Shipping Table rates by category

We have table rate shipping setup to calculate per item for our current categories.
Table rate
Table method: item
Shipping Table: 1:1.00,2:3.55,3:5.25,10:7.55, etc.

We want to add a new category of products that will use table rate for shipping but the Shipping Table will be different from our current categories.

The cart will have any mixture of products.

Can this be done by cloning the table.php or does it require changes in table.php?

There is already a module that does shipping table per category. It is commercial release though, you can google it.

I am trying to do something similar. My client sells glassware and wants to charge different flat rates based on category. The Table Rate module only allows me to assign shipping cost based on weight, price, or quantity.

Is there a way to assign the shipping cost by category? Or, can the PHP of this module be modified so that I can specify the category_id instead of weight, price, or quantity?