You can absolutely run an Engineer as a straight caster but the specializations really let you get creative. I actually just started a campaign and my group needed a frontline fighter. Since I'd be the only melee fighter I decided to go as tanky as possible. So I'm playing as an Armormech Engineer with a quick splash into fighter and play it as a front line melee fighter. At level 5 I've got 23 AC, 45 movement speed (my species + armor mod that increases my move speed by 10), my species gives me Aggressive which lets me move my full movement speed as a bonus action as long as I move towards an enemy so combine that with moving and a dash action I can move 135 feet to close with an enemy and keep them out of my team's faces. My suit gives darkvision 60, permanent spider climb and full swim speed. I went with 20 str, 15 int and then just focused on tech powers that don't have a saving throw but are extremely useful. Stuff like energy shield, sonic strike, Kolto dispenser, smuggle (to at least make up for my clanky armor) resistance, you get the idea. Crafting my own armor and getting to install custom Armormech mods for free saved me a ton of money and let me kit out with every gadget I could think of, every week I pull out something new, my table calls my character a swiss army knife. My fighting strategy is the trip/sentinel/onslaught combo. I took shield style on my first level of fighter to let me use whatever melee weapon I wanted with a heavy shield and get a trip as a bonus action. Onslaught Mastery gives me a attack of opportunity when I knock something prone and Sentinel Style (which I get in 2 levels) will apply slow 4 on an attack of opportunity so unless what we're fighting can get rid of slow through a power they're not getting back up. And I still have my regular attack after the trip/opportunity combo. Throw a Sonic strike in there and everything around me will also take damage. I don't do the most damage by a long shot but the utility is unmatched.

is there any faq about the ARTIFICER archetype because I find myself using two hands to edit ADDITONAL BEAM PORT and I was looking for some FAQs on how to also use the GREATSABER ARRAY modification, since I use two hands anyway at this point in theory I should use double beam at 1d12 or one beam at 1d12 and one at 1d8