might not all have the same attack modifier in adverse conditions.
I'm pretty sure they all need the same fusions for the feat to work. As Hammerjack points out, they could all be doing wildly different damage types if they had different fusions.
As a houserule, to make things less expensive, I would suggest letting any shared fusions apply on a fusillade, and any other mismatched fusions being inactive/ignored for the automatic attack.
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Niche feat for a skittermander operative?
You have your three normal weapons that you switch between for trick attacking vs. resistance, then you quick draw three more of one to shoot a cone vs a horde of enemies?
I suppose it's technically only one feat instead of weapon proficiency longarms + versatile specialization, but... it's still pretty bad.
I'm quite certain that weapons with different fusions aren't identical. There are plenty of ways that someone could add houserules around fusillade to make it more flexible (Averaging damage, splitting damage types, random roll to determine which pistol's damage type and effects apply, and more).
As for why you would take fusillade? I think the entire list of reasons is "because you think it's cool." It is not generally going to be a mechanically strong option. You may occasionally find a scenario where it's useful, but will likely never find one where it's the most powerful way of doing what it does.
The quickdraw idea there doesn't work so well, though, since you can't full attack, fusillade, or trick attack on a round that you use quickdraw.
Personally I think its arbitrarily limiting to rule that just because you have different fusions on your pistols they are not identical. There would be little point outside using this feat to have that many then. I do however agree that it should be handled as if they weapon in question had multiple crit affect fusions. I would ask my player to choose which affect is the primary each time it was used. This gives choice and does not in anyway break anything balance wise. its sort of a gray area what the intended function / rules are for this but I don't think the above is in anyway threatens the game from a balance perspective.
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With an augmentation fusillade can crit, so they do need to be considered.
As for weapons not being identical with different fusions, I don't see how it's arbitrary at all. This thread is about how to handle the mechanical differences in those weapons. If those differences are there, and this thread is needed, then they aren't identical. The way fusillade was written relies on there being no difference between shots from the different weapons.
Now, I am not saying that it would be game breaking and overpowered to allow fusillade to work with non-identical weapons, but that's a second question.
Question 1 (The rules question): How do weapons that are no longer identical work with fusillade?
Answer 1 (The rules answer): They don't, because the feat is not usable in that way.
Question 2 (The advice question): How can I alter the rules of fusillade so that it is less limiting, and more fun for my players?
Answer 2 is where things get varied and interesting. You can use a random roll for crit effects (assuming the proper augmentation to make a crit possible) and for any other non-crit rider effects any of the weapons carry. You could either randomly determine energy type with a 1d4, where they don't match, or treat it as a split damage type attack. While you're modifying rules, you could even use totally different pistols and use either an average, or the 1d4 method to determine damage die on each target.
I would never say that people shouldnt use their favorite answers to Question 2 at their table, I would even agree that it would be better for the game to not use the offical rules on this feat, but none of the answers to Question 2 are part of the answer to Question 1.
Well, I think asking "what exactly does 'identical' mean?" in this case is appropriate.
In the example provided it only seems to refer to the firearm model.
If the firearms all have to be identical, including any fusions, it could be even more limiting and make the feat even worse than I thought it was.
Purchasing 4 guns is expensive. You probably have to purchase them at 3 or more level behind your character level. If you also have to keep the fusions the same on all 4 of them...well basically you're buying a situational money pit. You're probably better to just spend money on grenades.
If you don't account for fusions, you could have 4 pistols that have different damage types, different dr/resist interactions, different crit effects, different rider effects and a different chance to hit (if trailblazer cones into play). Only a subest of these could be forced to target allies in the cone, because of Selective. I can't see how those could be considered identical.
I don't disagree that there are big problems with fusillade, with the cost of upgrading weapons. But fusillade being a bad implementation doesn't mean the rules are intended to be different, so that fusillade becomes better. It just means your game may be better by changing the rules.
As it is, it is not possible to handle the fusion combinations you could put on different pistols without houseruling something.
Well, I think asking "what exactly does 'identical' mean?" in this case is appropriate.
In the example provided it only seems to refer to the firearm model.
If the firearms all have to be identical, including any fusions, it could be even more limiting and make the feat even worse than I thought it was.
Purchasing 4 guns is expensive. You probably have to purchase them at 3 or more level behind your character level. If you also have to keep the fusions the same on all 4 of them...well basically you're buying a situational money pit. You're probably better to just spend money on grenades.
Exactly what I was referring too. I find it hard to believe the intent was the interpretation of each weapon beyond its model has to be identical with fusions, mods and all. RAW vs RAI is what we find ourselves in. This is just one of the many examples were the rules are a bit to vague or fail to address one of the many possible interactions that come up.
A completely strict reading of the rules does back up the strictest interpretation but doing so takes that feat from situational but thematically cool to just straight terrible. I don't believe thats the way id rule it at my table.
If you don't account for fusions, you could have 4 pistols that have different damage types, different dr/resist interactions, different crit effects, different rider effects and a different chance to hit (if trailblazer cones into play). Only a subest of these could be forced to target allies in the cone, because of Selective. I can't see how those could be considered identical.
To me I just always assumed you chose which affect / fusion to use just like you would for multiple crit affects but the rules dont address it.
If you don't account for fusions, you could have 4 pistols that have different damage types, different dr/resist interactions, different crit effects, different rider effects and a different chance to hit (if trailblazer cones into play). Only a subest of these could be forced to target allies in the cone, because of Selective. I can't see how those could be considered identical.To me I just always assumed you chose which affect / fusion to use just like you would for multiple crit affects but the rules dont address it.
That seems like a fine way to handle it. The distinction I'm drawing is that it is your rule, and not Paizo's rule. That isn't a bad thing, and doesn't mean people shouldnt use it. It does mean that I can't say "this is how it works" because it's the kind of ruling people should talk to their gm about, not the kind of rule they should assume would be in place, until they hear otherwise.
EDIT: To clarify, the reason I think that this distinction is important enough to state and restate is that I don't want someone to look up these threads in the future and mistake any of our answers to "what rule would I use to make this work?" for an official rule, and then show up to their first game with a new group or a random SFS table with 4 pistols and a GM that has a different ruling, expecting things to work in a way they won't at that table.