Considering that I'm still working my way through the Building Stuff section of Special Mods, the answer is probably right in front of me and I've not found it yet - but I thought I'd bounce my "How does this work" off you guys.

So lets say you want to build a Mechanic's Utility Suit. Looking over the stats (2 soak, 1 hard point), it's probably using the Light Armor template as a base. But the big draw of the armor is not in the stats, but in the add-on of "The wearer counts as having a EotE Tool Kit" - but for way less encumbrance than the actual tool kit.

Now, looking over the advantages and triumph add-ons listed in Keep the Peace, obviously they wont have something super specialized like Wearable Tool Kit in those options. Meaning that the player wont be able to build the Mechanic's Utility Suit without coloring outside of the box.

So, how would guys handle that? Let the player build the item and just throw on the bonus? Make them give up hard points? Problematic, if the player doesn't roll enough advantage/triumph to be able to build a HP into the item. Something else I've not thought of yet?

I'd start from the customizable armor so that you have 4 hard points and look for some kind of weight carrying mod or maybe let the tool kit take up a number of hard points equal to it's encumbrance

Hmmm, going from the customization armor gets you more hard points to work with (4 instead of the utility suit's 1), but if we let the tool kit's 4 encumbrance take up the hard-points as you suggest, the DIY armor is worse than the off the shelf model. The Custom Armor only has 1 soak where the Suit has 2.

The more I think about it, this really might be a case of working with the GM. Lets say you want to build a Gafi Stick with it's defensive 1, disorientate 3. Sure you could spend the 2 advantage to get the defensive per the 3-3 chart, but there's no disorientate option (or, as far as I know, no a mod that adds it on after the fact). Perhaps it'd just be a case of talking to the GM and saying "Can I spend these other two advantage and include a disorientate effect, even tho its not on the list of options?"

***EDIT***

Okay, me am stupid - there's a disorientate 2 right in the freakin' Blunt Weapon template. Eh, new book syndrome!

Would it be possible to craft it as a Padded Armor, Load-bearing Gear, Utility Belt and Tool Kit, all in one roll? Because that's what the entire Suit sounds like to me.

To be honest, I get the feeling that the charts and tables for building your own weapons/armor/tech/droid/gizmo are of a similar vein to the starship templates that the Saga Edition Starships of the Galaxy used.

Namely, they were never intended to allow a PC to perfectly replicate the pre-existing array of more specialized items found within the game.

With SotG, the designers knew that there was no way they could come up with a build system that let a PC perfectly replicate the insanely diverse array of starships that show up in Star Wars, especially not one that jived with Saga Edition's general guiding principle of "keep it as simple as possible."

The charts in Special Modifications are much the same; while they certainly give you a lot of options they're not intended to allow you to cheaply recreate some of the more specialized gear that shows up in the splatbooks. Which makes a degree of sense, as the PC using these charts is creating a one-off hand-crafted item, where the items for sale in the splats are mass-produced on a much larger scale and likely benefit from several designers as opposed to a lone individual.

Also... if you look at the tables, the cost to make something is generally about half the cost to buy something... if you wanted to use that rule of thumb you'd just have to set a difficulty and the time per attempt... however, that rule doesn't really apply to the tool suit... unless you are also making the tools and in that case the construction time for the tool suit just got really really long. But you could hybridize it... figure out what the cost of everything but the tools are... set a price (using the half market price rule) and difficulty for that, and just buy the tools

Also... if you look at the tables, the cost to make something is generally about half the cost to buy something... if you wanted to use that rule of thumb you'd just have to set a difficulty and the time per attempt... however, that rule doesn't really apply to the tool suit... unless you are also making the tools and in that case the construction time for the tool suit just got really really long. But you could hybridize it... figure out what the cost of everything but the tools are... set a price (using the half market price rule) and difficulty for that, and just buy the tools

thinking about this a little bit more....

since a regular toolkit cost 350 credits and the mechanics utility suit (including tools) costs 1175 credits then the market cost of everything but the tools is 1175-350=825 credits, assuming you'd need to roll 1 triumph and 2 advantage (together +20% of materials cost) by the normal process I'd say that the market cost is 750 making the materials cost 375, 375*20%=75, 750+75=825. (i noticed the numbers just worked out magically)

which means the cost of materials for the tool suit is 375 (per attempt), plus the cost of the tools (purchased at 350, note that these 350 credits are only paid once per successful attempt to make the suit, not per attempt, and if you already have tools that you use to make the suit you could just put them in the suit and save the 350 credits) . now looking at keeping the peace, i figure that the difficulty is 2 purple and you can use mechanics or probably survival, and you have to pull off 1 triumph and 2 advantage (or if you're feeling generous to the player you can just require 4 advantage, but I would really like to require the 1 triumph and 2 advantage or 2 triumph, call it an "extra hard point" and "special embellishment", which means you need either: 2 triumph, 1 triumph and 2 advantage, or 5 advantage to make it, but you still only get the book listed stats). and the time per attempt would probably be 16 hours.

I listed what he'd need to roll in terms of triumphs and successes and the probable table list items (to prevent unallowed duplicates) but if your player rolls well enough he/she can get the book listed tool suit with a few extra embellishments