I am thinking about how SR might work if you pared the firearm skills down to just 3-4 general skills.

Possibly they could be Handgun, Longarm, and Heavy. The skill to use would be determined not by the weapon, but how you are using the weapon...

For example, you have a SMG with retractible stock. With the stock retracted, firing from the hip, you use handgun skill. With the stock extended, firing from the shoulder, you use Longarm. If firing from a bipod or tripod, (god knows why, but go with me here.) you would use Heavy.

I would double the cost to purchase the skill at both chargen and in game, since each skill is broader.

Then I would borrow the mechanic of Centering skills to customize the use of the skills. They would share nothing besides the game mechanics with magical centering. These centering skills would be oriented towards situations you would use a weapon in, and would not be combinable.

some centering examples (lots of brainstorming here):

Sniper Helps with range penalties, movement at range, etc
CQB Not sure here, perhaps reaction bonuses at close range
Support stuff like autofire recoil.

Very much a work in progress here. Think it might be worth pursuing further?

Yes if considered this before. My conclusion: although a more logical system could be done, why bother? Nothing wrong with the current one.

There was an explicit reason why they moved from the general "firearms" skill to seperate sub-skills.

It helps diversify the characters and more accurately reflects the premise that just because you can fire a handgun doesn't automatically mean you can operate assault rifles, LMGs and grenade launchers.

Now, if you want to get me started on a rant -- combining the Etiquette skill was a massive reduction in the role-playing aspects of the game.

-Siege

Well, as the Grim Redeemer once said (typed) -- "I was talking about rules, not logic. Don't confuse the two." (paraphrased)

You might tweak the default rules for your game, but generally speaking it's not a massive enough fracture in the game to arouse much interest.

The rpg rules are an attempt to translate reality (as we know it -- sorry, watching "Matrix" and typing) into quantifiable numbers and dice rolls. They'll never be 100% perfect -- to which I can attest, having spent (wasted?) days of my life tweaking CP 2020 rules that ended up getting thrown away without ever having seen the light of day.

-Siege

I think long arms are pretty much identical at short range. You might see some differences out past 25 m., however, because the bullets have different speeds (affecting the drop-per-horizontal-distance), different weights (affecting how much wind affects them), and different shapes (affecting tumble and how much they drift off target). For example, if you check out the measurements of the movements of bullets over their whole range, some go into a tightening spiral and some go into a widening spiral.

The Uzi (SMG) uses 9 mm bullets, which get inaccurate relatively quickly. They slow way down and drift off target in a widening spiral. By contrast, 7.62 AR bullets are much quicker and tighten their spiral over most of their distance, staying very accurate until they slow down a lot. I think Raygun's site has all this data.

You could argue that this distinction is reflected in the range TNs for the different guns , but I would think you would also take it into account if you were very experienced with the weapons. Now, for indoor combat it really wouldn't matter, but SR doesn't make a range-based TN mod distinction. I suppose you could say at short range, it's just LongRifle skill, and at long range it breaks out into various skills, and at extreme range the skills go by make&model... snipers get adjusted to the quirks of a particular model of weapon.

--K

Howzabout you don't let them default to their rifle skill unless they're shooting from the shoulder? Or, howabout they can't default to their pistol skill unless they're extending their arm to fire the SMG?

The +2 difficulty is easily reduced to a +1 by spending a simple action aiming. That means, with care, it's not THAT tough to default a weapon you're not used to.