That looks more advanced than the build we have?

Eve Lore explination.

Tech 3 is a new technology thinking that involves the use of a special material known as fullerites. These fullerites allows dual or multiple funtionality and personality of materials within a smaller tighter space. For example armor plate that can act as batteries in the same go. Or the missile tube fueling systems to double duty as ejectors.

Because of the advances from tech 3 is so outstanding its been classed as its own technology group. One major feature of technology three is modular adaptability. Shoving two pieces of ships together is considerably an abhorrent idea considering that most tech 1 ships are single form hull construction as much as possible to allow maxium strength and minimal material costs. But tech 3 ships snap together and bond much more strongly together when pieced or taken apart in a shipyard maintenance environment.

Net result a single tech 3 star ship can easily be reconfigured to 5,000+ different hull functions alone. However the dangers of gathering fullerites makes this extraordinarily expensive. Average deployment cost of a Tech 3 cruiser, 1.5 billion isk, a price the rivals the cost of a carrier or dreadnaught capital ship.

Technology 2 is slightly older but similar to tech 3 it comes on the heels of a new material found, called morphite, morphite adheres special properties by inheriting local materials and enhancing them. Thus armor becomes much stronger, conductors conduct better and cooling systems disperse heat better. This allows many ship manufacturers to tweak morphite into their ships original functions and enhance features on them much further. A fast attack frigate can have morphite applied to it engines and whallah it is now a frigate interceptor. Apply it to its armor and defense systems and whallah its an assault frigate. Morphite is rarely found but not as dangerous to gather and it doesnt take much research to make technology 2 items. However the price cost performance and demands have typically made most technology 2 equipment 10x more than their tech 1 counter parts.

Currently All technology cept the clones themselves are considered technology 1. Standard Mateirals and Biomass common throughout all parts of the galaxy. This includes prototype and officer equipment are still considered tech 1 items.

In dust 514's case if we had tech 2 weapons they'd look like this.

Gallente T2 Breach Rifle
Hits like a slow firing cannon

Gallente T2 Tactical Rifle.
Acts like a rapid fire sniper rifle.

Gallente T2 Assault Rifle.
Acts like a mini-hmg.

Where as with Tech 3 we're likely to see that on our suits and not guns may look something like this...

Caldari Tech 3 Assault Suit

Helmet
Observer - Gaurdian - Striker - Assassin - Centurion's

Power Pack
Overloded - Funneled - Fluxating - Stable - Armored

Upper Suit
Pugilist - Rackateer - Quickdraw - Vicegrip - Honed

Lower Suit
Tireless - Parkour - Armored - Paratrooper - Loader

Electronics Suite
Overlord - Hypercalculator - Digital fortress - Beholder - Interceptor

This results in 3125 suit possibilities.
Each suit is broken into 5 subsections. The suit itself has a bonus per skill level into it.
Each part has its own unique per level bonus.
Each part changes cpu and pg of the suit
Each part changes slot layout.
Each part changes overall appearance.

Well for the moment we don't have tech 2 nor do we know if tech 2 or tech 3 materials can be used on our level. After all eve star ships are so much larger than our drop suits.

Then again our dropsuits technologies are unheard of in New Eden currently, personal shields, drop uplinks, minaturized vehicle mounted weapons, microsized armor pumps and micro fusion reactor packpacks and our implants and clones.

Verses the current clones in New Eden are only replacement bodies(for serious body injuries), doppelgangers or the capsuleer type which can only fast update inside the pods, outside the pods they only remember stuff since they last updated.

Then again all technolgies in eve are constantly updating, tech 1 for examples are going over naval review and are getting updated massively. Software updates go out,which adjusts armor resonance, shield harmonics or weapon frequencies causing one or the other to get stronger causing something to lose or gain point ratings. Hardware updates go out to increase safety or continue to provide protection in an ever growing threat environment.

There is also jury rigging but I don't see that coming over well its possible. Rigging is just basically rerouting stuff in your suit to do things differently from basic functions.

Remember tech 2 didnt show up in new eden for a few years and tech 3 much later. While generally tech 2 for the longest time was considered better than tech 1 stuff recent military updates made to almost all tech 1 ships almost makes them rival their tech 2 counter parts in general purpose functions. Tech 3 still however is considered extraordinarily powerful the interaction and level of connection between the technology and pilot is so great that ripping the two apart causes some denigration of the conscious.

They didn't scrap the CARBON technology behind it, since that is the tech that runs EVE capitans quarters, but instead ventured on to using UT3 engine for DUST.

I find all this weapon customization just teeny weeny unimportant stuff.

Having all the variatiations of the weapons what are planned is enough for loooong time.