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Unwieldy weapons are a holdover from Starfinder 1e, and do not make sense for the 2e actions mechanic.
For melee weapons, the restrictions on them are too severe for 2e, especially when you consider that things like an archaic maul do not have that trait. For the unwieldy melee weapons (doshka and neural lash) and for the assassin’s rifle, the weapons seem balanced without the drawbacks of the unwieldy trait. For weapons with the automatic and area traits, the 2e actions mechanic already does what the 1e unwieldy trait did, because area fire and auto fire both are 2 action activities. A 2 action activity can’t be done more that once on your 3 action turn, and can’t be used as a reaction (you would need a special action or the like that let you do that).
That being said, one could make a some new traits that encompassed some of the ideas behind the unwieldy trait, and that might let one make some very cool, yet balanced weapons. For example, unwieldy weapons in 2e could be the opposite of agile, and impose a an extra -1 to attacks after the first one in a round, or could they impose clumsy 1 when wielding the weapon (and so giant totem barbarians would be wielding unwieldy weapons).
One could also make a cool down trait.
In any case, weapons that have these traits should be a bit better than weapons without the traits. An unwieldy doshka should also have something like a 'massive' trait, that gives the weapon a +2 bonus to damage, or the like.
With a little digging, it seems that the Neural Lash and Doshko are balanced around the ancestries that are most likely to be using them.
With regards to the Neural Lash, the Unwieldy trait is ignored by anyone with telepathy, as stated on page 176 of the Starfinder 2e Playtest PDF under the Thought trait entry.
"Thought: Weapons with this trait are living creatures that can be communicated with using telepathy. When you wield this weapon and are capable of communicating with it, you can ignore any of the other traits the weapon normally has; this only applies to the other traits listed in the weapon entry, not traits the weapon or actions receive from the use of other abilities or effects. If you can communicate with this weapon, your proficiency with this weapon is equal to your proficiency with simple weapons."
As far as the Doshko is concerned, if I remember clearly, the Vesk trait tends to lock the weapon behind Vesk Weapon Familiarity according to Pathfinder 2 weapons availability/proficiency rules, and Vesk ancestry feats like Tear Wound build upon their damage output per attack. I'm guessing the Unwieldy trait is being used as a limiter in this case.
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I fully agree with this, and I'm glad someone made a thread to discuss this. Unwieldy is just an ugly trait all around, focusing entirely on making a weapon fit as awkwardly into 2e's smooth action system as possible. So uninteractive is this trait that many classes' mechanics frequently have to override this restriction, such as with the Sniper Operative's enhanced exploit or the Soldier's many class features and feats. It's a terrible trait to have on a weapon as a martial class, because being allowed to Strike only once a round is a massive restriction that isn't properly reflected in those weapons' power, and while normally this wouldn't be a problem on a simple weapon casters could use for their third action, currently no simple unwieldy weapons exist.
Most of all, though, what annoys me about the unwieldy trait is just how profoundly unnecessary it is: there's already a mechanic that prevents us from firing guns lots of times in a round, and that's reloading. If you really want to make a gun cumbersome to use, just give it a 1-round magazine and a reload value of at least 1 (and if you do, that gun better be good when it fires). As for melee weapons, I see no reason to impose this restriction when a) as the OP mentions, no such limitation exists for equivalently heavy weapons in Pathfinder, and b) melee weapons are already going to be limited in their usage in Starfinder due to most combats happening at range. Unwieldy is simply not a trait I think needs to exist in 2e in any way, shape, or form.
But depending on how one views it the Archaic trait does nothing outside of one or two things in the Playtest and until Paizo makes a ruling upon the fact the trait mentions they are worst at dealing with modern (Starfinder) armor then yeah Unwieldly does nothing but even if the Archaic weapons deal -2 damage against people wearing modern (Starfinder) armor, I'd rather use a Greataxe over a Doshko which deals d12 Unwieldy but is Advanced so it is super difficult to get outside of being a Vesk.
Barbarians and Magus pretty much solve any drawback Archaic weapons could have outside of flat out dealing half-damage and if that is the case compatibility would be thrown out of the window and once again not possible.
One could also make a cool down trait.
From the description of the trait, that is quite literally what the Unwieldy trait represents.
The benefit being that it will be a familiar name to those coming from SF1. And with approximately similar results.
I am also seeing the parallels between Unwieldy and Flourish. One is attached to the weapon, the other is attached to the action.
And there are also actions with the Flourish trait that take more than 1 action to use.
Sudden Charge
Bashing Charge
Penetrating Projectile
Drifter's Juke
Slayer's Strike
The difference with Flourish that I can see is that Flourish will lock out using other 1-action actions that also have the Flourish trait.
