I am currently reading the rules of this supplement and sharing them with one of my players (obviously, a techie). He asked me if he could use the crafting rules to improve already-built weapons instead of creating a new one from scratch. I couldn't find any rule regarding this on the manual, so, what's your opinion? Should I allow it?

If he is pretty confident he can make a better weapon, just follow the crafting rules and narratively describe it as improving the old.

If his original weapon is already better than what he could (realistically) make, the rules don't cover improvement.

You improve already-built weapons with attachments and mods. Some of these can be flavored as building or refashioning new bits of the weapon, such as the filed front sight or the custom grip.

The only thing I could see as a sticking point is if the item has a special characteristic of some sort, how to carry that over. My character will probably want to rebuild her Gaffi stick here sometime in the near future, but that's a weapon that's easily represented in the rules. Building something like the Engineers Coveralls armor, with the toolkit built in, might be tougher to recreate.

But I would say work with the GM and see if you cant hammer something out. My gut would probably be to say yes, probably, if I were your GM.

Are they talking about one of the basic weapons or something that's already dolled up? Some guns like the Nova Viper or the X-30 are already pretty terrific to begin with, not sure how much you'd want stacked on top of that.

I am currently reading the rules of this supplement and sharing them with one of my players (obviously, a techie). He asked me if he could use the crafting rules to improve already-built weapons instead of creating a new one from scratch. I couldn't find any rule regarding this on the manual, so, what's your opinion? Should I allow it?

Slight disclaimer, we haven't been playing long to actually test this in play, but here is what I have considered after looking carefully through the build rules.

I would use the cost of the weapon as the base cost, basically just replacing the generic template with the pre-printed weapon stats and costs. (this also caries with it the impication that you don't get the benefit of reducing the difficulty of, for example, the generic blaster pistol template with the 'schematic' option if you are working on a pre-printed blaster pistol. So you'd have to 'customize' the hold out blaster twice to get rid of the purple dice on blaster #3 since it is a different template) (edit: I would also stick with one try per-weapon just like a normal template. Customize roll on blaster #1 represents everything you could do that blaster. Want to roll again you need to buy another of that blaster)

Difficulty from what I've seen is pretty harsh as is so I would just leave it the same for the type of weapon, 2p for pistols if I recall, 3p for rifles etc., however it is perfectly reasonable to increase it by one, imo, as you are heavily customizing a finished product, not building it from scratch just how you want it. I could also see adding a black for each built in bonus it already has as well (a280c blaster rifle with auto-fire and stun would be 3p and 2b, verpine shatter file would be 3p 5b for knockdown and pierce 4 as an example). (edit:) Also don't forget about upgrading difficulty as well. That red die is pretty intimidating and you didn't have to look like a jerk by spending destiny. Or you can spend destiny for an additional red! (credit to Desslok for reminding me about red dice!) You get to spend those bad results on a success as well so they may end up with an unwealdy, unreliable, expensive gun in the end. What ever you think makes the most sense.

Roll as usual and spend advantage. *remembering of course that a fail means the entire weapon destroyed. Sorry about that 30k shatter rifle, shouldn't have been so greedy.

From my theory testing the amount of advantage you need to 'break' a pre-existing weapon is quite high and hard to do till you have your skill and attribute cranked up quite high /or/ have taken the time and mula to get the 'schematic' option enough times to remove all the purple dice. Either way I'm not sure at that point what they can do to the weapon is that big of a deal.

again I stress I haven't made it up through a high level game yet but from doing some test rolls and looking at what you can and can't do on the chart these are my thoughts on using the existing crafting rules to customize pre-printed weapons beyond just adding an attachment.

Are they talking about one of the basic weapons or something that's already dolled up? Some guns like the Nova Viper or the X-30 are already pretty terrific to begin with, not sure how much you'd want stacked on top of that.

They want to tinker with some equipment they have with attachs and mods already installed. Specifically the techie guy wanted to add Accurate to one pistol blaster, but I've seen in my another post several options you and others have given to this, so probably we'll use that instead of trying to roll dice to get triumph or enough advantages.

again I stress I haven't made it up through a high level game yet but from doing some test rolls and looking at what you can and can't do on the chart these are my thoughts on using the existing crafting rules to customize pre-printed weapons beyond just adding an attachment.

Actually that seems pretty reasonable. Perhaps if there's a red die involved, the despair breaks the item being modified or something?

