Guides:Mecha Design

This page focuses on the tradeoffs in designing a mecha in GearHead 1. For a truly exhaustive amount of number-crunching, look at the Design File Writing guide. For GearHead Caramel, see Guides:Mecha Design (Caramel).

Modifying your mecha

For many players, making modifications to mecha is one of the most important aspects of the game. While many mecha are powerful and effective battle machines in their own right, a good mecha modifier can turn even the poorest mecha into a fearsome piece of hardware (except possibly the Vespa -- that thing's beyond hope). If you're going to be extensively modifying your mecha, then a high score in the Mecha Engineering skill is a must. Not only will it allow you to squeeze more components into your mecha's chassis, it will also help prevent the accidental destruction of components when installing or removing them. Few things are more heartbreaking than finally laying hands on that rare and powerful weapon, only to accidentally destroy it when trying to move it out of salvage and onto your mecha.

Mecha Parts

Mecha parts can be broken down into two main types: Modules and Components.

Modules are the parts that define your mecha's form: things like the head, body, arms, legs, weapons pods, etc.. Not all modules can be installed on all mecha, it depends on their basic type. Very few groundhuggers can be fitted with anything other than a turret or storage compartment, for example.

Components are the items that are installed into the modules and provide functionality to the mecha. The only components universal to all mecha are the cockpit (which houses the pilot and operational controls) and the engine (which provides the mecha with power and thrust). Mecha that have some kind of walking capability (Battroids, Arachnoids and Gerwalkers) require a gyroscope to maintain their balance. Mecha that lack a walking capability will require some other form of movement (e.g., wheels, tracks, Hover Jets, Flight Jets or Arc Thrusters). Many mecha are capable of more than one form of movement. For example, a battroid could have wheels installed into its legs to provide both walking and rolling movement.

Where to get spare parts

The simplest way to get new components for modifying a mecha is to buy them in shops. Most workshops that sell fuel or do repairs may have mecha components in stock as well, although rarely more than one or two at a time. Likewise for weapons shops and mecha shops. You can also expect to pay through the nose for them, particularly for SF:2 components. Metal Psychosis in Ipshil is the most reliable source of mecha components, when it comes to shops. They usually have some electronics or motive components in stock, although weapons are unusual. However, the limited selection and availability of shop-bought parts means this will not be your primary means of getting what you want, though sometimes you'll find a nice surprise.

It's also possible to retrieve carried weapons (that is, weapons equipped in hands and on mounting points, but not installed into modules) from destroyed enemy mecha on the battlefield. If your mission awards salvage (or it's a random encounter), then you'll automatically pick up all of the dropped weapons when you return to the main map.

On the other hand, if you're on a base-destruction or other non-salvage mission, simply stand over the wreckage and press the 'pick up' key (‘,’), or go to 'options' and 'get' if you're operating your mecha by menu. Bear in mind however that the weight of the items you retrieve will be counted toward your mecha's load, so if you carry too much then your MV and TR could suffer. This could be bad news if there are still active enemies on the battlefield.

Armor can be retrieved in the same manner, along with any items that might be installed into the armor. If you are in an Aerofighter or Ornithoid mek, be careful not to reduce your speed below 150, or else you will crash.

One of the best ways to get spare parts is to capture an enemy mecha intact. This can be achieved by either killing the pilot (which tends to involve more luck than skill), or forcing them to eject before the mecha is destroyed. The easiest way to force an ejection is to aim for the module where the cockpit is housed. When that module is destroyed the pilot either bails out or is killed. Of course, if the cockpit is housed in the main body of the mecha then the mecha is destroyed anyway, but for head mounted cockpits this is a viable tactic.

Another good way to force an ejection is by use of the Intimidation skill. A good Ego attribute coupled with a high Intimidation skill will make your character fearsome to behold in combat, and whenever you attack a given target its pilot may be so afraid of your character that they'll bail out rather than stand and fight.

However you go about it, the captured mecha will almost certainly need some kind of repairs made to it before it is usable, but this can easily be done at a mecha garage (or your character could do it for themselves using the Mecha Repair skill). A captured mecha can be sold for a decent chunk of cash, depending on its PV as well as your character's Shopping skill. It can also be kept for use, or stripped for parts to modify another mecha.

