Well since this apparently Armoury Week, or so I hear, I figure might as well bring this dead horse back, so please tear into it.

So, making a rather broad statement here, its unanimous that the Good and Best Quality upgrades are rather useless. As it is the Good Quality only grants a trait that’s found on a total of 11 weapons (6 Las-Weapons, 4 SP-Weapons, and 1 Low-Tech Weapon); while this doesn’t seem all that bad considering there are a total of 46 ranged weapons (11 Las, 16 SP, 4 Bolt, 3 Melta, 3 Plasma, 4 Flame, 7 Low-Tech, 5 Launcher, 3 Exotic; and of which 10 are found only on vehicles) most of the weapons that ‘do’ already have the Reliable quality are the most likely weapons that a regiment will likely have (Laspistols and Lasguns come to mind). This had strangely enough, made a tier system in which some weapons are not ‘worth’ upgrading beyond common quality: a “Good” Quality Lasgun is a joke item, while a “Good” Quality Autogun (the lasgun‘s Solid Projectile counterpart) is a decent deal.

Most will ’fondly’ remember when the Weapon Specialist used to get an option for a “Good” Quality lasgun, an option so ridiculously pointless as to boggle the mind how it got in there in the first place. While it its undeniable that the Reliable quality is a good trait for a lot of weapons (Bolters, Meltas, and Plasma weaponry all greatly benefit from it), its fairly agreeable that it should not be the only option for better-than-average firearms.

Another reason, that was brought up at last second , was that finding weapons (either as spoils of war or as well-earned rewards) is currently very unimpressive. Acquiring a Best Quality M3 Lasgun doesn’t ‘wow’ Players as its no better than the ones in the hands and will be seen more as a slap-to-face than anything. While a Best Quality Inferno Pistol will, it will be because it’s a bloody Inferno Pistol (an almost, probably-should-be unique weapon); at which point its weapon itself that draws Players and not its quality.

Since upgrading to Good or Best Quality is expensive, either in Kit Points or Logistics, my circle of Inquisitors (as I might as well call them) have considered the writing up a list of options that would allow players and GM’s to make their armaments more impressive and memorable. For the purpose of this alternative a weapon must be of Common quality before it can be upgraded to Good quality, and Good quality before it can be upgraded to Best.

For the Standard Kit Customization this would modify the old options to look like this (wish I could make a table, or make use of the tab-key, emperor-****-this-machine! ):

Item or Upgrade Cost Limitation

Improve a firearm to Good Quality 5 Item must be of Common quality

Improve a firearm to Best Quality 15 Item must be of Good Quality

This would mean that it would cost 20 Kit Points to upgrade 1 firearm to Best Quality, which seems fair as you could purchase a lot with 20 points otherwise and the boon for having a well-equipped unit. Also before I forget to add it, standard kit firearms of Good or Better quality always have the same Special Qualities (chosen either by the GM or Players at Regiment Creation) and cannot be modified to have different Qualities.

GOOD QUALITY ABILITIES
One of the following weapon traits may be chosen when upgrading a weapon to Good quality. Some weapon traits can only be taken by specific types of weapons, while others have different effects depending on the type of weapon they are place on, these will be noted in parentheses. If a weapon already possess a weapon trait it cannot normally take the same weapon trait again (examples: a lasgun cannot take the Reliable quality as it already has it). Some traits stack with the weapon’s default and/or with the previous high Quality effect, this will be specifically stated in its description, unless noted.

Accurate, Blast 1 (Explosive Weapons Only, Stacks), Concussive 0 (Weapon without the Concussive Quality), Concussive 1 (Weapon with the Concussive Quality, stacks), Crippling 1 (Low-Tech Weapons, except the Bola, Only), Felling 1 (Stacks), Haywire 1 (Melta and Plasma Weapons Only), Proven 3 (Heavy, Launcher, Melta, Plasma, Vehicle, and Exotic Weapons), Proven 5 (Base and Pistol Weapons), Reliable, Toxic 1 (Solid Projectile and Exotic Non-Explosive Weapons only, Stacks).