Are they talking about one of the basic weapons or something that's already dolled up? Some guns like the Nova Viper or the X-30 are already pretty terrific to begin with, not sure how much you'd want stacked on top of that.

They want to tinker with some equipment they have with attachs and mods already installed. Specifically the techie guy wanted to add Accurate to one pistol blaster, but I've seen in my another post several options you and others have given to this, so probably we'll use that instead of trying to roll dice to get triumph or enough advantages.

A good idea. They roll really well on crafting and you might regret what they can actually build with crafting. You get a couple Triumphs and some Advantages and you can have a real handful of bad day in one gun.

again I stress I haven't made it up through a high level game yet but from doing some test rolls and looking at what you can and can't do on the chart these are my thoughts on using the existing crafting rules to customize pre-printed weapons beyond just adding an attachment.

Actually that seems pretty reasonable. Perhaps if there's a red die involved, the despair breaks the item being modified or something?

To be honest I totally forgot about 'upgrades' to difficulty. Perfectly reasonable sounding to me as well. Don't forget to that even if you succeed those bad effects can linger with their own mods. That pistol now takes up more encumbrance and is more likely to run out of ammo easier. The gm has their own chart to spend points on as well!

Has anyone had a player ask to craft a Shatter weapon? The character is Verpine (my pre-gen, not player choice) so there's that. I can see rail gun is included as a schematic but I'm thinking along the lines of two red, one purple, five black. He'll toss one black anyway.

Cost-wise, should it just be whatever the cost is normally or increase and claim specialised materials etc?

4 hours ago, Roderz said:

Has anyone had a player ask to craft a Shatter weapon? The character is Verpine (my pre-gen, not player choice) so there's that. I can see rail gun is included as a schematic but I'm thinking along the lines of two red, one purple, five black. He'll toss one black anyway.

Cost-wise, should it just be whatever the cost is normally or increase and claim specialised materials etc?

The Crafting System in Special Mods isn't for building a specific named weapon. It's more of a garage build situation. Think of it like this: I design and weld together a frame, design build and install an engine, and slap 4 wheels onto it, but no matter what I do, it's not going to be a Ford Mustang. It's that thing I made that kinda sorta looks like a Mustang. But it's not made from Ford parts, isn't going to perform the same, and probably even looks a little off as well.

If the player wants to build a specific weapon, easy way is to use Lightsaber Hilt Crafting rules from the FaD core: They make the same check and spend the same amount on buying parts as they would to buy the weapon, and then they just set aside a few hours and assemble the parts. No Mechanics check required. This makes sense as he's acquiring parts that are intended to be put together and then just following available instructions to do so. This matches real-world enough as if you were to actually "build a gun" you'd have to buy components and assemble them, but all those components would be built to go together and at least one component would have all the same purchase restrictions as the fully assembled firearm. In the end you don't save a heck of a lot of money, but you also end up with something that will pretty much be guaranteed to work.

If you want to use Special Mods Crafting, then you just have the player try and use his check to get "Close" so like he makes an Energy Rifle, and tries to apply Pierce, Knockdown, Increased Range and Increased Damage. It's not a true "Shatter Rifle" as it made out of a bunch of parts from Radio Shack and not licensed factory parts. But if he wants to say he cobbled together a railgun, he can. It's not like it'll change the numbers any... And I mean even though it's not a true "Shatter Rifle" the price would be right...

10 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

The Crafting System in Special Mods isn't for building a specific named weapon. It's more of a garage build situation. Think of it like this: I design and weld together a frame, design build and install an engine, and slap 4 wheels onto it, but no matter what I do, it's not going to be a Ford Mustang. It's that thing I made that kinda sorta looks like a Mustang. But it's not made from Ford parts, isn't going to perform the same, and probably even looks a little off as well.

...

If you want to use Special Mods Crafting, then you just have the player try and use his check to get "Close" so like he makes an Energy Rifle, and tries to apply Pierce, Knockdown, Increased Range and Increased Damage. It's not a true "Shatter Rifle" as it made out of a bunch of parts from Radio Shack and not licensed factory parts. But if he wants to say he cobbled together a railgun, he can. It's not like it'll change the numbers any... And I mean even though it's not a true "Shatter Rifle" the price would be right...

Yeah, I get that and agree. But in the case of a Shatter weapon, I don't think we're talking about a Ford Mustang vs. cobbled-together vehicle. I think it's more akin to attempting to build a two-door sports performance vehicle, when everything else out there is a sedan. The Shatter Rifle isn't just simple a particular skin of blaster or slugthrower, it's clearly something in its own category, as only the Verpine produce them. If there was a specific Slayn & Korpil Shatter rifle, I agree, that wouldn't be possible.

