Something I have experienced in real life regarding weaponry (or other items of high value) is the sense of ownership and attachment. While in most games you walk around stepping on guns and you would just pick up whatever looks fancy, in reality you would have your own weapon or a favourite weapon.

For example you are a merc and you have preference to (or are skilled with) bolt-action rifles. You have tested some rifles and you really like the classic M24 so you buy it. It is now your weapon - you like it, you are good with it and are getting better the more you use it. You spent money, time, parts to improve it, have a set of attachments that works best with it, maybe camo paint. You know exactly how reliable your weapon is, you clean it, keep it dry and so on. I would love to see this kind of match making for mercs and specific weapons. Even in the event of finding a slightly better rifle the merc should perform better with his familiar weapon. A very cool feature would be for weapons the eventually get their merc's name like Raven's Remington M24 and even if Raven gets killed the item would keep the name until someone else wields it better.

This sounds really cool to me, but I realise it would also require big scale, very detailed weapon models you can review, rotate, etc. The changes you make on attachments and improvements should also be visible. That's pretty much what I have for the wishlist :)

A cool idea I think, but as you point out it would require a lot. Therefore I'm not sure it's worth the extra effort to get it...however, it depends on the complexity. Building a system of "When do the mercs gain attachment ot the weapon, who is best with a certain type of weapon compared to other mercs will be a major task in it self. On top of that there needs to be a system to change the name of the weapon on the go, as well as the look of the weapon :P 

I guess the simple version would be to say that a merc has Rifle Nut perk, therefore he performs better with rifles in general and if a merc has used a certain weapon for a set amount of time it changes name and gives a small bonus. 

Just throwing the ball around ^^

Maybe less about a favourite weapon then a weapon you are most familiar with. Say a guy is trained using an FN FAL he should be proficient using any assault rifle but when you give him a FN FAL the muscle memory kicks in and he is just that much better. So may be a character can have a couple of “preferred weapon” traits that give him a bonus when using that model of weapon. A character could also earn the trait if he uses that weapon predominately.

If having individualised weapons being shown in a 3d model viewer would requie too much work, a small change to the item description on a weapon every now and then might work? For instance "A modified Remington M24 with nightscope etc..., you can see the name Raven inscribed in the hilt". Maybe when certain condiitions are met, like if a merc uses the same weapon in 10 missions in a row or something?

Changing a body of text would be easier to implement than a 3d model while at the same time giving life and a story to a merc's or an enemy's weapons?

Like SWi74 said, even if a merc goes down, you could still read their gun's description and remember their deeds...

I'm a veteran, and I've shot quite a few guns in my time...

But when I get my hands on a G3, I'm in the zone... It's a part of me, not just a object in my hands that go boom.

So in some ways, I understand where this wish comes from... Soldiers and hunters and weapon users generally have one weapon, or find one weapon that they prefer over others, and get better with.

Sounds good to me, a nice compromise.

1. Getting a merc to become familiar with a gun category is what the perks are for, though that way, the familiarity would be measured in discrete steps (perklvl 1, 2, ...x). If the bonus should be more linear, one would need some sort of gun class experience for each merc and gun class. In that case, the bonus could directly scale with experience.

2. If one wants a bonus for a specific weapon (like all M24s in general), then the above system would have to be expanded into a item experience for each merc and each gun class. Same game, but needs a lot more memory (not a problem nowadays, but still bleh).

3. Boni to a specific object (the M24 currently in Raven's hand) would be... hard, I guess. You'd have to turn the system around an award mercenary experience on the gun for each merc. Which is atrocious, having to do that for every object ingame...

 Of course I don't know wether FC will do this, but I doubt they'll touch 2 and 3.

Imho a different problem would be that if one gets a bonus for repeatedly using a gun, the optimal behaviour is to get your 'final' weapons as soon as possible and then never ever switch. This would effectively punish mercs that don't perform a single role.