BEST QUALITY ABILITIES
One of the following weapon traits may be chosen when upgrading a weapon to Best quality. Some weapon traits can only be taken by specific types of weapons, while others have different effects depending on the type of weapon they are place on, these will be noted in parentheses. If a weapon already possess a weapon trait it cannot normally take the same weapon trait again (examples: a lasgun cannot take the Reliable quality as it already has it). Some traits stack with the weapon’s default and/or the Best Quality, this will be specifically stated in its description, unless noted. Alternatively, instead of choosing one of the below listed traits a character may chose one from the Good Quality list following the normal rules for customization.

Blast 2 (Explosive Weapons Only, Stacks), Concussive 1 (Weapon without the Concussive Quality, stacks), Concussive 2 (Weapon with the Concussive Quality, stacks), Crippling 2 (Low-Tech Weapons, except the Bola, Only), Felling 2 (Stacks), Haywire 2 (Melta and Plasma Weapons Only), Lance (Melta and Plasma Weapons, Lascannons and Hot-Shot Laspistol/Lasgun Only), Maximal (Las and Melta Weapons Only), Ogryn-Proof, Storm (Only Weapons capable of Automatic fire), Tearing, Toxic 2 (Solid Projectile and Exotic Non-Explosive Weapons only, Stacks)

I can see where you're going with this, but how would you ever justify something like a lasgun, no matter how well it's made, have something like Felling or Storm? Being better quality doesn't change how the weapon inherently works or operates. So I appreciate the sentiment and your reasoning, but I don't think the list you made works at all.

IMO a Good or Best craftsmanship lasgun should get proven(x), because it's so reliable, it does a minimun amount of dmg with every shot.

And i think the lance quality fits the lascannon nicely.

@Gordian

Proven doesn't work on low-dice weapons - a lasgun with Proven(3) would only deal 6 points of damage if proven comes into play, which most enemies will still ignore.

@Topic

I'd suggest slapping a simple +1 Penetration on Good quality weapons if they're already Reliable. Accurate in particular is a quality I definitely would not hand out as it wreaks havoc on weapon balance when applied to stuff like plasma or melta guns.

Also, poor quality should only downgrade the reliability by one instead of making even reliable weapons unreliable.

Ah, memories of the DW thread asking what happens when that one Master of the Forge ability applied Accurate to a Storm Bolter… If aimed in single shot mode, does the extra shot from the Storm quality also have Accurate applied to it?

Although, that makes me thing of a possible solution to the vehicle AP problem; have certain weapons have a form of accurate that only works on vehicles (E.g. melta weapons gain accurate vs. tanks, might actually be able to take em out in short order).

I too would stress caution when applying just any quality to weapons. I'll go as far as saying I'm not against bringing consistency into the system, and allowing Good/Best quality ranged weapons to get the same +5 BS/+10 BS +1 dam that Good/Best melee weapons get. They've already brought melee more in line by making Swift/Lightning attack function as melee SA/FA, and by bringing down the SA/FA bonuses. Why can't they bring weapon craftsmanship in line too?

I agree that Good/Best craftsmanship ranged weapons should benefit from the bonuses to hit, and damage that melee weapons get. A weapon of good quality in this game needs to stand out in more ways than simply being more shiny. Giving weapons qualities they already have seems a bit rubbish.

I do like the idea of granting new qualities to waeapons though, but perhaps not as many as were listed in the first post. Proven, accurate, felling and tearing are all good 'all round' qualities that any weapon could benefit from (although I imagine most players would pick tearing every time… discuss!). Also, improving weapon quality could remove more than just unreliable and overheating/jamming, such as by removing the innaccurate quality.

Maybe the whole weapon customisation thing could use an overhaul. There are some nice weapon upgrades and attachments, to be sure, but what about adding qualities to weapons? And what happened to downgrades from Black Crusade? They were fun.

I know what you're thinking… TECH HERESY… so hows about:

Weapon Quality: Heretech - This weapon has been tampered with in ways abhorrent to the tech priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Openly carrying this weapon provokes extreme hostility from any character who adheres to the ways of the machine cult, and succeeds on a (-10) Common Lore (Adeptus Mechanicus) test, or (+10) Forbidden Lore (Adeptus Mechanicus) test.

