Tldr: Players should be able to research and craft any weapons and armor they want. If they decide something is unbalanced then just don't craft it / research it.

I think that all the weapons / armors (composite vest, ect.) should be 100% craftable. I could see in a multiplayer game trying to worry about balance, but rimworld is a single-player, do what you want kind of game. The only person who should decide whats "balanced" (no disrespect to the author as they have done AMAZING work) for their world would be the player playing it. Thats not to say that the author isn't the final verdict, it is of course thier labor of love that makes this possible. I have seen other mods that give the user options in the "mod settings" tab to select what they want and don't want and even change multipul values in a mod. While balancing is important to make the game still challenging for those who want it like that, some players don't want a predetermened balance. If the items were all researchable and craftable then the balance is ultimately left up to the player to decide. If they don't want composite vest for everyone then just don't craft any, same with weapons. I do think that the author should put some weapons that you can't craft simply to add some wonder and excitement to quests and raids, but that those are limited to very exotic weapons or armors, like uniques in fallout or skyrim. I love using this mod as it makes raids more interesting and adds some realism and believabillity to the game, but i hate that i cant craft a GMG or an AMR to deal with mechs, or craft a riot shotgun to put my 15 sla.. prisoners back into their cells. All in all, I think that the balance is up to the players because if they really want a unique they will just use console to spawn one in, but for players who like to play thier own game (it is a sandbox game) and craft these weapons it should be available to them through research and resources.

I haven't actually sat down and compared them, but I'm pretty sure the stat differences between the Weapon Tech "assault rifle" and the various bonus equivalents is about the same as the difference between a Fabrique Nationale FNC (which is what it appears to be based on visually) and an AR-15, a Kalashnikov, an SA80 etc; ie so minor as to be essentially meaningless in actual combat. Same goes for the sub-machine guns and the sniper rifles, and I suspect the same will be true of the handguns if the creator bothers adding a "polymer service pistol" to appease the Glock fans.

What I'd be more interested in seeing is some way of selectively making weapons from this mod craftable by custom factions, playable or otherwise. The polymer weapons would be ideal for raiders sent by a remnant of the government that built all those Ancient Highways, for example, and I'm sure someone would love to create some Neo-Soviet Pioneers with AK-style weapons.

I get that the mod is to make raids less boring with only 4 weapons, but now the colony seems kinda boring with a bunch of guns that are essentialy the same thing like you said. I do agree though it would be cool to see that maybe only a certian pirate faction will be armed with "modern" firearms, another with more black-powder type ect ect. The only problem is that with adding this type of mechanic it begins to conflict with other added factions and even vanilla code.

I think in the future it would be cool to have era type factions (lever action/revolver faction, blowback faction, polymer and modern, ect) that the player could farm for certian weapons or befriend and trade with or even eliminate all together, but for now I would be extreamly happy with just being able to have the choice to make the weapons and armor in game or not.

I don't actually mind them being cosmetically different only: If nothing else it spares us from trying to decide which gun should actually be better at which particular stat, a process that will infallibly attract pointless bickering by gun fanboys.

And I know of at least one custom faction mod that is designed to work well with Weapon Tech: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1486131836

I beleive that the bonus weapons should not be craftable as I love being able to actualy get unique gear from traders and raider that I can't ake myself. I feel that this adds a new depth to the usefulness of arms traders and raids. In fact I would love to see a clothing/armor mod that used a similar system.

I second uncraftable items that are difficult to obtain. It makes them valuable and adds to that excitemeant when you see one and try and sell everything you have to buy it and then your colony starves and the last man holding that special rifle shoots everyone and runs off wild.

My take on the bonus weapons is this: They're nice for variety, but there needs to be a more clear line as to what weapon they're meant to be an upgrade or sidegrade to. Comparing weapons takes a long time because of the somewhat clunky GUI for this (since you can't open two items at the same time to compare them directly). Also, there *is* a ton of overlap that could probably be reduced slightly.

There are also some of them that I think should be craftable.

The Lever Action should be given the stats of the Large LA and the large LA should be removed IMO, the standard LA is kind of a direct downgrade to bolt actions in most cases while the large LA is more of a sidegrade, focusing on RoF instead of accuracy.

The Anti-Material rifle should be craftable, it's a significant enough difference from the bolt action.