First, on the planned features list I see that you want Mettalurgy 3 support, for 1.7.10 there is Mettalurgy 4 and 1.9.x there is Mettalurgy 5 IIRC. And the mod has it's own armor sets what integration do you want to add?
Now my suggestion for the custom armor:
-kt requires paper as mentioned above
-to upgrade it you need to craft a special block which requires an anvil, an echanting table, a crafting table and 6 iron, the table would have 9 slots, an area to rename it and an area to add enchants to it, enchants cannot be added by a normal anvil
-it's upgrades are tiered and require the previous tier to be present:
•tier 1: combine it with coal armor and you get the same effects as it and it's protection, requires 5 levels
•tier 2: redstone armor, you get the effects it gives, but without the protection it's protection, requires 10 levels
•tier 3: obsidian armor, it gives you resistance and iron level protection, requires 15 levels
•tier 4: lava armor, this one is different, it requires two obsidian armor piece and 6 lava buckets(the bucket is consumed), requires 20 levels
•tier 5: the guardin armor, it gives regen, requires 25 levels
•tier 6: super star armor, requires the super star armor and 30 levels.
•tier 7: elytra upgrade, you cannot get flight using this armor, but you can get the gliding abilties of the elytra, requires 30 levels.
•special tier 1: allows you to combine the helmet with goggles of revealing to get it's effect, requires 5 levels
•special tier 1 upgrade: by combining the helmet with an additional thaumometer and sanity checker + some void metal to allow you to see the local aura levels and how much warp you have, can be toggled on and off with a keybinding, requires 5 levels
What do you think?