Weapon Selection

Consider which weapons you will want to use. It is quite doable to get by on nothing more than Mecha Gunnery for your weapons. It is doable, but more difficult, to use only Mecha Artillery, or only Mecha Weapons (Artillery will be hard in the early game; weapons will be hard in the late game). It is very nearly impossible to only use Mecha Fighting. You will probably want some kind of combination: Weapons and Artillery, or Gunnery and Artillery. If you plan on using a shield, pick up Fighting, too. Or just develop all the combat skills, and never worry about not being able to use a shiny new weapon.

How should they die?

There are three things you might want to do with weapons: strip armor, destroy the mecha, or do pinpoint damage to a head, limb, or torso.

Stripping Armor

Each attack that hits a target can only strip a certain amount of armor, so a small number of high-DC attacks will still be hitting most of the armor on every hit; destroying a heavily-armored mech with a Laser Cannon will take quite a few shots. To strip armor, your best best is to use a large number of attacks, and that means either a small DC, or an area-effect weapon (which is converted from 1 Nx10-DC attack into N 1x10-DC attacks). An area-effect weapon is any weapon with BLAST, LINE, or SCATTER. Armor-stripping-type attacks usually aren't very good for killing mecha, but once you've stripped all of the armor, the next armor-stripping attack will usually reduce the entire mecha to scrap. This may not be good for salvaging limbs with the Tech Vulture talent, but it can be very, very satisfying.

For any attack of DC 3 or less (for most mecha; DC 2 for SF 0 or 1), all of the damage will strip armor. As the attacks get larger, some of the damage will go over the armor-stripping cap, though of course the average hit is much more likely to do the maximum damage to armor.

One major plus to BV attacks is that they gain a bonus to hit equal to half of the number of bullets, up to a maximum of +5 to hit.

Blast weapons are excellent for hitting small or nimble opponents; you can avoid some of a blast, but it takes a truly spectacular dodge to avoid blast damage entirely.

Note that your first armor-stripping attack or two will report that you deal no damage, but this is because damage to armor is not reported in the display.

Pinpoint Damage

You may only use called shots when you fire a single bullet or missile, so this type of attack is best done with a single-shot high-DC weapon.

For many mecha, the head is a very vulnerable point. If the cockpit is mounted there, then blowing off the head will both disable the mecha, and give you a nearly-intact mecha to salvage. Otherwise the mecha's sensors, ECM suite and/or targeting computer may also be located there, and destroying them would be equally crippling to the mecha. It can also be useful to target the torso directly, to destroy the mecha as quickly as possible without distributing any unnecessary damage to the extremities.

Guns Blazing

Sometimes, you just want to keep firing until your enemy is dead. Maybe you're not accurate enough for pinpoint attacks. Maybe you don't have any armor-stripping weapons. Or maybe your main weapons have both a high DC and a high BV, so subtlety simply doesn't matter. This is the default attack when you fire at somebody: it hits a random spot; for BV attacks or missile salvos, it hits many random spots. This method of attacking does the most damage in the shortest amount of time, but because the damage is randomly distributed, it may take longer to kill your opponent. On the plus side, you'll be destroying arms, legs, and weapons on your wreckage-strewn path to destruction, so your enemy will be less able to fight back. Again, on the plus side, BV weapons get a bonus to hit, up to +5.

Choosing your Weapons

Energy, or Ammo-based?

Energy weapons will never run out of ammunition, but in a protracted battle, your mecha will overload, which will force you to choose between fleeing the battle, hiding until your mecha cools, or facing increasing penalties to your MV and TR until you can't hit the broadside of a barn and your opponents can't miss.

Ammo weapons will never overload your mecha, but ammo is finite. Fortunately, extra clips for most weapons weigh about one ton each, so carrying spare ammo is easy, though you'll need to rip those spare clips out of other weapons. Unfortunately, the weight of the missiles is most of the mass of a missile launcher, so carrying spare missiles is heavy.

The other difficulty with ammo-using weapons is that if somebody destroys the installed ammunition in a weapon (not any ammo carried in inventory), it will cook off, for unspeakable amounts of damage straight to your torso. Fortunately, ammo explosions are very rare: this requires incoming damage to penetrate down two layers for an installed weapon, or three layers for a mounted weapon. It's a decent idea to mount a spare ammoless weapon for extra-long engagements; either energy weapons or melee weapons will work, as long as you have the required skill. Robot Kung-Fu is a poor backup weapon in most cases, though it is usually sufficient for finishing off a wounded enemy.

