Okay, new proposal from the COTI forums for weapon skills, and one I like - so I am looking for someone/somepeople to argue against it and convince me it should _not_ be done
Break down weapons skills/specialities thus;
Gun Combat (personal/civilian): Covers most pistols, shotguns and possibly SMGs/PDWs.
Gun Combat (military): Rifles, MGs, higher tech things and possibly SMGs/PDWs.
Heavy Weapons (man portable): To include existing man portable (FGMP/PGMP, etc), launchers and flamethrowers
Heavy Weapons (artillery): Really big guns
Heavy Weapons (vehicle): The stuff you get on tanks
I like the reduction in specialities a lot, bearing in mind once you have level 1 in a speciality, you get 0 in all the rest.
There _are_ arguments to be made that Weapon X is different from Weapon Y. But, in a game like Traveller, how much detail do we really need in this? Do we need people specialised in an SMG, MG, _and_ a Rifle, or do we just want someone we know can use all three without problem?
I know what I want to do (!), but I would like to see at least something approaching consensus with you chaps.