I had a quick question. I know gunnery is the skill you use to fire vehicle weapons and such, and Ranged, Heavy is for rifles, and bigger hand held guns.

Some of the equipment lists gunnery as a skill to use, but is carryable by a character with enough strength, especially the Heavy with his talents. Do you still use the Gunnery skill as the stat blocks say, or does such a weapon now use the Ranged, Heavy skill?

Some of the biggest man portable weapons do use the gunnery skill.

If they list gunnery they use gunnery.

Gunnery. It generally applies to weapons in Dangerous Covenants that are extremely large, with Encumbrances to match, and in some cases anti vehicle capability.

I see the merit in that.

It's a bit annoying because it forces the heavy to split skills between Ranged, Heavy and Gunnery, but it makes sense. I'm assuming most Heavies need to swap between Ranged heavy and gunnery weapons fairly regularly. As a new character they'd most likely have a rifle, or similar ranged heavy weapon, then as they gain experience and, more importantly, cash later in their career they may pick up a larger gunnery weapon. They'd probably still have to swap fairly regularly as there are many places where carrying a Gunnery type weapon just aint going to fly. Even in Mos Eisley people will assume your about to commit some serious violence if you walk around carrying an E-Web.

It's probably good balance though, as those weapons do a tremendous amount of damage.

It's mostly about how long do you plan on running a campaign with a character. If the answer is a long time, be patient and spend the xp as it comes. They are both career skills so a 4 in each, which is plenty, is only 90 xp, that isn't much. Play a Klatooinian and it becomes only 80xp.

I see the merit in that.

It's a bit annoying because it forces the heavy to split skills between Ranged, Heavy and Gunnery, but it makes sense. I'm assuming most Heavies need to swap between Ranged heavy and gunnery weapons fairly regularly. As a new character they'd most likely have a rifle, or similar ranged heavy weapon, then as they gain experience and, more importantly, cash later in their career they may pick up a larger gunnery weapon. They'd probably still have to swap fairly regularly as there are many places where carrying a Gunnery type weapon just aint going to fly. Even in Mos Eisley people will assume your about to commit some serious violence if you walk around carrying an E-Web.

It's probably good balance though, as those weapons do a tremendous amount of damage.

You could start with a grenade launcher and forsake ranged heavy all together.

What? it has non-lethal options

there is also the likelihood that your heavy will find himself on a ship somewhere and need to man the guns when it comes under attack. i think having a rank in gunnery isn't such a bad thing, no matter the character. it gives combat options and would be completely exciting if a non-heavy pc hit the cannon trigger to shoot into jabba's sail barge and...well you get the idea.

Someone in any group should have at least 1 rank in gunnary simply because of space combat. Preferably 2 people because most ships have multiple gunner positions.

Its definitely the least commonly used of the combat skills but its still a good thing to have. And having more than 2 ranks would, IMO, be unnecessary. Unless you are seeing a lot of space combat.