Long range, or Short range?

The best answer for this question is "both," but mounting weapons you don't use is simply wasting space. You'll be fighting for a while before you make major modifications, though, so you should be able to get a handle on this question through experience.

Early in the game, you'll mostly be fighting SF 1 mecha, which are hard to hit, while you have very little skill. Long-ranged weapons aren't worth investing in simply because you'll miss so much that you can't take much advantage of their range, and most combat will occur at very short ranges.

Late in the game, you'll have the skill you need to hit your targets, but your targets will often have long-range weaponry, too (usually missiles). Furthermore, if you really want to get into short range, it will be easy; with enough Hover Jets or Overchargers, you can easily break a speed of 300, so your opponents won't be firing at you for long before you're in range. That being said, most of your opponents' weapons will have a range between 60 and 96, so being able to shoot them from outside that range is quite useful.

Useful Weapons

Below is a short list of good weapons, more or less in the order you'll find them in the game.

Mecha Gunnery (DC 10 and below)

Shaka Cannons

DC 9x10, 15 ammo, 60 range. A decent beginner's weapon. Can be found on many Buru Buru.

Laser Cannons

DC 10x10, energy weapon, 60 range. Another good beginner's weapon, though it will overheat your mecha in long engagements. Laser Cannons are ubiquitous, and the concept has spawned many variants: the Thorshammer has range 48 cannons, while the Excel comes with three range 72 cannons and the Harpy a pair of very deadly range 96 cannons.

Storm Pistols

DC 5x10, BV 5, energy weapon, 60 range. A decent upgrade from early weapons if you dislike or can't effectively use pinpoint attacks. Each Nova Storm Buru Buru comes with two.

Starburst Rifles

DC 7x10, ACC +3, energy weapon, 96 range. The low DC means less overload, and the high accuracy can let you snipe off heads or limbs. The range is a nice plus. This rifle is a specialty weapon of the Luna II.

RG-8 Railguns

DC 8x10, BV 5, 100 ammo, 72 range. A much better version of the storm pistol, with enough ammo for 20 bursts. Kill a Zeta Daum for it.

Breaker Cannons

DC 10x10, ARMORPIERCING HYPER, 12 ammo, 96 range. The HYPER means you're sniping off the head even as you're breaking down the torso, and the ARMORPIERCING is very, very nice. Its only real drawback is that it tends to leave mecha unsalvageable, and forget about sniping off the head for a nearly-intact mecha. You will have to wait till you encounter a Zero Savin to get one.

Phase Cannons

DC 8x10, ARMORPIERCING, energy weapon, 144 range. It's an even debate on whether this is better than Breaker Cannons or not. You'll be able to fire clear across the map, snipe off heads to get near-mint mecha, and armor isn't a major issue. The drawback is that it does less damage, but if most of your enemies are less durable than, say, the Savin, this is often an academic issue. The incredible range on this gun edges out the Breaker Cannon if you have enough Phase Cannons and enough Initiative to fire many, many shots before the enemy is in range; but if your mecha is fast enough, the time spent getting into a Breaker Cannon's range is minimal. The hulking Radcliff powers two of these; don't think you got lucky because you missed its first shot.

Mecha Artillery (DC 11 and above, and all missiles)

Missiles can be the most accurate weapons in the game. They're based off of your mecha's SE stat, which can be up to +6 if you have Class 10 Sensors mounted on the mecha's head. (If your mecha has no head, add one.) Along with the up to +5 bonus for firing at least 10 missiles in a burst, this can make hitting Typhon and other major bosses a breeze. On the flipside, missiles are usually very limited in ammo; once you find your favorite rack of missiles, you will usually need to mount extra racks. And since you will probably run out of mounting points before you run out of missiles you want to mount, you will take a (slightly) larger penalty to MV for your mass for installing them directly in your mech. (You can carry extra missile ammo instead, but they don't weight very different, and reloading takes time in the middle of combat; pick your poison.)

In general, the best Mecha Artillery weapons show up late in the game. This should come as no surprise, of course, but most of the early-game heavy weapons just aren't worth mounting, unless you're a missile enthusiast.

