Will it be a significant disadvantage to play a tiny character?

[gyrfalcon]

I'm looking to play in my first Starfinders game, and am delighted by the variety of races available. My inclination is to play a Raxilite Biohacker. I'm very familiar with Pathfinder but just starting to learn about Starfinder.

Raxilites are Tiny, but their LFAN counts as a single Medium sized arm (in addition to my two Tiny arms). I see that Tiny doesn't change To Hit, Damage Dice, AC, Stealth. What it does do is:
* Help with getting into small spaces, and perhaps give better cover options (sounds somewhat helpful),
* Eliminate my reach (not a biggie for a ranged character) and
* Require me to buy Tiny weapons--which cost 2x as much as Small/Medium/Large/Huge weapons, as per:

Quote:

Weapons are built to be easily held and used by both Small and Medium creatures. Weapons can be built for use by smaller creatures but generally cost twice as much (since they require special miniaturization technology).

In practice, I assume that means over time I'll choose between:

1) Using a (Medium-sized) Small Arm, or
2) Paying 2x for a (Tiny) rifle

It's fine if my character idea isn't totally optimized...but I'm a bit nervous that I don't know just how big a disadvantage this will be over time. (How do Small Arms compare over time with sniper and longarms? How big a hit to Wealth By Level to pay 2x for any longarm or sniper rifle? Are there significant advantages I'm missing to being Tiny in Starfinder, that might make up for the penalties?)

Thanks!

[BigNorseWolf]

paying 2x for a tiny rifle isn't..THAT bad

pushing
chart
past
pretty
wolfy

Item level
1 Laser rifle, azimuth 425
6 Laser rifle, corona 4,650
9 Laser rifle, aphelion 14,300

because your income and costs are near exponential, doubling the cost of a weapon doesn't hurt that bad.

This is if you get actual credits as you adventure. Some of the APs are a little tight on cash. If you're expected to live off of found weapons, you're also kind of hosed because you won't find many tiny laser rifle bearing critters.

[gyrfalcon]

Is there a way to buy a second LFAN (or otherwise enhance it so that it counts as two arms instead of one)?

[Ascalaphus]

gyrfalcon wrote:

Is there a way to buy a second LFAN (or otherwise enhance it so that it counts as two arms instead of one)?

I don't think so. I got the impression that it's basically their way of using both tiny arms to simulate one normal-sized one.

If you want to use the big guns, don't try to be as small as possible :P

[Ixal]

Being tiny is actually quite an advantage except for the price increase. You can find cover everywhere and in the rules size is ignored in most places where you would expect it to matter (carrying capacity, grapple).

[avr]

I'm no expert on SF, but if you're doing the biohacker maybe you can rely on injections, for which the big difference is what you're injecting and not what weapon carries the injection.

[HammerJack]

avr wrote:

I'm no expert on SF, but if you're doing the biohacker maybe you can rely on injections, for which the big difference is what you're injecting and not what weapon carries the injection.

That only makes sense when using beneficial injections on your allies. When attacking with harmful injections, weapon damage is part of the equation. Now, biohackers do have some abilities available to them, as the level, to make small arms not terrible (and one handed melee weapons are already usable).