One could also make a cool down trait.From the description of the trait, that is quite literally what the Unwieldy trait represents.
The benefit being that it will be a familiar name to those coming from SF1. And with approximately similar results.
I am also seeing the parallels between Unwieldy and Flourish. One is attached to the weapon, the other is attached to the action.
And there are also actions with the Flourish trait that take more than 1 action to use.
Sudden Charge
Bashing Charge
Penetrating Projectile
Drifter's Juke
Slayer's StrikeThe difference with Flourish that I can see is that Flourish will lock out using other 1-action actions that also have the Flourish trait.
Flourishes purpose is different. Judt having the area and auto fire activity take two actions, and having those the only action the weapon performs, does everything unwieldy does.
I was thinking that cool down weapon weapon would be one that required a number of rounds equal to its cool down value where it could not be fired. Kind of different from unwieldy.
But depending on how one views it the Archaic trait does nothing outside of one or two things in the Playtest and until Paizo makes a ruling upon the fact the trait mentions they are worst at dealing with modern (Starfinder) armor then yeah Unwieldly does nothing but even if the Archaic weapons deal -2 damage against people wearing modern (Starfinder) armor, I'd rather use a Greataxe over a Doshko which deals d12 Unwieldy but is Advanced so it is super difficult to get outside of being a Vesk.
Barbarians and Magus pretty much solve any drawback Archaic weapons could have outside of flat out dealing half-damage and if that is the case compatibility would be thrown out of the window and once again not possible.
A weird thing about the archaic trait is that your magic sword is bad at damaging future armor, sure, but if you drop a straight up PF2 Monk into a Starfinder game for some space kung fu, punching people apparently has not gone out of style so Tiger Stance is as good as it ever was.
Since is absolutely acceptable for a space monk to be badass (this is core to the aesthetic premise of Star Wars, after all), I'm not sure the archaic trait is really all that necessary. Since you can't make unarmed strikes archaic unless you want a Vesk's Bite/Claw/etc. attacks to be a lot less appealing.
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Like it feels as though the point of the archaic trait is to indicate that Crossbows and Pathfinder guns aren't as good as SciFi space guns, which is fine. But the way you do this, I feel, is not "inconsistently make low tech stuff less effective" but to make the high tech stuff more effective. Like there is no reason that Starfinder should follow Pathfinder's budget for weapon traits. If someone on Golarion found a plasma sword (and was able to keep it powered) that should give them a decided advantage over anything else they could be using.
It's more effective to gate "keep high tech stuff out of the fantasy setting" than "keep low-tech stuff out of the SF setting."
As far as the Doshko is concerned, if I remember clearly, the Vesk trait tends to lock the weapon behind Vesk Weapon Familiarity according to Pathfinder 2 weapons availability/proficiency rules, and Vesk ancestry feats like Tear Wound build upon their damage output per attack. I'm guessing the Unwieldy trait is being used as a limiter in this case.
Just wanted to point out that this is not at all correct - the doshko is a common martial weapon, and as such is available to all characters and anyone proficient with martial weapons is proficient with it.
Vesk Weapon Familiarity only matters if your character is not proficient with martial weapons.
EDIT: Also, I agree with the general sentiment that Starfinder gear should feel "overpowered" compared to Pathfinder gear, at least/especially compared to nonmagical Pathfinder gear.
And really, the 15ft range on the flamethrower is just embarrassing.
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Tbh I disagree with the title premise. Unwieldy makes a lot more sense in a game with an inherently flexible action economy and where reactive strikes aren't a baseline assumption of the game. It's naturally appealing to classes with 2-action routines or other strike restrictions (much in the same way that they were naturally appealing to characters with good swifts in SF1).
The main problem is less the trait being unworkable and more that many of the weapons with it just aren't very good. The Doshko has an interesting trait, but isn't meaningfully better than other d12 weapons. The neural lash only seems to have unwieldly to keep it away from characters who can't activate thought, since its trait spread is worse than a longsword's. Etc.
Unwieldy is odd but is it bad? It depend ssince most weapons that have it also need to reload, what is the problem with having an Operative, Aim, Shoot, Reload a sniper rifle or a Fighter, Shooting a sniper rifle, reloading and taking a -5 MAP second shot? Is the Assassin's Rifle really that powerful with 1d10 100ft range, fatal d12,backstabber...1 bullet per magazine? It feels like a weaker Pathfinder 1E Fire-arm which one can argu is "weird". Sure you can argue knockback is bad and requires +2 STR but that's easy to get honestly to use the 150ft Pathfinder 2E guns with d8 damage die. I.E Arquabus and Shobhad Longrifle, sure they are Uncommon and Rare but still.