To be honest at the personal level we don't do hex maps and minis. We just kind of wing it. As a result firefights tend to be rather short ranged.
But cover and concealment are very important in AToW combat and are the best ways to help balance out the longer ranged weapons. Perhaps even going so far as to declare that on top of the range and cover modifiers that because they can only see such small parts of an enemy at range to apply the called shot modifiers as well.