A mount is a mecha component which allows other components to be attached to the mecha externally. Most mecha are manufactured with a few mounts; otherwise, you may install salvaged mounts onto a mecha, with some restrictions (you cannot install more than one mount into a limb, for example). Up to one weapon, and one propulsion system or overcharger can all be attached to a single mount. (In GearHead 2, mounts may only house a single weapon at present.)
Mounting components makes retrofitting your mecha for speed and lethality much easier. Equipping and dropping components never damages them and does not use up any Me, unlike actually installing and removing them in the mecha chassis using the Mecha Engineering skill. Mounted components also carry a smaller MV penalty than installed ones of the same mass. The downside is that the mount itself takes up mass, so mounts are generally much more useful when they are used to mount heavy components that would not fit nicely in the mecha otherwise. To illustrate the tradeoff, one may choose to mount a 5-ton laser cannon and install a half-ton nova sword.
In combat, mounted ammunition packs are less likely to catastrophically explode when destroyed; the attack needs an additional point of penetration compared to ammunition for installed weapons. In the worst of emergencies, when your main weapon arm is blown off, you can also just swap the weapon to a mount on another module; this takes several seconds but may save a lost battle. Installed weapons cannot be salvaged in this way. On the other hand, mounts themselves do not have much DP, so you could expect to have your mounted weapons disabled more often.
The number of mounts on a mecha are displayed as Mnt: under the "Tech Stats" menu in shops and under the Headquarters (uppercase H) menu. They go by many names; they can be named weapon mounts, body mounts , or arm mounts, and given a right/left designation; the Wolfram, in fact, calls them hardpoints. However, they all weigh half a ton, can take 25 points of damage (for SF:1 mecha the mass and DP are of course scaled down by 5), and are essentially the same.
See also[]
- Hands are similar to mounts but are distinct components.
- Mecha:Modules lists the number of mounts that can be installed in each module type.
- Guides:Mecha Design for numbers and formulae