I think I can agree with what the topic starter is saying. I like that Obsidian added weapon mods to game, doing so was already a step in the right direction, but I think it could have been done better, too many weapons don't have any mods available at all, or have only one available. Also, there really should have been both advantages and disadvantages to using weapon mods, or that you sometimes have to make a tradeoff between one modification and another, right now, weapon mods are basically "Install this to make your weapon better." I suppose one might argue that scopes might not be something you'd want to put on every weapon that can use them because they would make it harder to aim at close range, so you'd only use them on weapons you intend to use at long range, and the laser rifle beam splitter kind of seems like a bad idea if you want to use the weapon at long range, or against armored targets, considering that it's already pretty worthless with any target that has anything stronger than light armor even when you don't divide its damage into two beams, in fact, I'm not sure why you'd want to do that at all considering that there's already two energy weapons that fire more than one beam/projectile at a time. Other than that, though, there really doesn't seem to be much reason to NOT modify your weapons. I think it would have been better if rather than just making your weapons better, weapon mods were more of a means to specialize your weapons, that way, there would be a bit more strategic choice involved in using mods.
Also, I wish that you could sometimes find NPCs using modified weapons, because the way it is now, it looks like the Courier is the only person in the entire wasteland who ever uses weapon mods, which is kind of silly.
I'm a little torn on whether unique weapons should have been moddable or not. It's true that it does give them a bit of a disadvantage, but that may have been the point, as the way it is now, using a unique weapon means making a slight tradeoff between the advantages of the unique weapon, or the weapon mods, and in any case, the superior stands of unique weapons often seem to be more than enough to make up for this sacrifice anyway. Not to mention that some of them already seem to have the functionality of some mods available to their generic counterparts.
It's very similar to the WMK mod for Fallout 3.
Go ask the guy who developed that how much work is involved in making all the different models and seeking some balance to the weapons.
Yes, it is pretty similar, which is acually part of the problem, I'd say. Because since the developers themselves, who are professionals, did it themselves, I'd think they could have done better.
The mod system rox my sox. Its like in RL, not every gun has 50 million customization options. Sometimes a gun is just a gun and no aftermarket modifications are made. Some of the guns could've had extended mags or something similar but four mods for every gun is not realistic. While some guns are very easily modded, some are not thats just how it works.
It may be true that not every gun is equally modifiable in real life, but in real life, you're also not going to find too many laser rifles or hand held Gauss rifles lying around. For that matter, you also won't see too many super mutants or scorpions as big as horses, nor are there syringes full of chemicals that can immediately heal any wounds you recieve, even crippled limbs! For that matter, no matter how much you eat, if your half dead, you're not going to get up and running within a few seconds either, well... you get the point, I suppose. The game already makes a lot of sacrifices in terms of realism, and this is how it should be. It's a game, it's supposed to be entertaining, not realistic, and I, for one, find being allowed to modify my weapons is a more entertaining mechanic when I actually have a decent amount of options available. And it's not like anyone said you should be able to modify every weapon to the point that it's no longer recognizable as what it was before. I just wish the mechanic were given a more satisfying implementation.
I have no complaints. I loved FO3 and had no mods. Now I buy the next Fallout game and get something I did not have before, weapons mods! I'm not about to complain that there are "only a few" when it didn't give me heartburn when there weren't ANY in FO3.
I liked Fallout 3 too, and the fact that it didn't have weapon mods did not diminish that. But if you're going to add a new mechanic into a sequel that wasn't in the last game in the series, I think you should put some effort into doing it well, and I feel that they didn't really put as much effort as they could have in weapon mods. And it's not like I don't like the fact that they're in the game, it's just that I feel that Obsidian could have done better in this regard, especially after hearing them talk about weapon mods before release.