[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

One of which is Vehicle Type... B207 says "the controls, hull, motive system, power plant, transmission and even the paint job" and I am certain that isn't meant to be exhaustive

Presumably the meaning of the paint job phrase, yes. Perhaps that's an attempt to address the proliferation of specialties, and a game could certainly use that as justification if they wanted one skill for everything.

That literal reading does leave a mechanic oddly unable to understand or deal with the same system once you move it outside of the hull, but that's the way it goes. GMs can deal with that if need be. Or just call it a bang skill.

I think it is pretty obvious that Mechanic (Starships) doesn't overlap with Armoury (Small Arms) very much at all.

But it is something that the Scotties of fiction can do, and it is a "repair" task that falls under a "design" skill which is used for starships. Should you want the design / repair / use triad to be parallel and single-skilled, you'd wind up lumping them together. In RAW, those specialties aren't remotely parallel, nothing like the same breadth from skill to skill.

If you think Mechanic (Spaceships) can only fix the life support

That was an example that ISW specifically calls out, to illustrate the "Starship" specialty is still useful and needed, even though that book is also calling out other Mechanic specialties also needed on starships -- so that setting, at least, is not using a single Mechanic (Starship) specialty to fix everything on board. Basic RAW allows it; ISW RAW doesn't use it, so global-vehicle uberskill is evidently not a universal intent for Mechanic. As with many things in GURPS and especially Basic, there are options from which GMs need to choose.

Suggesting that Pilot must also apply only to life support because they both use the word "Starship" for a speciality is just silly, and beneath you.

At any rate, this horse seems thorough beaten, plasma-roasted, and disintegrated. The various options seem well covered from various angles, (thanks, Fred and pudding!), so the OP or other prospective GMs can anticipate when deciding how they want their game and setting to work.