Further to that, if it wasn't a Verpine character I wouldn't even be conflicted. Add the fact that the player didn't create the character, more asked about making a Shatter weapon after I geeked out over them for a minute or so. (Yes, I brought this on myself)

I think I'm leaning towards increasing the difficulty of the check, upgrading it, and baking in say, Pierce 2. As for the cost, either upgrading the cost to tens of thousands, or at least 10, which would likely price him out of the endeavour for quite a while, or making component acquisition an adventure by itself. Since he's not the muscle/combat-character, I'm not sure the group would go for this anyway.

I'd require them to obtain a schematic somehow, reduce rarity by one, halve price, give it a high difficulty and time to create, and slightly reduce the base stats( with things that can be bought back with advantages).

Part of the Verpine gun cost is just that the parts are just so unusual and rare, thus trying to buy this thing sleight up on the market would be enough to bankrupt a small syndicate. XD My impression with these weapons, and correct me if I'm wrong because I might be, but the Scatter weapon series large and large were made for the Rebel Alliance commandos to use in the war against the empire. It's absolute cutting edge tech that is largely unavailable on the market and just having one of these is an indicator of having rebellion ties, or having killed someone who did. As such, unless your part of that team working for the alliance, using precision instruments to create precision weapons? No, I imagine crafting one of these would be impossible, even for a Verpine. I imagine at the bare minimum the character would have to have a sciamatic and a workshop dedicated solely to crafting these things, otherwise your not making guns, your making bombs.

So crafting them in the back of the ship? No, while the cargo hold is a decent enough place to build blaster pistols and rifles that are largely recoiless instruments made out of largely prefabricated parts, the main difficulty linking them together, I would expect that crafting one of these would require a very sterile environment, preferably one that minimises movement, as even the slightest error one way or another could make a bomb. To paraphrase, my Rodian has a int of 5, machanics 5 and manipulate with a force rating of 4 and can effectively build guns barehanded, and he can't craft these. It isn't so much his lacking intellect, and he had a rifle he used for a year before it, well, shattered. It was just that he couldn't ever hope to repair this particular weapon in his workshop.

That being said, the verpine apparently have a thing for overcomplicated project and precision instruments, so it might be worth having a think of what Verpine do when not creating the weapons, that way you can construct a way of eventually doing just that. Maybe your PC does know how to craft one, at least in principle but that character needs a lot of dedicated instruments in which to do so. Instruments that might be difficult to build without some unusual materials.

Maybe your players could find backers, of a legitimate or illegitimate nature who are investing in your player because they expect a product. Does the player come through on that promise? Maybe a hutt has a particular interest in the project? At first things go well; the player even gets a workshop that the Hutt doesn't charge you for, just some obligation. But then obligation triggers; the Hutt demands you make a shatter rifle for him and provides a reduced upfront fee which inevitably requires digging into your own pocket, which you do. You send off the order to the Hutt then.... nothing. The Hutt has changed the deal, as far as he's concerned it's you that owes him; you should be glad for producing such a benifical surface, you wouldn't want the enforcers to come knocking, would you? Sure, you might not have much money but you should have known what you were signing up for. Maybe other parties start taking interest; after all there is an assassin bumping off leaders with a weapon that leaves virtually no footprint, maybe even alliance diplomats on the space surrounding hutt space, leaving them leaderless as the Hutt takes those neutral planets, those places the empire never cared much about... Your weapon is bringing devastation to worlds you haven't even heard about, and the Hutt has only just got started with his latest scheme to expand his territory.

Really, this is me just spitballing. as cool as an idea is, it should be fairly difficult to do. Sure, you could produce stripped down versions, but it's a interesting proportion like this that obligation almost screams for; you get an extraordinary resource, but there is a heavy price to pay and at what point does it get too heavy for your soul to bare? Do you cut and run and have a huge bounty levelled at you, or an assassin with a gun you crafted? or do you continue out of fear? All, very interesting choices.

I'd suggest to keep it fairly simple, use stats for the chosen weapon (maybe use energy stats/cost rather than projectile?), two advantages gets you knockdown. Won't get close on raw damage or pierce, but at a fraction of the cost, and you can make it easily enough. The crafting rules aren't really designed to implement the very rare specailist items.