HTMC said:

Well Felling for example is just a trait with no justification needed really, the only difference between a lasgun and a longlas is that the latter has better range and penetration but is still a lasgun by design (one might as well ask why its gets this trait, at 4 no less, but the sniper rifle does not; especially since the sniper rifle is otherwise superior in stats in all other ways). I will admit my own person idea for the these traits was simply: Reliable, Proven, or Accurate.

But I got overruled and had to post all of the suggestions not just my own, though I think that if there were options for ‘extensive modifications’ that could be used for the other options that would be nice and would make more sense (gaining the Storm trait by duct-tapping two autoguns together comes to mind).

Apothecary Gordian said:

I agree that the Proven trait is very nice trait that makes higher damage more consistent and toying with your statement a bit. “A Best Quality Lasgun is Proven, because it’s so Reliable.”

I do have credit to my crazy Nightlord-favored friend for the idea of giving the option for Lance quality for Lascannon’s and the like, it would certainly solve a bit of the issue of tanks extreme endurance to a degree…and it would be an item veteran tank-hunters would want in their armoury.

Cifer said:

Well by this model a lasgun would have Proven (5), which while not increasing its max damage by any would mean that you would do a minimal of 8 points of damage which ‘should’ allow to always do one or two points of damage ‘most’ of time.

A bonus to penetration is not bad for a Good quality weapon either but you’d still be left with the useless Best Quality still (which takes effect once every Black Crusade ), what would you propose for an alterative (and more useful for its extreme cost) Best?

As for Accurate on Meltas that’s not really all ’that’ absurd it’s a single shot weapon with very short range you’d imagine people would both want that one shot to and do a crapton of damage…since all it takes is a single successful Dodge action to negate it all together.

Actually I noticed that the Accurate quality is not very useful in most cases unless your making a sneak attack, you get 1-shot and no matter how many extra-successes you get with it all it takes is one successful Dodge roll to make all your efforts wasted. You could roll 01 and have a total Ballistic skill rating of 111 and a standard Imperial Guardsman that rolls a 35 or lower and makes 1 successful Dodge action to make an otherwise awe-inspiring shot completely irrelevant. Accurate weapons, not used in sneak attacks, against enemies with high Dodging skills (like the Dark/Eldar) become ever more useless as they are not likely to fail to dodge a single attack (barring bad luck).

Semi- and Full-Automatic fire at least give extra hits per degree of success and are much more difficult to completely dodge (at least one success per hit) so after a while the game starts encouraging you to use semi/fully automatic fire over single-shot because even if a target makes one success with Dodge it doesn’t negate the other hits.

Though this is more of an issue with Combat than Armoury, and this may be changed when that comes around, as it stands if your firing a gun on single-shot without the Accurate quality you are wasting your shot.

I do, very much in fact, agree with you on Poor quality weapons just losing their “Reliable” trait and not somehow becoming as bad as those without the Reliable trait, that should be reserved for weapons of the Terrible quality.

KommissarK said:

That doesn’t sound bad idea really.

KommissarK said:

I been think about why they never did something that would completely eliminate this whole problem since Dark Heresy, and I finally realized after a time it was because of 1 reason.

Melee Combat sucks!

If you break it down a bit Ranged Combat requires: Ballistic Skill, Agility, Perception (sometimes) and (very rarely) Willpower. A good (and I don’t mean quality-wise) weapon and armour are nice but not essential.

In comparison Melee Combat requires: Weapon Skill, Strength, Toughness, Agility, (FAR more often than Ranged, as most fear-based abilities are short-ranged) Willpower, and sometimes Perception (scratch that, even more-so than Ranged, so as to avoid walking into a ambush along the way). You ‘will’ need good weapons and (especially) armour to have any hope of surviving. WORSE you have to ‘get there’ before you can engage in melee combat, and while Inquisitor bands have more freedom to engage as they choose…well your Imperial Guard now, you don’t have a ‘choice’ more often than not.

The enemies are 2000 meters a way…uphill…in the rain…with no cover…DOOM!

And THEN there are the cases were the enemies are all-too-happy to come to you instead like Orks…or Eldar…or TYRANIDS! By those examples you probably noticed that all of the are either Close-Quarters Specialists (or have such units in the ranks) who will generally have better stats than you (human Guardsman) can ever have and in many cases better weapons/armour too. So if you get in melee with those guys your definitely screwed.

