Let's say I have 10mm pistol. Can I break it down so I'm left with no pistol, and a [barrel, magazine, sight, grip] etc?
I ask because I'm finding myself in the early game with mods across 3-4 pistols that I'd like to combine into one, but I lack the extra junk/spare mods to swap things around.
3 Answers
It's not possible to do this without any component cost. Scrapping a weapon destroys its mods.
But it shouldn't take long to find a few spare weapons, break them down, and make enough components for a swap at a relatively low component cost. If you can manage to afford the Level 1 Scrapper perk this gets even easier.
It sounds like you might know how to do this already, but in case it helps you or others—let's say you have a Powerful Receiver mod on pistol A, and you want to move it to pistol B.
- At the weapons workbench, select Pistol A, select the Standard Receiver mod, then choose Build. Though this isn't free, it's really pretty component-cheap.
- Look in your inventory to confirm. You should see a Powerful Receiver mod in the Mods inventory tab. This mod is now available to apply to other pistols.
- At the crafting bench, choose Pistol B and navigate to the Powerful Receiver mod. Since you already have one, instead of Build you'll see an option to Attach.
You cant completely disassemble a weapon. You must be able to have enough mats to replace the mod with the base option at a minimum.
Both of these solutions require modding your game.
There is unfortunately no good solution achieveable without mods.
1st - Free Weapon Downgrades
Gets around the problem by simply making the lowest-tier / "default" mod for that slot free to craft. Install the "no profit" version to make the standard mod crates (unattached loose items) have zero market value, to preserve balance.
Optional extra - No Standard Mod Crates
For convenience with Free Downgrades; stops the now-worthless standard mod crates from being created in your inventory when replaced.
2nd - Craft and Dismantle Weapons
This adds a new "weapon blueprint" item and allows weapons to be in a non-functioning state if they're missing a receiver. Seems to introduce a few more finicky items & mechanics than it needs to (it includes a portable weapon mod switching, but not crafting, workstation to swap mods in the field), but makes a little more in-world sense and is more potentially more robust to other weapon mods than Free Downgrades.
