You can make a number of modifications to your equipment. Most armor and weapons have a number of upgrade slots. Most upgrades take up a single slot, though some extensive modifications might take two or three. Some minor modifications don’t require any slots. You can’t add modifications beyond an item’s available upgrade slots.
You can gain more upgrade slots for an item by stripping a feature from it. Each feature stripped adds one upgrade slit. Upgrade slots can never be used to install upgrades to a feature that has been stripped.
Stripping an item takes 4 hours with a successful Repair roll. A raise halves the time. A failed roll causes the item to cease working until with another Repair repair, again taking 4 hours. Once a successful roll is made, the equipment functions normally and gains the upgrade slot. A critical failure usually causes the item to break in such a way it can’t be repaired, or performs in unexpected ways (GM’s call).
You can strip a weapon in one of four ways:
Damage: Reduce the damage dice by one type, the number of dice does not change. For example, a weapon that deals 2d6 would deal 2d4 instead. A weapon that deals 2d4 would instead deal 1d6.
Range: Reduce the range of a weapon by half. This can only be used on weapons with a range.
Stun: Remove the Stun feature from a weapon that has it.
Autofire: Remove the Autofire feature from a weapon that has it. This can only be done on weapons that can be used without the Autofire feature.
Armor can be stripped in one of two ways:
Defenses: Reduce the Armor bonus by 1.
Joint Protection: Double the weight of the armor and increases its Minimum Strength requirement by one die type.
Installing an upgrade takes 1 hour and a successful Repair roll. A raise halves the time. A failure causes the upgrade to malfunction until it is successfully repaired with another Repair roll, again taking 1 hour. A critical failure usually renders the upgrade useless, or may cause it to perform in unexpected ways (GM’s call).
Removing an upgrade is similar to installing it. A failure indicates the upgrade is deactivated, but not removed. A critical failure damages the upgrade making it useless.