…AND THEN there are the guys that suck at melee combat but compensate this weakness by focusing on mobility and ranged attacks, the Tau and (again) the Dark/Eldar for example, who will simply run circles around you while blasting you to pieces. Both the Tau and Eldar also have superior weapons and armour compared to the Imperial Guardsmen by default, so even if you get in melee you may still not win.

So to quote a popular Tau saying:
“Yes we suck at Melee, pity you’ll never get there.”

Now before I get more derailed by own twisted black comedy I’ll get to back on track.

The reason that superior-quality melee weapons get bonuses to Hit (and in the case of Best Quality, Damage) is sort of a “band-aid on a broken leg” solution, it makes melee combat a bit more appealing to those that don’t realize how stupid is to ‘purposely’ charge into melee. Take how devastating Ranged-Combat is in general and now add a +5/+10 bonus to hit (and maybe an extra point in damage) and lets see how many people will try to make melee-focused characters afterwards.

…and just because it came to me when thinking how bad letting Ranged weapons also get the Melee Weapon Bonuses, I’ve thought up an Bone `ead Ogryn that realizes that shooting people is easier and upgrades his Autocannon to Best Quality and gets a Telescopic Sight attached. Which is then followed by many devastating long-range kills at 900m.

“This my gun. Many like it. MINE BETTER!”

Good: A lot of these need to be restricted by weapon class.

Accurate: makes sense. An Inaccurate weapon though would only lose it from this of course. [Qualities need to stack more]

Blast: This I have issue with. Its more an ammo thing for most weapons; the few exceptions are actually non-Explosive. While I could see +1 blast on a quality multi-melta, I really don't see how you'd be imparting it to bolter ammunition without a daemon weapon or something. Plasma, Melta, certain Exotics, but not solid ammunition weapons.

Concussive 0/+1: Again, this seems like something limited by/to ammunition. Higher velocities would be more damage/range, like on a maglev impeller.

Crippling: Again, Its about the ammo, except when dealing with thrown. That you'd already stated for this one though.

Felling: This works. Even long-las have a decent amount of Felling in the first place.

Haywire: I prefer having a lot of the simpler particle weapons in the Las category: its always needed a little extra. More complex to craft and maintain, but similar, simple "point and shoot beam" operation. Not melta, but ionized plasma would make sense.

Proven: Las weapons are as reliable as it gets. Plasma and Melta could get this as well. But LAUNCHERS? no, dude, that's, again, a matter of loaded ammunition. Good launcher does not improve your warheads.

Lance and Maximal: Las weapons, being pure energy weapons, deserve to be affected by Weapon-Tech talent, and I could see them gaining Maximal. However, rather than Lances, I'd like to see some sustained beam weaponry, like the lightburner, in the las and melta categories. Imagine if instead of DoS, sustained consecutive hits to a location [get a spread limiter or have a called-shot-multifire method] added Felling[2] and Doubled Pen [which starts fairly low]. First hit is 1d10+2 Pen 2, second makes it Pen 4, Felling 2, third Pen 8 Felling 4, fourth Pen 16 Felling 6…

Storm is going a bit far… BUT, rather, I'd say you halve [round up] the RoF to go with it. It now cycles much faster, making it easier to get more hits in on a target in the same instant. Rare you'd get 10 hits off an autogun on a guy anyways, but five double-hits? that's a lot more likely eh?

Tearing: yeah, I guess…

Toxic I could see being applied to outgoing ammo, but you'd need it to be a dispenser or the like. perhaps coats the outgoing rounds in a thick gel of it… but you'd have a bit of a ballistics drawback there.

I generally like these ideas, but I'm going to argue with myself bit here. Yes, we need some solid options for what "good" and "best" do beyond the incredibly lackluster crud they've been giving us in pretty much every system. The list you have is a little large for my tastes and includes some stuff that's clearly ammo based. A little cleaning and maybe a more structured tier system would turn this into a solid idea. Now the odds of this being done are low, so we should probably save whatever we come up with and put it elsewhere in a PDF. But if I might conclude with a personal piece of wishlisting.