Explosive missiles warrant special consideration. They are more or less impossible for your opponents to avoid, and a single carefully-targeted big, very big or extremely big missile can reduce half a dozen factory-new mecha to junkyard fodder. They do tend to make things expensive in the aftermath, both when reloading, and when patching up whatever you managed to salvage from the scrap.

Heavy Weapons

RG-16 Heavy Railgun

DC 16x10, BV 4, 60 ammo, range 84. Once you're in range, this does absolutely disgusting amounts of damage, and 15 bursts is a good capacity for an ammo-based weapon. Each bullet is also large enough to use for sniping heads or limbs off, should you find that necessary. You can rip apart a Maanji limb-to-limb and still get this weapon intact, but it is preferable to take out an Overkill Savin to get its two considerably lightened railguns.

Heavy Laser Cannon

DC 20x10, energy weapon, range 120. Avoid this weapon unless your mecha has a HighOutput engine, like the Longman on which you can find it. It creates unspeakable amounts of heat, and quickly overloads most mecha.

GR-24 Heavy Gauss Rifle

DC 24x10, 24 ammo, range 144. Spectacular damage, disgusting amounts of range, and it fires fast enough to be workable. Excellent for sniping off heads, or just going straight for the torso-kill. Use the RG-16 instead if you prefer up-close work without called shots, though. There is a speed 1 and speed 2 version of this weapon; get the special speed 2 version from a trashed Fortress Savin. The Gobuksan also comes with an ANTIAIR BRUTAL SCATTER variant in its turret, if you tend more towards the psychopathic unforgiving archetype.

Superheavy Particle Cannon

DC 13x10, OVERLOAD ANTIAIR, energy weapon, range 84. A specialist weapon, consider using this if you have a good Electronic Warfare skill and you want to try overloading your opponent. It's also one of the few ANTIAIR heavy weapons. An unfriendly Esher will try to fire at you using this cannon; fortunately the crabtank tends to miss. You will need its turret intact to get at this weapon, however.

Ovaknight Plasma Core Cannon

DC 15x10, BRUTAL HYPER, energy weapon, range 108. This is the weapon that's found on the Ovaknight; other plasma core weapons are different. While the HYPER is quite impressive, this fires both very slowly, and causes a hellish 15 points of overload to the Ovaknight, or more like 40 to most other mecha. The Ovaknight can only absorb 85 overload before you start accruing penalties (1-2 points of penalty per shot at this point!). You very, very much don't want to be hit by this weapon, but you also don't want to mount it.

Missiles

Swarm Missiles

DC 2x10, range 96. Comes in packs ranging from 20 missiles to 120 missiles and found on a wide variety of mecha, from the smallest wimps to the largest artillery platforms. Reasonably good at stripping armor if fired in sufficiently large bursts. Also useful for firing at groups of drones, or multiple SF 1 mecha.

Heavy Missiles

These come in a variety of DCs, ranges, and ammo capacities, some with blast, some without. For armor-stripping, though, nothing beats the DC 15x10 BRUTAL BLAST 3 pack of 6 missiles, but you'll have to beat a Harpy to get them first.

Gajira Heavy Missiles/Heavy Rocket Pod

DC 15x10 and 14x10 respectively, with 3 and 6 missiles respectively, these are both your pinpoint-damage missiles and/or your general mecha destruction missiles, if fired in a salvo. The rocket pod comes off of a Scylla, and you can get the Gajira missiles off a Hariseng, or a carefully salvaged Sniper Chameleon.

Light Nuclear Missile(s)

DC 20x10, HYPER HAYWIRE BLAST 3. There is simply nothing better, though reloads cost a small mint. (Oddly, every shopkeeper carries reloads for nukes in the back room, but nobody carries the launch systems or clips...) This missile will take out small mecha in a single hit, or strip gobs of armor off of larger mecha. You'll find two of these on every Gigas (even if you shoot it down!), but the Monstrous has a 6-missile version that you'll have to purchase to get your hands on.

Scale Factor and Mecha Class

One thing one should remember when modifying mecha is the Scale Factor. There are three scale factors in GearHead: SF:0 represents personal scale equipment, such as rifles or bazookas; SF:1 is used for 'mini' mecha, such as the Strongarm class battroid; SF:2 is the scale factor for full sized mecha, which include most of the mecha in the game.

