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The problem is I figured out for 3 actions a Soldier can make 3 attacks, 1 Area Fire, 2 Normal Strikes with 0 MAP at level 4 with their feat Punishing Salvo, but that is neither here nor there but if you include Warning Spray that's 5 Attacks in a round, 1 Area attack whcih deals 0 damage but triggers Primary Target, 1 Area attack whoch deal damage and triggers Primary Target and Punishing Salvo which attacks like Primary Target infact it is treated like Primary Target, which gives you 3 Strikes in the round, 1 at start of combat and 2 during your turn, which both have 0 MAP due to how Primary Target is written since you'd use AREA Fire first.
So Operatives are in contention for highest Sigle Target Damage in Starfinder's Playtest. I just unload more attacks at 0 MAP then most classes will see in general play outside of Double Slice.
Would anyone else like to consider this is not how tou read both Warning Spray and Punishing Salvo?
Warning Spray is ambiguously written and almost certainly not intended to let you deal damage with Primary Target. RAW, that's what it does, and after some very weird (and excessively strong) instances of free-action Strikes with this I very quickly ruled that the feat does not trigger Primary target, or at least that its "no damage" rule applies to Primary Target as well.
Punishing Salvo as written I think is also a relic from over a year ago when Primary Target still only let you make an attack roll that could apply suppression against one target, instead of the full-on Strike it makes now. As written, it's also way too strong, letting you make two Strikes at 0 MAP with a stellar cannon. Against an at-level target with high AC and moderate Reflex saves, it lets a 5th-level Soldier with a stellar cannon deal 26.4 average damage in one round, versus a 5th-level Operative with a pre-nerf seeker rifle's 24.8 average damage in one round. Now that the seeker rifle is nerfed, the highest die you can get on a non-advanced weapon that can fire more than once per round is a d8, so even against high Ref saves the Soldier beats the Operative in single-target damage with this feat.
All of this is to say that right now, the martial class that is expressly made to specialize in AoE damage rather than single-target damage currently deals the most single-target damage in Starfinder, beating even a Solarian making a Binaric Assault (23.2 average damage at level 5). This is completely off the mark, in my opinion, and to me indicates that the Soldier class needs some significant changes, as right now they're not good at the stuff they're meant to be good at, and top-tier at the stuff they're meant to not specialize in.
Punishing Salvo doesn't let you make two mapless attacks because area Fire has the attack trait.
So it's area attack (doesn't apply map but does iterate it), 0 primary target l, -5 punishing salvo.
This misses the text in both Primary Target:
This Strike uses the same multiple attack penalty as your Area Fire or Auto-Fire action but doesn’t count toward your multiple attack penalty.
And Punishing Salvo:
A concentrated barrage can bring most enemies low. You make a follow-up ranged Strike against your primary target. Ignore the unwieldy trait on your weapon when using this action. This does not make a new area attack, and is treated as a Strike made using primary target.
So your follow-up Strike from Punishing Salvo uses the same MAP as your Area Fire action, which is 0, causing you to make two MAP-less attacks. If this is not the intention of the feat (and I sure hope it's not), then the feat should not mention primary target at all, as you'd just be making a Strike from the weapon as if it were a regular gun.
Pretty much invoking Primary Target is powerful, that lets you make a single Strike with no MAP penalties as Teridax stated, in fact this might make Soldier one of the strongest martials for the reason it can unleash so many MAPless attacks in a round which it's entire gimmick was AoE Fire but instead it turned into a spam Primary Target as often as possible.
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That's basically the core paradox of the Soldier class as written. It's an area attack class that grants single target strikes as a major pillar of its power budget.
This misses the text in both Primary Target:This Strike uses the same multiple attack penalty as your Area Fire or Auto-Fire action but doesn’t count toward your multiple attack penalty.And Punishing Salvo:
A concentrated barrage can bring most enemies low. You make a follow-up ranged Strike against your primary target. Ignore the unwieldy trait on your weapon when using this action. This does not make a new area attack, and is treated as a Strike made using primary target.So your follow-up Strike from Punishing Salvo uses the same MAP as your Area Fire action, which is 0, causing you to make two MAP-less attacks. If this is not the intention of the feat (and I sure hope it's not), then the feat should not mention primary target at all, as you'd just be making a Strike from the weapon as if it were a regular gun.
I interpreted this to mean the same MAP you would get if making a NEW Area Attack. Since Primary Target does not itself have MAP, it needs to "borrow" from Area Attack, but reaching back in time to before MAP increases is obviously busted.
In fact, "the same multiple attack penalty as your Area Fire or Auto-Fire action" sort of doesn't make sense, as AA doesn't use an attack roll. If you could somehow make two atacks and then use AA (say because Quickened), it wouldn't matter at all to the saves that AA would have -10 MAP.
In the end, my soldier was still PLENTY strong using Primary Target (before AA, so 0 MAP, but NOT adjusting the AA save), Area Attack, and then Punishing Salvo with -5 MAP.