Possible implementation of a balanced ammo conversion system

[Lumm2005]

When creating a method for the player to craft their own ammunition, it should ideally be implemented in a way that avoids the ability to create an excess of disposable ammo while also not making a firearm totally useless for the rest of a run once you've expanded your entire reserve of that gun's specific caliber. This ammo problem caused me to think back to an ammo crafting system that I felt was reasonably in-depth, but lacked any incentive to interact with in actual gameplay - the one implemented in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

 

In FNV, each gun uses ammo on a per-caliber basis, meaning you could have an excess of 9mm bullets, but still be lacking in fresh .45 ACP rounds for your favorite pistol. In these situations where the player holds an excess of ammo that fits the gun type they use, but not the caliber, the ammo crafting system comes into play. The system itself is based on a handful of rules:

1. Upon firing a weapon, a casing matching the fired weapon's caliber may be deposited into the player's inventory.
2. All ammunition can be disassembled to obtain gunpowder, casings, lead, and a primer specific to a weapon's type (rifle, pistol, shotgun, etc.)
3. Ammunition components can be recombined at a specific workstation using these 4 main components to convert ammo of one type into another caliber.

These three rules form a system wherein the player is given a small amount of freedom to sacrifice ammo that is useless to them in order to create new ammo for the gun they actually need, while also barring the player from making any unbalanced trades (such as converting 9mm pistol ammo to M16 rounds), since the new ammo will require a primer that fits the gun it's designed for; This keeps ammunition as a reasonably scarce and quickly consumable resource.

 

I believe that this system could be expanded upon and tweaked to fit into Project Zomboid's overall crafting system as a new "conversion" category, allowing ammo to be recycled if a player has a sufficient skill in reloading. This would logically give reloading more of an effect on the gameplay outside of pure gunfights while also giving more options to level the skill besides sitting on the floor and loading magazines on repeat. Players in a survivor group would be able to find use in gun skills even after a large sum of ammo is expended, since players built around reloading would logically be proficient in recycling spare ammo. Additionally, a player proficient in metalwork would be able to melt down excess calibers (and some musical instruments) to be reforged into shiny, brand new casings (provided the proper tools to do so). So even if the local M16 purist in your party tosses all of the valuable 32. casings in your storage, you can still logically replace them so long as you're willing to put in a decent amount of effort. Looting runs with the goal of obtaining firearms would also become more varied as a result - you could raid a police station or military base for new assault rifle rounds, or you could play it safe and loot some garages or warehouses for spare containers of gunpowder and primers for later recycling, re-using the casings you've already spent or foraging around local firing ranges for new ones.