This is important for two reasons: firstly, components with a lower SF than the mecha they're installed on will have a negligible weight cost -- meaning a lot of them can be installed before the mecha’s performance is impaired. Secondly, smaller SF weapons will do less damage when fired against a larger SF mecha, but are much more accurate, and will cause critical hits more often. A battery of well-chosen SF:0 weapons mounted on an SF:2 mecha can be very useful for stripping away armor, or for targeting specific systems. It may take a few shots to actually cause damage, but when they hit it'll most likely be a critical hit.

The "Class" attribute measures relative size within a scale category. The OvaKnight and Petrach are both Scale:2 mecha, but the OvaKnight's class of 6 ((out of a maximum of 10, possible)) means that it is much more powerful than the class-3 Petrach. Class also determined the maximum limb size and maximum armor that a mecha can be given. It also determines the stealth value of a mecha and bonus damage to close combat attacks.

Generally speaking a heavy mek will be harder to destroy than a lighter one, but also less maneuverable so it will get hit more often. Most GearHead designs have to maintain a balance between decent armor and decent maneuverability.

Maneuverability, Targeting, and Sensors

Your MV and TR are dependent on the type of mecha you use, the mass of the mecha (including installed equipment), and the mass of the equipment your mecha is carrying or has mounted.

Mecha Types

Zoanoids

+2 MV, -1 TR. The TR can easily be offset by a good targeting computer, but these are relatively low-mass mecha (~30-40 tons or so), so there's a limit to how much weaponry you can pile on.

GroundHuggers

-1 MV, +2 TR, +2 Armor. These usually have little space for modification. An "Advanced Suspension" is the equivalent of a mecha's Gyro, which will allow you to pile on more mass, but even the best suspensions have a low rating, so you can make few changes. Cannot fly or jump, no matter how many Arc Thrusters you mount on them. The armor bonus is at the mecha's scale, so it will be +5 armor points per +1 to Armor at SF 1, and +25 armor points per +1 to Armor at SF 2.

GroundCars

-1 MV, +1 TR. Otherwise equivalent to GroundHuggers, but faster.

Arachnoids

+0 MV, +1 TR, +1 Armor. They can mount turrets, but it's better to spend a little time turning to face your opponent than to take a permanent MV penalty.

Battroid

+1 MV, +1 TR. (You can tell the game's been written in favor of Battroids...) Your basic walking mecha. Can wield shields.

Hoverfighter

-3 MV, +0 TR. Helicopters, VTOL aircraft, and the like. Most mecha lack ANTIAIR weapons, so it effectively has an MV 3 better than the listed value. Note that you cannot use cover while flying, so your best defense is speed.

Aerofighter

-5 MV, -1 TR. Jets and the like; has a similar -3 to be hit for flying, though it also has the worst MV in the game. Has a stall speed of 150; if you fly slower than this, you will crash, but Aerofighters have a major bonus to flying speed. Note: because you automatically pick up all equipment after a battle, you may end up on the world map overloaded. If this happens, drop most of your equipment. The speed requirement is two-sided: you must always move fast, so you will occasionally have to spend time turning around. On the plus side, this means that all your weapons will be ready to fire again by the time you've turned, and you will always be at least -7 to be hit (or -10 if you count the bonus against non-ANTIAIR weapons).

Ornithoid

-1 MV, -2 TR. Effectively, a Zoanoid Aerofighter. Has most of the bonuses and penalties of Aerofighters for fighting, though somewhat slower.

Gerwalker

-3 MV, +0 TR. The bastard child of a Battroid and a Hoverfighter. Doesn't need to move forward to fly, and has a low maximum walking speed. It does nothing well, but also does nothing badly.

Weight Penalties to MV and TR

Generally, the more stuff you pile onto your mech, the slower it will move. Weapons that are mounted on your mecha have a smaller penalty to movement, though the mount itself has a small mass. Generally, if a weapon has a mass of 1.5 tons or more, it's worth mounting. If it's 1 ton or less, the mass of the mount is greater than its benefit. (The math: you lose 1 MV/TR per 7.5 tons of "intrinsic" mecha mass, including installed items; you also lose 1 MV/TR per (7.5 + .5 * mecha size) of equipment in mounts, hands, or carried in inventory.)

