Now I'm not saying the crafting in and of itself is bad. In fact, I LOVE it. HOwever, one thing that bugs me is the apparent lack of choice and the frustratingly linear 'upgrade' system attached to gear. It seems like, with just a handful of exceptions (namely laser muzzles), that most of the time upgrades feel very linear. If you want a pistol you automatically go for the comfort or sharpshooter's grip, depending on how good the gun is. You almost always want a longer barrel because, let's face it, hipfire is pretty useless unless you use an automatic or minigun at point-blank range. Otherwise, most of the weapon options feel extremely linear - with the additional exception of the caliber conversion kits. That's actually pretty cool, and I like that, since it can sometimes allow you to use the same base gun you know and love, but in a different caliber, to help maintain playstyle consistency while also giving you a lot of variety in your ammunition choices, especially in the early game. Shame that they're mostly such high-level conversions unless you strip it out of a gun you loot.

Going further, I though tthere'd be greater options in weapons - one of the things I've been missing is my 10mm SMG - and while I could create a 10mm auto-pistol to fill the same role, I can't convert an assault rifle or pipe gun to 10mm to take advantage of the additional stability that being a two-handed weapon seems to impart. Going along with that, the lack in visual variety between weapons is disappointing too. Why can't you craft a more refined version of a pipe gun barrel or something? it always looks like it was kit-bashed from . And I understand that that's the general aesthetic the game wants, amongst the raiders and wandering settlers; but when you see something that makes the Fallout 3 Dart Pistol/Crossbow thing look downright refined amongst the supposed best-of-the-best Gunners, or settlemetn guards, it just looks...I dunno, weird to me.

Further, some more reciever variety would be lovely too. Again, does everything have to be side-fed? Why not some option for a conventional layout, or a bullpup configuration (with reload speed and recoil bonuses with each configuration, some sort of sway-stabilization for the side-feed)? Also, does every assault rifle REALLY have to be water-cooled? And why a binary choice between semi-automatic and automatic for recievers? Why not burst-fire or the like?

I know all this is probably the sort of stuff that will be fixed in mods, but they all seem like these were rather obvious things that could or should have been fixed up. And even if you can't modify them as heavily, seeing some old pre-war guns would have been nice too. Perhaps they're trying to show that this area is, relatively, civilized enough to restart firearms 'production' and eschew old-world guns in favor of the new stuff that they can definitively fix without needing to find originals to cannibalize...but it just, I dunno, feels and looks odd to be, you know?

Nope. This is WAY better than what we had before and there's more than enough options, and balances. Most upgrades come at some sort of loss, if only in scrapped materials.

I love the new system. LOVE it.

Every new post on this Forum is negative! The Gun crafting is amazing, not sure I've grasped it yet but then if you understand everything within a few days of a game coming out then you won't be playing it long. There's an amazing amount of things you can do to a weapon, don't forget that as you unlock new armourer skills more options will open up. There's also books you can read that will make new mods available. You won't have even scratched the surface yet

So...you're saying that there's new kit that doesn't even show up in the list that are added in various ways, or...? Because I know that a lot of upgrades are gated behind the Science, Gun Nut, Blacksmith, and Armorer perks...but they are still visible on the list I've noticed.