Levels of Production

Team Fortress 2 allows you to create and submit your own items for a chance to get them in-game. Why am I telling you this? If you've managed to stumble across this blog odds are pretty good you already own a dozen virtual hats or you're my friend on Facebook. Hi, Mom. Anyway, it made me think about the various ways items might be constructed in order to reach the battlefields of Teufort, because I am a lunatic and these are the sort of things I think about in my spare time.

Least Generic

Level 1: Cartoonish Improvised
Cartoonishly improvised devices were constructed from garbage for a homeless man's Halloween costume. Or by a cosplayer whose student loans have finally come due. They're usually made of soup cans, soda bottles, funnels... everything retains it's original shape and labelling; they don't look like they should work but it's a video game so they do, anyway. They're usually terribly impractical looking and the aesthetics are designed to really sell just how improvised they are, and usually they look like they'd be most at home in the labs of cartoon inventors like Gadget from Rescue Rangers or Edd from Ed, Edd, and Eddie. The Bum's Bazooka and the Soda-Popper are ideal examples.

Level 2: Homemade
These are weapons that were created by someone with a modicum of know-how. They're still made up of pieces that are recognizably taken from somewhere else, but they're harder to identify. Rather than being whatever random garbage would fit into the required silhouette, these pieces look practical, like they might actually serve the purposes they've been co-opted into. In a home-made weapon, some parts are obviously custom tooled, made by someone who knows what they're doing but maybe doesn't have much of a budget. The Flamethrower and Razorback are perfect examples of homemade weapons.

Level 3: Custom-Made
These weapons were obviously crafted by professionals who knew what the heck they were doing. These weapons are manufacture-grade quality but obviously made to particular specifications. It is clear that nearly every piece of this weapon was crafted specifically to be a part of this weapon. Many custom-made weapons may have high-quality artistic flair on them, decorations that serve no purpose but to look fancy. When designing a custom weapon, I think it's best to try and keep elaborate decoration to a minimum.

Many engineer weapons could qualify as custom-made, especially his buildings. Medic weapons, too.

I think the assumption should be that the Engineer has access to a machine shop, tools, and scrap, not to mention the skills necessary to craft high-end machinery and keep it in good working order.

Level 4: Customized / Repaired / Modified
Think of these weapons like a car that you have owned for a long time. While there are many cars like yours, few have suffered the same way yours has; every nick in the windshield and bumper sticker identifies this car as yours, instead of someone else's. On a battlefield like TF2's, even made-to-order equipment will be damaged, and repairs need to be made. Similarly, as you own something, sometimes the urge to customize it takes hold. Some people might write slogans on their weapons, or paint it to their liking. Sometimes a weapon might need to be slightly altered to fit the job it needs to do. When designing a customized or repaired weapon, perhaps it would be best to imagine what the gun was like new, and then apply years of service to it. How did that scratch happen? Would that piece come loose, prompting the owner to fix it with a clamp and wing-nut? If that the stock of that shotgun broke, how would the Soldier repair it? How would the Engineer repair it?

Level 5: Industrial Manufacture
These are weapons that are mass produced and generic. TF2's unique art style holds that even generic weapons look somewhat customized in order to fit into each man's massive paws, but ultimately there is a storehouse somewhere containing hundreds of boxes of weapons just like this one. These are weapons that are ordered from catalogs, or issued directly to new mercenaries. Of course, TF2 doesn't take place in the real world, so hypothetically many weapons could be ordered from catalogs, but mostly these apply to realistic-looking stock weapons. The shotgun, scatter gun, pistol, SMG--these all fit that description.

Level Green: Schroedinger's Weapons
These are things that aren't technically weapons until they're used to collapse an unsuspecting skull. All of the stock melee weapons (except the Knife) fall under this category. I like to imagine that these are items that sort of floated around in the periphery of that class's life until desperate circumstances caused them to swing, just once. Soldiers carry entrenching tools to dig trenches, but low on ammo and beset by a savage foe, it's feasible that he might have swung just once, to save his life... and it became his tool of choice. I like generic melee weapons because of that split-second imagery. Plus, it's hard to imagine someone who carries two different guns on their person at all times investing a lot of effort into resorting to making a melee weapon, especially one out of tape.