There are a few drawbacks to mounts, though: because they are externally mounted, the weapons are more likely to take concussion damage; a 25% chance per hit. The mounts themselves can also be destroyed, and they have few hit points. On the plus side, most weapons have more than enough hit points to take several concussion hits before being destroyed, and ammo mounted externally cannot explode. Further on the plus side, even if your weapons are somewhat more fragile, you have more of them.

Final MV and TR adjustments

Some additional adjustments to MV and TR are made in certain situations:

• MV gets a bonus equal to your Gyro class minus one.
• TR gets a bonus equal to your Targeting Computer class. Find a class 7 or so somewhere (Ipshil's mecha shop is the best place to get components), and install it on every mecha you pilot.
• Both MV and TR get a bonus of one if your cockpit is mounted in the mecha's head.
• The Argoseyer (and any other Biotech mecha) cheats: it gets another +1 to TR and MV, which is they only way either stat can get above 0.

Sensors

SE depends on exactly two things: the class of your sensors, and a +3 bonus if they are mounted in the head. Your base SE rating is your Sensor Class minus seven.

Movement Type and Speed

There are four ways to travel: walking, rolling, skimming, and flying/jumping. Wheels, tracks, arc thrusters, hover jets, and flight jets all have a part complexity equal to their class, so making your mecha move quickly will take a lot of component space, leaving less room for weapons. Note that if you install jets or wheels, you only need one of those to function to remain upright, so install one in each leg, one in the torso, maybe one in each arm...

• Walking allows you to turn very quickly, and to take advantage of the Sure-Footed and Hull Down talents. Unfortunately, there is no good way to increase the walking speed of a robot; adding extra legs will make you walk faster, but extra legs are heavy. Overchargers are the best way to increase the speed of a walking mecha, but they only work while you run, so you will have a targeting penalty. You must have at least two legs to walk, so if one leg is blown off, you will become immobile and, shortly afterward, dead. Adding extra legs will reduce the risk.

• Rolling allows you to use the Road Hog and Hull Down talents, but prevents you from entering forests, so you cannot take best advantage of cover. Wheels weigh half a ton per class, tracks weigh one ton per class, so moving faster costs a lot of weight. Furthermore, your maximum rolling speed comes when you have (mecha class * 2 - 2) classes of wheels/tracks mounted; adding extras does not make you move faster.

• Skimming has no talents associated with it, so you should put extra points into Mecha Piloting (expensive!) to stay alive. You can use either Hover Jets or Arc Thrusters to gain skimming speed (and just pile them on to go faster), but Arc Thrusters are recommended as they will also allow you to jump. Skimming is faster than running. Jets weigh half a ton, regardless of class.

• Flying allows you to use the Born To Fly talent, and flying mecha are -3 to be hit unless the attacking weapon has ANTIAIR. Jets weigh half a ton, regardless of class.

• Overchargers increase the "full speed" of a mecha, be it running, skimming, or anything else. This is particularly dramatic for running, because it is difficult to increase walking speed. Each limb of a mecha can only hold one movement component (wheels, jets, etc.), but it can also hold one overcharger, regardless of whether or not it holds wheels or jets. Overchargers weigh half a ton, regardless of class.

In general, adding more movement modules will make you go faster, but the bonuses for moving fast stop once you hit 201 speed. You can't move more than one tile per second, and the penalty to hit, due to round-off, also stops there. Your speed increases roughly logarithmically: the faster you go, the more penalties you get, so that last movement part isn't as useful as the first one.

Armor and Shields

In general: armor is good. Shields are less good, but still good. Armor gets heavy after you coat your mecha in it. Shields cause a penalty to attack with weapons on the shield arm (5 plus the parry bonus), and require a successful defense roll to use, but it's effectively armor that can block damage to any part of your mecha. Beam shields are preferable: normal shields can mount a weapon (which will avoid the to-hit penalty of a shield), but beam shields are not damaged by non-energy weapons, deal damage to non-energy melee weapons they block, and weigh much less.

Your best defense, though, is not being hit. Between hiding in cover, having a high Mecha Piloting skill, moving quickly, packing an ECM package, mounting an INTERCEPT weapon, and/or taking some helpful talents, you can reduce your chance to be hit to less than 10%. Even if you're standing in the open, and your skill is effectively the same as your opponent's, you will avoid 50% of incoming attacks. Of course, in a long engagement, you will be hit, but don't let your love of armor (and weapons) overcome your desire for a high MV. If you choose to make a mecha with a poor MV and lots of armor, your best defense will be to annihilate your opponents quickly, before they strip off too much armor.

