[Cutting-Edge Armor Design] Real World SCA-legal Armour and Ballistics Armour

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Which option sounds better; Machinist replacing Blacksmith in all industrial applications or Blacksmith/TL8 simply looking a lot different than the skill at earlier TLs, but still common in industry independently of Machinist?

Machinist doesn't seem to cover things like making objects out of metal, but the 'smith' skill specifies working metals by hand, which is not necessarily sensible at higher tech level, and its specializations also seem more suited to lower TLs.

This seems like a case where GURPS would have been better off being more generic and replacing specific skills with generic skills -- for example, a generic Crafting skill with mandatory specialization, and then delete skills like carpentry and leatherworking and smith.