Am I missing something? I am looking in Special Modifications to see how can you improve and existing items?

E.G. - my Mechanic wants to add laminate strips to his Mechanic's Utility Suit to give it some Defence. Are there rules that allows this?

Another example. I have created a pistol. Can I roll Mechanics again to add some of the extra effects listed in Special Modifications?

Or, how do I create a new attachment to emulate what I am wanting to achieve and then just use a hardpoint?

I don't think you can improve existing items through any other means than the hardpoint attachment/modification system, and the initial advantage and triumph used to build an item. I'm also pretty sure the extra effects listed in Special Modifications and other crafting systems only apply during the initial building of the item, after which the item is "set" and other than using attachments and upgrades to alter it the item stays the way it is. One thing you can do is craft another of the same item provided you had the materials for them, but that would consume those materials.

I've been looking for rules on crafting attachments and modifications but I've had no luck finding any. I think attachments and modifications have to be purchased rather than crafted, but then you can add them to any items that have enough hardpoints.

I guess technically the quickest solution could be just use the crafting rules as-is. Just say that your existing weapon represents all the parts you need. Like @immortalfrieza indicates, the original item is consumed in the attempt.

You could allow the reverse engineering of your current pistol into components and parts, maybe based on a mechanics check and award a fixed number of available credits per advantage rolled, ie. rolled 2 advantage, you gain 200 credits worth of material to then use in crafting the pistol. The remaining material could then be purchased/found/awarded. I've thought a lot about the ability to reverse engineer items to then reclaim material or earn knowledge, a schematic or advantage towards a future build, but so far I believe the crafting system allows for many advantages once time, money and xp have been invested, so I don't want to allow an awful lot to be put into the reverse engineering portion of it. That could just be me.

Edit: With respect to improvement of the base item after creation, I would not allow that. Modification would have to come through attachments after creation.

I wouldn't allow crafting checks to be made on existing items, trust me... it is too strong. When I didn't understand that it was a single check per item, I allowed a player to make some insanely OP items including what was effectively all the gadgets of Green Arrow's bow & arrow set (comic version not the tv series). It was stupid and I quickly found the error and corrected it by telling the player that at some point they might get access to it as like some legendary item through a quest.

Personally, I also believe there should be a limit on the amount of time in-between sessions, to limit the amount of crafting accomplished. I have had players spend weeks of in-game time between sessions crafting (as long as they had enough time to properly sleep and eat) if the sessions were weeks apart in the game timeline. 1 week is reasonable, 2 weeks should probably be the max time allowed to craft between sessions. That or limit the amount of crafting checks that can be made.

Another way of ensuring the crafting doesn't get out of hand is make sure the players don't have enough credits to craft every single item they desire multiple times over and follow the rules for acquiring parts for restricted items (the parts would be restricted as well and attempting to acquire them could lead to trouble).

Currently I have a game about to end where a player almost never fails a crafting check because of his superbly strong Mechanics dice pool, who has crafted stuff like Augmentative Armor and gotten enough advantages to build 5 schematics and reduce the difficulty of building such armor down to simple (no difficulty). Like I said, it gets out of hand when you allow multiple checks between sessions or more than a week of game-time between sessions (or when they earn buttloads of credits).

3 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

I wouldn't allow crafting checks to be made on existing items, trust me... it is too strong.

I prefer a level of reality in my games, rather than let the rules get in the way. People modify existing items all the time in reality (custom pistols, modded cars etc). I don't agree with your statement, but do think restricting the mods as attachments is the best way to balance it. If only there were Crafting Attachment rules though!

6 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Personally, I also believe there should be a limit on the amount of time in-between sessions, to limit the amount of crafting accomplished. I have had players spend weeks of in-game time between sessions crafting.

You are probably correct there, but that is really up to how the GM runs the session. I run an AoR game and the Mechanic is way too bust helping with general base mechanics to have too much time. What I am trying to say is that the time between games can be filled with story lines to prevent such nerffing.

I think I am going to run Crafting Attachments similar to Gadgets, using "Precision Instrument". Rather than it affecting a chosen skill, it can add an effect. ie in my example above where I want to add laminate to a Mechanic's Utility Suit I was say the aim is to add +1 to Defence and then see how the dice roll to see if anything extra can be added or made worse if Threat.

Well one can certainly take an item and take it apart to re-craft it, I see no issue with that but that might land them with more problems than they started with. I believe the price, rarity, restriction & time it takes are all part of the cost needed to balance out the crafting of said items in the game, especially when your Mechanics skill checks are in the 5 yellow 1 green 2 blue levels.

As anything, this is what I feel personally, you I'm sure have separate views and have separate house-rules for your table which is fine. I merely was pointing out it can be ridiculous at higher xp levels and if you allow too many crafting checks to happen in succession.

4 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Well one can certainly take an item and take it apart to re-craft it, I see no issue with that but that might land them with more problems than they started with. I believe the price, rarity, restriction & time it takes are all part of the cost needed to balance out the crafting of said items in the game, especially when your Mechanics skill checks are in the 5 yellow 1 green 2 blue levels.

As anything, this is what I feel personally, you I'm sure have separate views and have separate house-rules for your table which is fine. I merely was pointing out it can be ridiculous at higher xp levels and if you allow too many crafting checks to happen in succession.

The lightsaber crafting rules in Endless Vigil even cover reforging a new lightsaber jolt from an older one (or from the remains of one).

Our policy is that we cannot re-craft an existing item; the stat line of a weapon is often that of all the weapons components arranged in a particular manner. Mess with that and you basically have raw components to remodel into something new. Basically; we can't roll to provide a crafting check ontop of an existing weapon, after all modifying a weapon is already covered by hard points and attachments by swapping out stock components for more upgrades. There is a lot of mods that can be applied to weapons and armour and the list isn't exhaustive; I once made a dueling pistol modification that added a extra 5 rounds to a dueling pistol which, considering our high powered campaign was fine, it just consumed 2 hard points. As such, I would not allow people to take apart and remake a specialist design of a weapon as rifle optimisation of such gear is already covered by the modding rules. Basically crafting rules are for scratch builds and new projects, not rebuilds and repairs which is covered by attachments and mods.

What i do allow is the sacrifice of one project into another, which would greatly reduce the mechanics check on the next big project. I had once broken down steel skin armour for argumented armour one time and basically used it for a boost dice and to cover most of the cost of the project.

I am the gadgetteer in my group and between my Mechanics 3, 3 force dice and an int of 5 +manipulate, there are very few things I can't build. Just with my group being an active squad; my crafting time is often limited to one or two projects between missions. Schematics also only apply to a project once. Which suits me just fine, I'm often building gadgets for missions, a lot of one off projects and once spent 14 days crafting armour that Tobin intended to fight Vader with after being forced to flee a second time from him.

I think it all depends on the campaign.

I play an artisan and our game is very plot driven and rp heavy but also worth a lot of epic combat. So crafting is part of our a-team aesthetic. Doing stuff outside of raw is part and parcel of our campaign. However I'm not min maxing munchkins. So it works for us.

For example i could have made super duper armor and guns but instead i made everyone a specialist tool gadget that gives bonus successes to discipline checks, because we are landing on Korriban.