I will break it down into 2 parts, revamped weapon smithing system and reverse engineering.
In my mind, smithing weapons and armor is no different than any other form of art; it takes a LOT of time, capital, concentration, patience, and persistence to produce the quality that you would expect from yourself (or what you would expect from any of your squad members), and on top of that, it takes a lot of effort and a little bit of innovation in addition to everything else to get even better at it.
With that being said, I think that weapon and armor research shouldn't be accomplished at a Research Bench but rather at their respective Smithing Benches, be it armor, weapons, medkits, or even rum (yes, there are different qualities of rum *mind blown right in front of face*).
Now let's talk about implementing this in Kenshi.
Currently, completing each level of weapon smithing research immediately unlocks the next grade, or quality of craftsmanship, for EVERY weapon. This even applies to weapons that are still in blueprint form inside some shopkeeper's inventory that you haven't even seen yet.
The feature I am requesting would change this whole system to focus more on the skill of the craftsman rather than the Science junkie at the Research Bench.
There is a topic about this, but I am expanding a lot further on it.
Link: http://www.lofigames.com/phpBB3/viewtop ... =16&t=5637
Starting from the bottom up:
- Remove Weapon Smithing research from the tech tree
Crafting each grade, or quality, would earn the crafter experience in the respective skill up to a specific level (think of grade: rusting blade as a level 1 training dummy, grade: 003 as level 2 and so forth. This would prevent earning infinite XP on a level 1 training dummy, per se)
Each grade, or quality, would have a pre-requisite skill level before it becomes available to the crafter (Grade: 003 requires weapon smithing to be level 5, or crafting standard first aid kits requires first aid to be 20, etc. This would distinguish your experts from your beginners)
If the crafter is crafting the highest currently available grade, or quality, then there is a % chance upon completion of "discovering a new process" or some other such innovational idea, and the completed product will be a grade higher than expected
The % chance of "discovering a new process" will be a ratio between the crafter's skill level and a value attributed to the grade, or quality, "to be discovered" (as grades and qualities increase, the value attributed to them will be higher, thus ratio and the % chance to discover them would be lower)
Upon "discovering a new process", there will be a "cooldown" representing the crafter's mental state being exhausted from "how amazing he feels about himself for discovering this totally new, unheard of before process"
The length of this "cooldown" can be dependent on the crafter's Science skill representing just how innovational this person is (i.e. some people may become so excited from discovering this brand new, never seen before process that they will be content with bathing in their own self-glory for a long time, whereas there are other people that always think innovationally and can't wait to discover the next big thing; thus "cooldowns" can range from extremely long to extremely short. Then again, measuring how innovational someone is could also be dependent on personality, which is an entirely separate thread)
This would also force squad members to specialize towards certain crafting skills, as I believe that some random old Mr. Floppy with 0 Weapon Smithing skills should not be able to pick up a hammer and just churn out Edge grade weaponry, even if it is half a day after Mr. Skins completes the exact same weapon, whom has been working at his craft since he joined the squad to earn his 80 Weapon Smithing skill (I may have developed some sense of pride in my weaponsmith).
Now on to Reverse Engineering.
Each time I hear the words 'Reverse Engineering', I can't help but look back at the days of SW:TOR and their Reverse Engineering system.
Reverse Engineering would be an incredibly cool thing to do not only to allow you to reclaim the materials used to create said weapon or armor, but it would allow a fresh squad to be able to get a slight jump-start into weapon and armor smithing.
In SW:TOR terms, each time you Reverse Engineer an item, weapon, armor, or anything, it returns some of the materials used in its construction, and there is a % chance that you will learn a recipe to craft that exact item albeit with improved stats or an additional slot to augment with some other stat.
To keep in line with Chris's goal of full originality, and the fact that this system just plain wouldn't mesh with Kenshi, I vote to take it in an entirely different direction.
Reverse Engineering, or rather the taking apart of things that you or someone else already created in order to learn the exact process of its construction, shouldn't teach you how to make a better version of that specific item, nor should it be able to return materials back to their original, or raw, form, but it can teach you how to make an exact copy of that item.
This means that weapons made by different manufacturers can be reverse engineered, re-constructed, and either used or re-sold (albeit at a hit to diplomatic relations with the manufacturer for stealing their work).
Keeping the revamped Smithing system in mind, Reverse Engineering is a good place to start while your smith(s) get more skilled and innovational at their craft, as it would allow the construction of, for a random example, a Grade: Industrial 004 Ringed Sabre that you just so happened to loot off a Dust Bandit Boss during some big fight you barely managed to survive.
A tiny part of me wants to also make the schematics learned from Reverse Engineering a piece of equipment unique to the crafter that reverse engineered it (simply because of aforementioned reason that Mr. Floppy with 0 Weapon Smithing shouldn't be able to suddenly know how to make that Ringed Sabre reverse engineered by Mr. Skins and his 80 Weapon Smithing), but I'm going to leave that point open-ended for the time being (perhaps the one who reverse engineered it created a blueprint and stuck it to the wall of every bench at your outpost so anyone can make that one specific piece of equipment)
Thoughts?