A player wants to make custom arrows and slugthrower rounds. How would you handle this crafting check? I was thinking about making the check at the same difficulty as crafting the weapon but it takes half the time and costs half as much. Each success after the first increases the number of threats needed to run out of ammo.

Any suggestions or game breakers that I missed?

I guess that depends on how 'custom'.

I was going to allow the basic weapon template for spending advantages during crafting

If he is just making "Standard" ammo, just let him pay the listprice of the goods and handwave it as "you sharpend the arrowhead yourself"

If he wants to become the next Green-Space-Arrow or Bathawk-Eye be carefull. He could slow down the game by 10k dice rolls just to get the super-arrow-of-mega-pierce-and-ensnare.

He could do a lot of gamechanging thinks by using Ultra-Special-Ammo that is totally made up with the weaponconstruction list. AND it will be a lot of micro managing since he'll have to take track of each and every shoot he took.

If you think that special ammo will benefit your gaming style go for it but instead of the whole construction with lists, it would be better to create 2 or 3 special kinds of ammo, that will fit with your gamestyle, (e.g. a fire arrow (dmg-1 but Burn 5), a net arrow (no Damage but auto ensnare 3 and knock down) and a anti armor arrow ( dmg +1, pierce 5, vicious +1)) in advance, set a price and a difficulty and let him roll, on sucess he build 5 arrows of the choosen kind. use advantages just to reduce cost or time or increase the number of build arrow heads but don't start to let him roll for every singel arrow/bullet (espacially since he could start to pile up "lesson learned" boosts with that)

Aye. I would probably set these checks for batches of ammo. So probably 1 check = a couple of reloads or 5/10 arrows, so that this guy is basically making batches of ammo rather then individual packages. Meaning less checks made.

We also have a soft crafting limit of 2/3 checks per assignment so the narrative doesn't get too bogged down, given our group is a rebellion unit it makes sense.

Our group has a non-dedicated mechanic (2G 1Y i think) and a survivalist (3Y, 1G). Sometimes it seems like they're more interested in crafting equipment than actual adventures, so I'm not sure what to do., but that's a separate issue.

I like @Nightone 's thinking. Could you look at the wrist rockets from 'No Disintegrations' as a basis for creating an "ammo template"? Obviously those are more powerful than slugthrower rounds or arrows, but it may offer guidance.

As for your players in general, what's your campaign like so far? Is it every player or just two who would rather craft than adventure?

You could run a more focused campaign that revolves around their trade. Use the business rules from 'Far Horizons' to give them a home base, and in downtime they can craft things to be sold. Then offer adventures that relate back to that.

• The PCs made some weapons and ammo for a far off colony to defend against wild beasts, but now a nearby village reports a murder obviously committed using one of those custom blasters/vibroswords/arrows. They must solve the mystery to clear their customers, or prove their guilt. Maybe the culprit is a business rival who wants to besmirch the PCs' names.
• A new shop is in town boasting better gear at lower prices. They start cutting hard into the PCs' profits, but it's obvious there's something fishy. Why is the Empire secretly supplying a small outpost with cheap weapons?
• An enthusiastic customer is always spending a ton of credits on newer and better armor and gear. Turns out she's been playing Hawk-Batman but is almost always getting people more hurt than she is helping. The PCs have to track her down and convince her to rethink her vigilanteism.

Those are pretty similar thematically, but show how you could tie crafting into adventures. Just owning a business gives characters Obligation that can come up. Classic "we got robbed!" adventure if nothing else. I'm sure 'Special Modifications' would have suggestions for Mechanics focused adventures as well.

Thanks! I hadn't thought about a lot of those ideas. It's only 1-2 players out of the 3, but one is obsessed with it and the other is slightly less obsessed. I'll try your first suggestion there about the far off colony story, also the second. I

ll check out the micro-rockets.