So, I've come up with a new method of repairing weapons. I've made a test-version which only affects the 9mm pistol, and currently it seems to be working perfectly, but it'll take a lot of time and drudge-work to apply it to all the weapons in the game, and before I do that I want to make absolutely sure I've got all my plans in order, so I don't have to backtrack and redo a massive amount of work.
First up, a summary of what I've got so far. Then I'll explain exactly what kind of input and advice I'm looking for.
[b]How it works...[/b]
Instead of repairing through the repair menu in the pipboy, pressing a hotkey will take apart your currently equipped weapon into multiple weapon parts, each with a condition value of their own. As an example, the 9mm pistol breaks into a 9mm pistol frame, 9mm pistol barrel, a 9mm semi-auto action, and a 9mm pistol internals. The first time this happens to a weapon, it will check the condition of the weapon and then partially-randomise the condition of the parts, so that, for instance, a pistol you take from a bandit might have all its parts in average condition, or it might have a barrel in perfect condition but an almost-broken frame and action ; no matter what, the combined condition of the parts will add-up to the final condition of the weapon. The repair skill is checked on this first fieldstrip, and the parts are damaged somewhat if you have low skill ; meaning that if you find a mint weapon when you have bad repair skills, taking it apart and putting it back together will damage it a fair bit. The repair skill will not be checked on subsequent fieldstrips of the same weapon, so you don't have to worry about breaking your guns by fiddling with them too often.
Once a gun has been stripped and put back together for the first time, it will remember the condition of each of its parts, so improving your weapons condition might mean looking for that perfect-condition barrel, or maybe it's the action in your gun that's lousy, so you need to find a better one of those. When you fieldstrip it again it will check its current condition against the condition it had when you last assembled it, and degrade its component parts accordingly.
This also allows for semi-compatible parts ; for example, you might be able to repair a Marksman's Carbine with the furniture of an assault carbine, but not with it's barrel or receiver. Some weapon mods will stay as they are in vanilla, but some will take the form of an alternative weapon part ; for example, putting a long magazine on a hunting shotgun will now involve taking it apart, then putting it back together using the long tube instead of the standard (which you can discard, sell, or keep around just in case)
Finally, individual weapon parts (and some single-part weapons like pool cues and lead pipes) will be repairable at the workbench using various miscellanious items such as abraxo or duct tape, which is where your repair skill will truly come into play.
So, the type of advice I'm looking for...
[b]Gun Parts ; what should they be?[/b]
Obviously when you break apart a gun it's not going to give you the 30 or so parts that it would in real life. That would make repairing horrifically tedious and complicated. Instead you'll get about 4-5 for a semi-auto pistol, a little less for simpler weapons like breech-loaders and revolvers, a little more for SMG's and assault rifles and such. This is subject to change, obviously, but I'd really like to have it all planned out before I start implementing it.
What I want to know is, what do you think the parts should be called? Should a revolver be made up of, for example, a frame, a barrel and an action? Or should it be made up of some different combination? Also, how important is each individual part, when it comes to durability and to value? Should the barrel wear down twice as fast as the frame? Four times as fast? Half as fast? Should the action be worth more the barrel? How much more? Also, how should each part be repaired and how should the repair skill play into that. These are the sorts of judgement calls that gun-enthusiasts would know intuitively, but would be massively difficult for me to decide based solely on internet research.
So, in short, what I'm asking is for you guys to pick out a specific weapon from FNV or FO3 and tell me how you think it should be handled. I want to know what components it should break into, what percentage of the weapon's value each component should have, and how quickly each component should degrade compared to the others. I want to know if those components should be compatible with any other weapons. I want to know if any of the weapon's mods should be handled as an alternative component instead of a vanilla mod that can be added or removed without fieldstripping. I want to know which component(s) of the unique version of the weapon should decide it's 'uniqueness' (for example, the frame for Maria or the furniture for Ratslayer, or the action for Sydney's 10mm Ultra, etc.) And finally, I want to know how you think each part should be repaired, and what level of repair skill (or another skill like science, if that's more appropriate) you should need to repair it.
I realise I'm asking for a huge amount of information, but I'm hoping some of you just love to talk guns, so you won't mind helping me out a little.