I would like solid "commission" option for characters who achieve certain levels of renown. Sgt. Johnny and his guard squad single-handedly save a world by holding one hopeless position for just long enough for the big guns to come in and clear the enemy out; they get a medal. Now while a medal is a big deal in OW the governor might want something with a little more pop for his victory parade and so he gives them some snazzy guns. Now these could be "best" lasguns and get pawned off by Johnny & Co. so they can buy something that isn't so useless, or we could have a set of squad weapons commissioned, these would be "good" or "best" and be able to acquire 1 or 2 qualities that are deemed appropriate; no blast lasguns, not even if you beg. DW definitely has a huge armory of special weapons with unique qualities because hey are the weapons of heroes, but no chance for the players to have there own weapons of legend that could be passed on when they fall. I know being one of the faceless horde is a large thematic element in 40k (even more so in OW over DW or DH) but sometimes they players earn themselves some serious laurels; they can truly be heroes and deserve some perks.

No then…Okay lets see if the Emperor-be-damned machine will post this time!
…Curse it, when I find the Tech-Adept that made this machine I’m going to execute `em for wasting an Imperial Inquisitor’s time!

Good Stuff

Most of them are' date=' to a degree, limited to weapon-types though not to an extreme degree: Blast 1 for example is limited to weapons that have (E)xplosive damage only…but I do get what you mean most of these would be better suited to specialized ammunition…which I think I’ll finish that train of thought latter.

I generally like these ideas, but I'm going to argue with myself bit here. Yes, we need some solid options for what "good" and "best" do beyond the incredibly lackluster crud they've been giving us in pretty much every system. The list you have is a little large for my tastes and includes some stuff that's clearly ammo based. A little cleaning and maybe a more structured tier system would turn this into a solid idea. Now the odds of this being done are low, so we should probably save whatever we come up with and put it elsewhere in a PDF. But if I might conclude with a personal piece of wishlisting.

I think the tragic truth is that I(we) already know that they’re never going to change the Craftsmanship mechanics, they used the same one’s since Dark Heresy, but I guess you are right and that doesn’t stop any of use from making a ‘homebrewed’ PDF or anything (though personally I suck at those things) and having people use them as alternatives to what’s written.

I would like solid "commission" option for characters who achieve certain levels of renown. Sgt. Johnny and his guard squad single-handedly save a world by holding one hopeless position for just long enough for the big guns to come in and clear the enemy out; they get a medal. Now while a medal is a big deal in OW the governor might want something with a little more pop for his victory parade and so he gives them some snazzy guns. Now these could be "best" lasguns and get pawned off by Johnny & Co. so they can buy something that isn't so useless, or we could have a set of squad weapons commissioned, these would be "good" or "best" and be able to acquire 1 or 2 qualities that are deemed appropriate; no blast lasguns, not even if you beg. DW definitely has a huge armory of special weapons with unique qualities because hey are the weapons of heroes, but no chance for the players to have there own weapons of legend that could be passed on when they fall. I know being one of the faceless horde is a large thematic element in 40k (even more so in OW over DW or DH) but sometimes they players earn themselves some serious laurels; they can truly be heroes and deserve some perks.

I definitely with you about the lack of appreciation for the ‘Heroes of the Imperial Guard’ as it stands even the most badass and extraordinary members of the Guard get nothing at all for their actions but ‘useless medals’. I think I’ll certainly put some thought to that soon enough (maybe I‘ll post-up a thread on more Customization for Weapon…and Armour!) as well as something for like Regiment Advances, for regiments that have a history of going above and beyond the call of duty (though I may wait for the GAME MASTER week for that idea). It certainly ‘should’ be an option to somehow acquire weapons, armour, or tools (not going to discriminate) that perform beyond their basic function…though again, that may be more in line with increasing the Customization rules.

…hmm I think going to make an alterative to what I ‘had’ to post at the top and if its good enough may be a framework for more endeavors.
====

Weapon Qualities
When upgrading a weapon from Common Quality to Good Quality a weapon gains one of the below listed Special Weapon Qualities as their description directs. A weapon upgraded from Good Quality to Best Quality gains an Additional Special Weapon Quality from the below list. If a weapon already possess one of the below traits it cannot take it again unless the description says otherwise (ex: A Good-Quality Lasgun cannot take the Reliable quality, nor can a Best-Quality Autogun that has take Reliable at Good-Quality). Some qualities may act differently for different types of weapons, this will be listed in its description.

