+1 for a system simular to ghost recons gunsmith that system was the best weapon customization system i ever saw in a game it was entirly based on trade offs which ment no matter the set up it was always going to be balanced between same guns with different set ups, this is also the system that has the most depth which in my opinion is the reason why it suits dust best.

Also had a thought that could be included to the gunsmith style of customization and that is borderlands levels of insanity like seriously that game has shotguns that shoot emp rockets!! mabye to make insane stuff like this ridiculously expensive too provide some balance to a serious balancing issue that would occur if this sort of thing was put in.

I think if we go with a gunsmith style of system then all the weapon variants with exception of the base of the weapon having variants becomes obsolete so for example the burst,breach and tactical AR would suddenly lose there place in the world as a standard AR could be modified with simple enough modification to handle exactly like them.

Another thing i would propose would be that instead of the different parts requiring PG/CPU req make the base of the gun have fixed PG/CPU reqs that increases as you get more advanced weapon bases/frames not sure of proper word which can be modified more with higher end equipment and parts, the reasoning for the fixed power grid would be that guns would always be balanced if all parts had a trade off for a improvement for example higher rof more recoil, higher damage more recoil, bigger magazines longer reload and makes gun heavier therefore harder to use so on so forth.

I like the idea of a balancing system. How do you think the skills required to mod weapons work? I mean which perks would you give through the skills?

Such as would the skills have a impact on overal modification preformance or give less of their negative effect?

Skill to modify weapons probably weaponry and or mechanical/engineering as for the advantages of the skills if it increased the positive effect it should also increase the negative in my opinion but i think the stats of the positives and negatives of modifications should be standard set to remain balanced as for what the skills should increase perhaps if you could not switch out certain parts of the gun until you have enough skills or the higher the skill the better equipment you can put on

NOTE when i say better equipment i mean still balanced for example if a standard high pressure gas system to increase rof has 10% bonus to ROF anda 10% increase to recoil to balence it then a high end mabye T2 high preasuse gas system should do 20% bonus to ROF with a 20% increase to recoil rather than 20% to 10% ratio this could lead to long term balancing issues and or nessesery l33t set ups that make other fits fail is a aspect of this system i would rather avoid if at all possible

Skill to modify weapons probably weaponry and or mechanical/engineering as for the advantages of the skills if it increased the positive effect it should also increase the negative in my opinion but i think the stats of the positives and negatives of modifications should be standard set to remain balanced as for what the skills should increase perhaps if you could not switch out certain parts of the gun until you have enough skills or the higher the skill the better equipment you can put on

NOTE when i say better equipment i mean still balanced for example if a standard high pressure gas system to increase rof has 10% bonus to ROF anda 10% increase to recoil to balence it then a high end mabye T2 high preasuse gas system should do 20% bonus to ROF with a 20% increase to recoil rather than 20% to 10% ratio this could lead to long term balancing issues and or nessesery l33t set ups that make other fits fail is a aspect of this system i would rather avoid if at all possible

I'm looking for far more specific subsystems than just the generic under-barrel. How about:

Reciever Slot: can modify caliber/rate of fire (no restrictions on matching caliber to weapons though you might not be able to have a magazine for a pistol shooting .50 cal sniper rounds, it would be limited to a hillariously high powered breach loading weapon with no mag)
Mag slot: can modify mag size and certain sized mags will only work with certain sized recievers
Stock slot: this would modify accuracy, stability and movement speed while zoomed but might also raise ammo capacity (options to include but not be limited to full, cut down, none, folding, etc...)
Barrel slot: would modify range and accuracy at the expense/benefit of stability. Longer barrels would increase range and accuracy but decrease stability, or barrels with no rifling (ie smooth boar) would decrease both range and accuracy making a scrambler pistol into a type of shot gun)
Under-Barrel Slot: All sorts of nifty add-ons to your weapon could be installed here from a light or a laser sight to a forearm grip and a grenade launcher. These options could add secondary weapon functionality but might modify weapon accuracy/stability (in a positive way in the case of forearm grips and tri-pods or a negative way in the case of grenade launchers or a under-barrel shot gun <-- because of the added weight of course).
Equipment Rails: These are on the top of the gun and would be used to modify the base iron sights with scopes/red dots but this would be done at the cost of stability in the case of large attachments.

All of these slot options may or may not modify pg/cpu depending on the options selected but all of them will add to the price of the weapon. Remember that weapons of this nature would be inherently high level (tech 2 or 3?) since even pretty experienced firearms users don't typically modify their weapons' recievers. By setting large skill and possibly ISK barriers to weapon modification it would become a motivating goal for many Dusters but would not become a super dominant item on the field. How long will it take people to skill up to the point to meet the type 2/3 requirements after all; a while I'd hope. Also because of the sheer number of combinations people would probably use these mods to make pretty specialized weapons with reduced general utility.

Sorry if I'm a bit rambly here. I'm tired. I'll take the time to clean this up and make it more sensible (especially that last paragraph) later tonight when I am more functioning. This is the problem with posting during breakfast.

I also think going absolutely nuts with it and having the "shell" of the whole system being your character sitting on the couch in his quarters working on his gun at the table would be freaking awesome, but I'd imagine that is a ton of work that would be better spent elsewhere.

weapon customization Are hallmark of any fps game and one that I hope ccp has consider how to implement. Most of us want this added eventually including me but im impartial to how it should be implemented ill let discussion decided that however I think presenting the three suggested methods would give people.something to talk about as well as show my support for this.

1. subsystem/gunsmith: if any of you have played the new ghost recon then you know what this is if you not go youtube it. The idea is simple have each weapon a set stock and barrel and let the player add their own choice of scope, firing mechanism, reload ect. As well as attachments this type of gun would allow lots of player customization and each individual gun would cost different amounts of cpu/pg and not much else. I think this is would be a very cool system to have.
its kinda similar to how tech 3 ships work in eve for a ccp example of this

2. Attachment Rigging: Is something from the eve side of things and any one who ever played eve would be familiar with the rig slots and calibration points. In dust rather than decking out our suits more rig slots would allow players to fit attachments to what ever gun they have equipped. Each attachment would eat up calibration points and some of the more powerful ones would also eat up cpu/pg. I think this system would be in line with the eve roots as well as tie into the economy well.

3. Attachment modules/Slots, are attachment that fill the place of slots consuming cpu/pg while adding on to our guns, for example the underbarrel grenade would fit in the grenade slot, silencer could fit in the medium slots ect. Now this system would have the advantage of being hard to abuse with a player having grenades smg assault+grenade launcher and going to town shredding everything. Now earlier I lied im not partial to this system and prefer the other two. So if someone can post a better less baised opinion down below.id be more than happy to replace my rambling here.

4. Direct Addons: if you ever play EVE and put a script on a weapon then this is similer attachments would fit in the same slots as you weapon, like ammo or scripts in eve. this is a pretty easy to implement system

heres an updated version

Bump this back up, someone might have a different take

The thing about subsystem is that it wouldnt fit into the eve economy very well