This is my personal feedback regarding the current implementation and creation process of custom ranged weapons in UEFN as of one day after their release in V41.00.
Weapons
There are still many features and improvements that could be added to custom weapons.
Each weapon should have an option to enable or disable first-shot accuracy. Currently, all weapons except the SMG appear to have first-shot accuracy enabled by default.
Weapons should also allow creators to define their own ammo type instead of forcing predefined categories. At the moment, Rifles are locked to medium ammo, SMGs and Pistols to small ammo, and Shotguns to shells.
The crosshair should also be customizable. For example, creators should be able to define the spread size of a Shotgun crosshair.
I also feel that most properties should include proper descriptions explaining how they affect the weapon. I believe this may already be in development, but currently properties such as “ExpansionRateMultiplierPerShot” and “CooldownRateMultiplierOverTime” are very unclear to me without documentation.
Weapon subtypes would also be extremely useful. Examples include:
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Burst-fire Rifles
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Charge Shotguns
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Weapons that draw ammo directly from the reserve pool instead of using magazines
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Weapons that can overheat after extended use
Many of these behaviors already exist in standard Fortnite weapons and would greatly improve customization options.
Another important missing feature is a configurable headshot multiplier. Currently, I believe all weapons use a default multiplier of 1.5x, and as far as I know there is no way to change it.
I would also like the ability to assign a separate pickup model from the held model. An in-game example would be the Dual Pistols.
Anyway of placing our custom Items in Item Spawners would also really help so we can spawn them from chests or as floor loot.
In addition, having a way to place custom items into Item Spawners would be very helpful, especially for spawning them through chests or floor loot.
For Pistols, an option to switch between fully automatic and semi-automatic firing modes would be appreciated.
For Shotguns, it would also be useful to define whether the weapon behaves as a pump shotgun or not.
Finally, the obvious additions such as Snipers, Launchers, and scoped Rifles should eventually be added, although I assume these are already being worked on. Specifically for these weapon types, there should be options for:
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Bullet drop on Snipers
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Projectile gravity for Launchers
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Projectile flight behavior
Sounds
There are also several improvements I would like to see regarding sound design for custom weapons.
First, creators should be able to use Audio Cues instead of raw audio files. For example, not every weapon equip sound should have pitch shifting applied. Reload sounds may also require dynamic layering or modulation using multiple sounds.
Second, firing sounds should support looping audio. Even in standard Fortnite, some SMGs use looping firing sounds instead of playing an individual sound for every shot. There is also currently no support for distance-based firing audio. I personally cannot test how distance handling currently works, but Audio Cues could likely solve this issue as well.
Third, low-ammo Sound Cues should be added. At the moment, weapons only support a sound for completely empty ammo, but not for reaching a low-ammo state.
Additional sound features that should be added include:
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Weapon pickup sounds
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Weapon drop sounds
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Weapon landing sounds
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Bullet impact sounds for different surfaces
Animations
Custom animations, or at the very least the ability to select animations from existing Fortnite weapons, are essential for custom weapons.
Not every SMG uses a foregrip, and not every Pistol uses a standard magazine, such as Revolvers. Being able to select firing, reload, and equip animations independently would greatly improve weapon variety and quality.
Bugs
Here are a few bugs I have noticed so far:
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The magazine size shown in the crosshair UI does not match the actual weapon configuration. Instead, it appears to display the magazine size of the original weapon template.
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The rarity option for Rifles does not appear to function correctly. Every Rifle I create is displayed as Common in the inventory regardless of the rarity setting selected.
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This may potentially be user error, but the interaction prompt appears to use the collision or hitbox of the original template model rather than the custom model. This made picking up my weapons extremely difficult, to the point where I initially thought they could not be picked up at all.