The selectable qualities are: Accurate, Felling, Proven, and Reliable

Accurate: A weapon without the Inaccurate quality (see Armoury page: 122) gains the Accurate quality (see Armoury page: 120). A weapon with the Inaccurate quality that takes this option loses its Inaccurate quality and performs normally when aiming. A weapon with the Inaccurate quality may take this option again at Best Quality, if it does so the weapon gains the Accurate quality.

(Example: A Good-Quality Flintlock Musket that takes Accurate, loses its Inaccurate quality and now gains bonuses from the Aim maneuver. A Best-Quality Flintlock Musket that took Accurate at Good and does so again gains the Accurate quality, and is a reasonable marksman weapon…for Low-Tech.)

Felling: A weapon that takes this quality gains Felling (see Armoury page: 121) at a Rating of 1, if the weapon already has the Felling quality it increases its Felling Rating by 1. If this quality is taken again at Best Quality the weapons Felling Rating increases by 2, for a total increase of 3.

(Example: A Good-Quality Lasgun that takes Felling gains Felling (1), while a Good-Quality Longlas increases its Felling Rating from 4 to 5. A Best-Quality Lasgun that took Felling at Good-Quality and does so again has a Felling Rating of 3, while a Best-Quality Longlas that took Felling at Good-Quality and does so again has a staggering Felling Rating of 7!)

Proven (Heavy, Launcher, Low-Tech, Melta, Plasma, Vehicle, and Exotic Weapons): Any weapon that falls into these categories that takes the Proven quality (see Armoury page: 123) gain it at the (3) Rating. If the Weapon already has the proven quality add 3 to its rating to determine it total.

Proven (Basic and Pistol): A weapon that doesn’t fall into one of the above categories that take the Proven quality (see Armoury page: 123) gains it at the (5) Rating. Unlike the above weapon types these weapons gain become “Proven Without A Doubt” and this quality can be chosen again at Best Quality becoming Proven (9).

Reliable: A weapon without the Unreliable (see Armoury page: 124) quality gains the Reliable quality (see Armoury page: 123). A weapon with the Unreliable quality that takes this option loses its Unreliable quality and performs normally. A weapon with the Unreliable quality may take this option again at Best Quality, if it does so the weapon gains the Reliable quality.

(Example: A Good-Quality Flintlock Musket that takes Reliable, loses its Unreliable quality and no longer jams on rolls of 91 or higher. A Best-Quality Flintlock Musket that took Reliable at Good and does so again gains the Reliable quality, and now doesn’t jam except on a unmodified roll of 00.)

Ever consider the simple solution of just giving Ranged the same bonuses as melee (+5 to-hit, then +10 to-hit, +1 Dam) for Good and Best? And maybe adding that a Best unpowered melee weapon can't be power-weapon destroyed? It's how I've been playing it from DH onwards and it's always worked.

A thought i got recently, if you don´t give the normal M36Lasgun a bigger punch, why not give them bigger clips ?

They are build with higher quality parts so Las, Melta, Plasma and maybe even Flame weapons get more shots from a normal clip.

+50% with good quality

+100% with best quality

this would make it reasonble to improve the standard lasgun to better quality without making it overpowered

There needs to be an internal heirarchy of weapon traits so that as you upgrade craftsmanship you add a trait and if that trait is already on the weapon you add the next trait.
A quick example:

Reliable/Accurate/+1 Damage.

In this example as you upgrade the craftsmanship from normal to good, you add the Reliable trait, then from good to best adds the Accurate trait. If however your normal weapon already has Reliable, then the upgrade to good would add Accurate instead before adding +1 Damage at Best.

This system wouldn't break any weapon versus another as i believe the sniper weapons with Accurate are already Reliable, so while a Lasgun would become Accurate and be good for single shot sniping with some burst fire backup for close quarters the same craftsmanship upgrade on a Longlas would be a straight up damage boost. Twice in fact if you made it best crafstmanship.

