How does he avoid the Encumbrance 7 (5 when you allow the Burly) of the gun? Surely he is carrying other things and they have to add up after a time.

If the fluff says the weapon is slow, then use some threat now and again to have him miss the next turn of shooting. 2 threat would do, just like a heavy blaster.

That is one big gun, how does he hide it?

That beast looks like it could breach a space station, sorry you can't enter the wheel, cloud city etc. at least not with that gun. If he gets hissy, have some concealed blast doors come up and trap him, he then hears the hiss of an air vent, leave the gun in the wall box before your air runs out.

If I was hiring a crew that had no discretion about when to carry that thing or not, I would hire a smarter crew. Hey dude, the employer want you to leave the gun behind. You won't OK, his doorman closes the view panel, terminates the video feed or whatever and says good day to you.

Start charging the players docking fees and charges, then when they fail to get jobs because Mr Big Guns won't leave his gun at the door they'll start vetting his behaviour for you.

I would also suggest that quantity has a quality of its own. Bring on the minions!! Use them to shield the Nemesis or just to overwhelm the players.

If the players are tasked to break in and stealth about how silent is the weapon? Some pew-pew is expected perhaps, but pew-pew, pew-pew, BOOOOOOOM? Opps dude, you have now alerted the entire facility as to where you are.

The guy is a really good guy but generally doesn't roleplay too much, he turns up to roll dice and that is the fun he takes out of all this. I have explained that the game is not combat orientated and he entertains himself through the minimal (but detailed and entertaining) roleplay.

However any attempt to take away the weapon...woe betide you. He doesn't kick off, but he does generally sulk and get a bit ****y about it. If I damage the weapon, it merely gets fixed by the expert (and also min-maxed) mechanic. So I generally need to do significant damage or have the weapon be taken away.

Just curious here, why is he playing this game? RPGs are much more than rolling dice to kill people. If everything withers when he turns his anger on it just give him a D6 and tell him to imagine something dies whenever he rolls something other than a 1.

Kidding aside, it seems like this slegdehammer has rulled out single-powerful conventional combatants. If you want him to keep playing and still throw relevant combat encounters at the party you have to introduce elements that render the sledgehammer not optimal to deal with them. Swarms of insects, intangible enemies, crazy-ninja ambushes, targets that are holding hostages (or targets you have to capture, the DX doesn't have a stun setting does it?), etx.

If combat encounters are so distorted because of this weapon, and if you don't want to have him throw a hissy over having to rebuild the item after loosing it, then you're within your rights as a GM to come up with similarly distorted combat encounters to keep the game interesting for the rest of the party. And for you too as the GM- it must be boring coming up with what you see as a challenging encounter only for the big boss to be defeated by a laser mallet to the face.

Well for reference, the weapon is infact not restricted. It is a DH-X Heavy Blaster Rifle:

It has been modified with a telescopic sight (decrease difficulty of combat checks at long and extreme range by 1.)

and also has a Augmented Spin Barrel (Damage +1), with all 4 mods installed: (Damage +1) x2, (Accurate 1 Mod) and (Pierce +1 Mod)

The combat monster in me approves of his use in weapon, it's the exact same setup my Sniper used because I wanted a big gun that wasn't restricted. Although, once I figured out that the Augmented Spin Barrel was too good (Just look at how much stuff it gives you compared any other Mod) I swapped it out for a Marksman barrel. Even then I was too good at picking up targets off the table in a single shot thanks to Deadly Accuracy and True Aim. That's when I choose to retire the character and run the game for a while, because it was no fun having such a deadly character and it was hard for the GM to balance encounters.

Thank you for posting the math. It had been a long time since I last looked at what my Sniper could do and forgot how easy it was to get into the 20 damage range. BTW, good on you for making Barrage work for him. Most people post on here complaining that Barrage is the most worthless talent in the game.

The guy is a really good guy but generally doesn't roleplay too much, he turns up to roll dice and that is the fun he takes out of all this. I have explained that the game is not combat orientated and he entertains himself through the minimal (but detailed and entertaining) roleplay.

Sounds like it's time to crank up on the roleplay or come up with times where the weapon can't be carried or used to full effect. Bad guys can close to medium or short range. Howman starships and buildings have corridors long enough for him to get to long and the +3 from Barrage? Implement some laws in some cities (or establishments) where long arms are not allowed so that he can't use it in every fight.

BTW: My character got around this by having a Blaster Carbine with the Spread Barrel attachment. We refered to it as my sawed-off shotgun. The weapon was small enough that people treated it like a large Heavy Blaster Pistol instead of a rifle, so it was allowed into more places than my 2-meter long DH-X rifle. In the stat block it says that carbines can be used one handed and it still used my Ranged Heavy skill, so my character was still effective, just not as much as with the DH-X. Although, honestly, with a large enough Agility and True Aim, my character was fairly dangerous with any gun.

Note: The fluff for the weapon specifically states it has a slower rate of fire...yet there is no mechanical effect for this, maybe it was omitted accidentally?

The fluff is because this is a single shot Heavy Blaster Rifle. It gave up the Auto-Fire part (hence the slow fire fluff) for the Pierce. So yes, this gun does shoot slow, for a Heavy Blaster Rifle...

You could do this now and again. Start In Media Res and just have them fleeing from an unknown enemy.

Simples.

In nearly every battle scene we see in the Star Wars films there is a goal the Heroes are attempting to achieve other than the elimination of the enemy. Do the same in your adventures.

Make sure in nine out of ten battles the Party has a goal other than eliminating their opponents and that they will fail if they stay and fight. And actually let them fail. Didn't get to the power generator in time? As they fire the last blaster bolt they look up and see their friend freighter struggling against the tractor beam almost make it when it's destroyed by the local Imperial ground battery.

For example:

The Party has to get to a location/activate something in time and fighting too long will not allow them to achieve their goal.

The Opponent group leader must survive to get a code or other information critical to the Party's goal.

Use all the rules in the RAW, especially Encumbrance.

Be strict with open carry of long arms when appropriate, this isn't D&D PCs shouldn't be carting everything they own with them all the time. If they know they are going into battle then by all means grab that Blunderbuss, if not then a normal side arm will have to do. Enforce this with Setbacks on Social rolls for the entire Party, not just the PC carrying the Hvy Blaster Rifle or two handed Vibro Axe into the town market.

Sorry for the bruskness - it's been a long week at work and I have no time for nonsense

and if I do that..the player will just kick off and throw a hissy.

Then someone needs to put on his Big Boy pants and start acting like a goddamned adult (assuming he is, in fact, a goddamned adult). Slap the taste out of his mouth and tell him that kind of nonsense wont be tolerated at your table.