Adding Limbs

See also: Modules

There are times when you need extra limbs on your mecha. Maybe you need more space for weapons. Maybe you need more mounting points for hover jets and overchargers. Or maybe you just want there to be more places for a randomly-targeted attack to hit, so your mech will last longer before being assigned to the scrap heap. The main drawback of mounting additional limbs is that their weight adds up, and you can take some serious movement penalties as a result.

Each different mecha form has different "limb types" that can be mounted to it. The complete list is over here. Each additional limb will allow you to mount two more move-systems, and two more overchargers: one of each installed in the limb, and one of each for the one mounting point allowed per limb. The following limbs have useful abilities over and above this:

Arms and Tails

Can hold a shield, weapons mounted here have a 180 degree arc.

Legs

For walking mecha, faster movement, and a backup if one leg gets destroyed.

Storage

The usual reasons, but if this is blown off, any "overkill" damage will not go to the torso.

Head

Sensors mounted here have +3 SE, weapons mounted here have a 180 degree arc.

Turret

Weapons mounted here have a 360 degree arc.

Wings

You need 2 wings from a mecha your size, or you take a serious penalty to flying/jumping. (or you can use 3 or more smaller wings, or one wing from a very large mecha.)

Miscellaneous

Each mecha module has a maximum CMX (Points of Complexity) of components that can be fitted into them. And, each component has a CMX rating. A good Mecha Engineering skill can overcome these limitations to significant a degree (a persistent engineer can quite usually cram over 20 points of complexity into a slab of armor rated for 1), and many high-end mecha come with overloaded modules and armor.

Consider using a mecha with a cockpit mounted in the head. The +1 to MV and TR is nice, but having your head blown off will lose the mission. This makes your mecha more vulnerable, and you will lose more missions in general, but if your head is destroyed, then you will get your mecha back after the mission. If your torso is destroyed, you will not get anything back, which makes it much more expensive to lose. (Oddly enough, your opponents will not salvage your mecha...)

Try fitting a few SF:0 weapons into your mecha. That's right, personal scale guns. Although they don't do much damage to SF:2 mecha they are very accurate. The Rapid Fire Bazooka is best for this: it has a DC of 22, does Brutal Armorpiercing damage. Its maximum range is 96, greater than many SF:2 weapons. The six-shot ammunition capacity is a limiting factor, but this can easily be overcome by installing six or seven of these weapons into your mecha, or by carrying spare clips in your mecha's inventory. The other advantage of fitting SF:0 scale weapons is they won't have any noticeable effect on your mecha's weight, so you can keep squeezing them on without having to worry about slowing your mecha down or impeding MV and TR. The drawback is that, due to how damage scales, this is the equivalent of a 6-shot DC 1 missile rack. Overall, this is effective against SF:1 mecha, but largely useless for SF:2 mecha.

One final point about fitting SF:0 equipment onto your mecha: don't worry about the CMX. If you're fitting a Rapid Fire Bazooka, the game will tell you the CMX of the weapon is 13, but it'll actually only be counted as 1.

Don't forget you can squeeze something into just about anything. Even armor plating has space for a nominal 1 CMX of equipment, as do physical (non-beam) shields. With a decent Mecha Engineering skill you can fit much more than that. Of course, if a piece of armor is destroyed in battle then so is the equipment installed in it, but that may be preferable to installing the equipment into the main chassis of your mecha if you run out of space elsewhere.

A guess on design as of GH1

The Fenris, the Petrarch, and the Phoenix are very good designs despite their low prices, and the Hariseng is probably the worst-designed mecha in GH1. Perhaps the trick to good design is to first understand the technologies, and then take one step backwards: What is this mecha meant to do, and what will allow it to do that most effectively?

In particular, does the vehicle you're trying to create really need an anthropomorphic form? How much of "that old Fenris magic" is due to its leaving out arms, for the sake of lower weight? Lower weight and higher speed mean greater fragility, though -- although on the other hand, a slugfest only lasts until an enemy gets a critical hit...