Was about to come in and explain how to do that scene better with zones, but I see I've been beaten to it. Glad to see you are feeling better about the whole thing, I am really finding it useful for the kind of combat it sounds like you and your group prefer.
Looks like you have a working idea now. If you are bound and determined to go to an actual measured range system, I'd just raid Cyberpunk. I will also point out that "intuitively hit someone with an assault rifle" is 200-300m, technically. That's also about the same range for a sniper rifle, since you will need to slow down and use the scope beyond that. True point-shooting without using the sights at all is ~50m, probably down to about 15m for most people. It takes training and practice to point shoot a rifle at more than 50 feet/15m. Hey, I hang out with competitive shooters, and my regular shooting buddy went to US Nationals a while back (when he could afford to shoot 400 rounds a week through his pistol). He also scared the hell out of the Master level shooters on one stage. It was a relatively simple draw and knock down a plate rack. His wife was filming, he cleared the plate rack in 2.5 seconds from a holstered weapon. Not quickdraw fancy crap, you can't hit an 8" diameter steel plate like that. You gotta aim! The film shows the timer and the last plate with an impact mark, the plate before that is not even halfway down yet. I think the plate before that isn't all the way down yet, even. He scored higher than some of the Masters on that stage, and he says he felt like he was moving slow. Me? I suck with a pistol, but I will put two holes in you at just about any range up to 7m. Gimme a short rifle, though, and I'm scary. Point and click out to 200 meters. Heck, give me a shotgun and I can put two slugs through the same hole at 20m.
Intuitively shoot an Assault rifle at 300m? I think we have a different definition of 'instinctive shooting'.But (or I actually meant 'snap' shooting and I got wrapped up with using the word intuitive). 300m generally requires deliberately aimed shots to hit a target for an average shooter. You can do it at that range, but it's not easy to do intuitively (by which I mean snap shooting starting from a rest position and then coming on aim), 100m OTOH is about right (it's what you can train to at a basic level). Treating 100m ish as the base that an averagely competent individual can achieve and more than that as more difficult reflects my personal experience.* You can clearly increase the effective range of this with equipment (decent sights built for reaction shooting) and training: but these are reflected in game and can make shooting at 'extended' ranges reliable. * I'm an average shooter and can put a round into a static man-sized target reliably snap firing starting from a rest postition at 100m. I'm not surprised people can do it at longer distances, but IMP they're overcoming increased difficulty. I've only instinctively fired without sights with a pistol, and yeah that's around 7m at best: I was firing once a week on average at the time. Actually beginning at a rest position, aiming and snap shooting out to 15-25m is easy though with very basic weapon handling training. But speed is the kicker, I'm talking your buddies time per target. Edit: on topic. This is why the Zone system actually works really well. Even though Section 9 and I may disagree on the precise distances we largely agree on the abstract ones: firing an Assault Rifle the length of a football field is easy, firing a pistol at another player close to you on the field is easy and I suspect Section 9 would accept a +1 difficulty for firing an assault rifle into the far bleachers to be reasonable.
Yeah, a penalty for shooting across the field is probably reasonable. The reason I said 200-300m is 'instinctive' is because there's no hold-over or anything. You put the sights on target and that's where the bullet will hit. Beyond that, and the bullet will hit below where your sights are, so you will probably have to start holding higher than the target you're shooting at. That is, you are no longer putting the sights on the target, but holding somewhere above them! For true, instinctive snap/point shooting without using the sights, I think about 50m is the limit for any long gun (a firearm held in both hands and tucked into the shoulder). There's a couple tricks that help with that, one of them is using the index/pointer finger of your support hand to point down the barrel. This takes advantage of your kinesthetic senses of always knowing where your pointer finger is pointing. An angled fore-grip helps give you the proper hand position for this. Oh, for an idea of what kind of shooting my buddy does, check out the MGM Ironman competition. One of the stages has the shooter on a freaking zipline, shooting targets!
13 YEARS OF AGE to practice shooting. . .??? At 18 could enter the Army Marksman Competitions, or become the most Lethal "Blue Blood Lady" of America. . . Here in Italy BEFORE attaining totally Legal, REAL Guns Training very often there is a formal need to have "Small Airgun" courses at 14 and "Basic Airgun" courses at 16, befoee even SEEING a Pistol loaded and unloaded by Adults. . . Unless of course You have a lot of Money and Political Clout, as I have seen rich Civilian Teenager children of "Connected People" easy going without repercussion with "Goose Hunting" with Franchi S.P.A.S. 15 with enlarged Ammo Clips (technically a "Military Weapon" restricted to Army Personnels or Police S.W.A.T.) as soon as "Complacent Cops" are the one doing the relevations. . . Of course this assume that one Young Teen is searching for LEGAL Shooting. . . . . . . . Should ANY of You have the DIRE MISFORTUNE to find itself in the worst parts of the "Scampia Barrios" of Naples, or "Brancaccio's Ghetto" in Palermo, then assume that the poser Teen Criminals waving around their fucking Old Beretta 92 F, Makarovs or cheap knock-off Balkan Copies of Glocks are AT LEAST lethal at the 5-10 m. Range, even if they are employing the "Gangsta Sideway Pistol Whip". . . What they lacks in Range Training they balance with the sheer amount of Shots Fired; some of these Young Dickheaded "Padrinos Wannabees" waste more of their illicitly-gained money MORE on "Spare Bullets" than in Drugs, Booze or Hookers. . .
There are people in the US who shot their first deer at age 12. A BB or pellet gun isn't unusual at age 8-10 in those households, with a .22 rimfire a couple years later. Their first 'real rifle' usually doesn't happen until later, often 16-18 (mostly because it's a pain to find a rifle that will grow with them, stock-fitting wise, though AR15s with the telescoping buttstock are becoming quite popular for that purpose) I was 11 or 12 when my Scout Troop went to the target range at the University of Idaho, and we must have fired 100 rounds apiece. Then it was rifle merit badge at scout camp a summer or two later. Still haven't managed to get my first deer, though...
A potential solution to the problem of multiple small zones crammed together is to have different zones for range and movement. So in the restaurant/bar example, the entire area would be 3 zones for movement/melee purposes and 1 for ranged weapons. Adjusted on the fly depending on the situation.So yeah, your Sniper Rifle will find itself pretty useless in a bar fight, but a pistol would be optimal ranges for the whole thing. And melee combat would have multiple zones. If you are familiar with the FFG system they have for WHFRP and their Star Wars RPGs then it makes a little more sense.