Night10194 said:

We did in ended in disaster and TPK, melee weapons don’t have a problem in terms of quality they’re fine as they are; its guns where its sucks (mostly).

boooh said:

With the inclusion of Power Settings being added they got the “punch” part down now at least.

The problem with upping the ammo clip is that it doesn’t make sense for SP weapons or Launchers both in which the ammo doesn’t change size and the idea for an “Extended Clip” would seem more like a Customization trick than anything.

It would still be better than nothing though.

Kasatka said:

That would also work, although some people may prefer to have more options, but that certainly is another simple way of dealing with this issue.

Ranged has an easier time collecting +BS bonuses than melee weapons do, so its understandable that quality should not give them even more.

Rather, its that a lot of weapons have drawbacks, weak bonuses, or just plain get nothing for being improved considerably [it is effectively a step in rarity for most]. Things like a best quality musket still being quite inaccurate can make some sense, but then there's the doubly-reliable good lasgun fired on overload which goes from Reliable-by-default + Reliable-by-craftsmanship-except-nothing-happens-because-it-already-was to Unreliable, or flamers that jam 1/10 times no matter what unless they're Best, and so on.

So why NOT improve the craftsmanship rules? FFG has greatly improved most other things in the game since it was Dark Heresy, they've even rewritten the Psyker system what, twice plus a few tweaks, now?

A high quality weapon should be a rare and coveted thing that changes the game *slightly* for its lucky owner. Its no "+5 vorpal shocking speed" weapon from off in pathfinder, but it has a little something special that fits what it was made for, lovingly hand-crafted by a magos as a work of the Omnissiah's deadly will. Reliability is at fist a given, but once that's already achieved? performance.

Ideally we'd see a short list of "pick one custom" per weapon category. Weapons already reliable to begin with tend to be significantly weaker than the others anyhow, so a little extra in the form of getting two by going to good and best just keeps them viable much later.

Whether changes should apply to one or all modes is a different matter, though I'd suggest you have to pick which 'mode' when it comes to underbarrel shotguns/launchers, triplex alt modes and the such, while maximal or amped Variable Settings are still the original weapon. With a Best Quality multimode reliable weapon, you get one quality to apply to each of the two modes. That Triplex just has one mode left behind, but screw it, its still awesome. What can I say; I like picturing that incinerator mode as a sustained beam for burn-through.

Some examples:

LAS

-Accurate: Weapons without Accurate gain this quality. Inaccurate[are there even any of those?] Las weapons lose this quality. Weapons gaining Accurate in this fashion are limited to +1d10 bonus damage.

-Steady Output: The Weapon gains Proven[2], or increases its Proven rating by +2 if it already has it.

-Variable Refinement: A weapon without Variable Settings gains this quality. However, this upgrade is primarily meant for weapons already capable of it. Refined Overcharge grants the weapon +5m range for Pistols, +10m if Basic or Heavy, as well as +1 Damage and +2 Penetration. Refined Overload adds an additional point of damage over this, doubles the range increase, and removes the Reliable quality from the weapon while fired in this way. This quality may not be purchased twice.

-Emergency Capacitor: The Weapon may, for a single action, gain the Twin-Linked quality. Twin-Linked weapons are instead upgraded to Storm. Reloading this capacitor requires a seperate half-action to standard reloads, and uses a single shot from the weapon's charge-pack in the process. This is in addition to the extra ammunition usage caused by the obtained qualities.

PLASMA

-Torch: The weapon may, as a half-action, shut down its accelerator coils to eject a steady short-ranged output. This converts the weapon into a short-ranged torch, allowing it to be used as a melee weapon with the following properties:

Melee, 3m, <Damage as Weapon> <Pen: Weapon / 2>, Maximal, Unbalanced, Flexible, Storm-Field

Each round of operation consumes three shots of ammunition, or six if used in Maximal. You may not apply your Strength Bonus to damage caused by a Plasma Torch. Storm-Field 'accidents' in this mode do not halve the weapon's final penetration against the user.

Why not just use the Deathwatch system where Good/Exceptional give +1 damage and Reliable and Best/Master-crafted give +2 damage and Never Jams/Overheats? Maybe give already Reliable Good craftsmanship weapons something simple like Proven (3).

All this mucking about with picking Weapon Traits seems needlessly complicated and poorly balanced.