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[Paul]

I just picked this up and started fooling with it.

I made a mechanic char with gunnery, piloting, initiative, and mecha engineering maxed - started with that BuruBuru Heavyfoot variant. First thing I did was buy my engineering higher and then customise my mech. I removed the jets from the legs and mounted them on the torso and head. I chopped off the legs (I failed on one and lost it, so no going back...). At this point it was -3,-3. Better, but I wanted more so I unequipped the gun buckler and managed to destroy the arm trying to remove it. I then installed the missile weapon into the arm with the gauss cannon (so it has 180 degree firing arc), and slapped the leftover machine gun into the collar mount.

So now my BuruBuru is now a flying one armed torso at -2,-2 and has the same weapons it had at -4,-4. It seemed to perform very well against my first mission fights (had to kill a few mecha), so I'm reasonably happy with it.

The fact that it's a flying torso with one arm using hover jets on the torso and head to fly summons up a rather entertaining mental image, but as far as I can tell the only downside is less useless limbs to act as random meat shields for the more important parts - but so far nothing has even managed to hit me due to the better MV.

[beorn080]

If you lack legs, you can only skim on asteroid missions, or fly if you have enough thrusters. If you lose the ability to skim by having your hoverjets shot, you crash and can't move at all. Very risky. Otherwise, its a good idea. Buru Buru needs to have a limb or two chopped off.

[ein]

I once took a Dora and modded it into this (relatively) super killing machine with excellent thrusters and a really nice cannon thing.

[Paul]

Having a thruster installed on the head and the torso should be reasonably safe. I mean, wouldn't they have to actually blow up my torso to kill the thruster installed there? Or can they shoot off a thruster without damaging the regular parts? The real risky part is having both my big guns on the one arm, but hopefully nothing shoots it off. If it does I can still go in close with my head laser and the machine gun, though.

[Krath]

That's...awesome, Paul. You make me wanna use a Buru Buru all game and just constantly modify it.

[Il Palazzo]

Another downside(apart presenting more targets) of not having legs, is that in the city/asteroid combat, where you can actually walk, having legs is useful, as it allows you to perform turns much faster than in skimming mode, and can considerably improve your MV/TR. Of course, in space they're pretty much useless.

[Pnx]

Having a thruster installed on the head and the torso should be reasonably safe. I mean, wouldn't they have to actually blow up my torso to kill the thruster installed there? Or can they shoot off a thruster without damaging the regular parts? The real risky part is having both my big guns on the one arm, but hopefully nothing shoots it off. If it does I can still go in close with my head laser and the machine gun, though.

I don't remember how damage is assigned, but I believe it's possible for a component to get damaged directly, but it only really happens if the attack was close to destroying you anyway... so... it's pretty safe to say that they're not likely to take away your final jet without killing you.

In other news, my late game character just got erased after I accidentally hit "Start RPG Campaign" rather than "Load RPG Campaign".... *hate*

[Krath]

I just got a sponsorship from MUGL Enterprises, and told them 'Make it a custom mecha and you have a deal.'

So now I have the mighty Burning Burninator Haiho.

It has Fire Chain melee weapon that is 18x10, and has FLAIL, EXTEND, BURN, and BRUTAL. The ranged weapon is a 13x10 Fire Mortar with BURN and BLAST 2. It also has a Flamethrower in case I don't want to blow everything up with the Mortar.

I think I'm liking MUGL Enterprises already.

[3]

A little while ago I got the "nemesis hates you and is sending everything to stop you" event. I've been fighting her henchmen for four in-game days, and they're still coming. There is so much salvage floating around the spinner that whenever I get attacked, chances are there'll already be at least one random item lying around on the battlefield.

[Il Palazzo]

EDIT: Is there a way to save reliably so I don't have to be forced to load at my last, randomized autosave that puts me in the beginning of battle or some such? Or do I have to bite the bullet on that one?

Yes, there is. You need to modify the config file, by finding the #NOAUTOSAVE entry, and removing the "#".
Then, the game will only save if you press shift+x.

[Funk]

paul, thay can hit the thrusters with out killing the part but it is rare.
haveing both guns on one arm is a risk but with some good armor and some luck it will do.

[Paul]

I got a few extra mechs (my first mission asked me to join the knights and gave me a custom IceWind, also got a custom Trailblazer from the starting dungeon). Been playing aroung with mech designing and reading about it on the wiki.

Figured I'd tell my findings from the reading and from experimentation (mostly experimentation) here, in case anyone might find them useful.

Things that affect MV and TR:

• Penalty from installed mass. This is 1 per 7.5, rounded down. So if you have a mech that is exactly 22 installed mass, the penalty will be only -2 (7.5x2 with a remainder of 7 that rounds down). So the most efficient designs are multiples of 7.5 with 0.5 removed to make it round down.
  
  
• Penalty from equipped mass. This is 1 per (7.5 + 0.5 * engine size), also rounded down, minus 1 (so the first 7.5 + 0.5xEngine doesn't count). So a mecha with a size 5 engine (like the BuruBuru) can equip up to 19.5 without any penalty. A mecha with a size 2 engine (like the TrailBlazer) can only equip 16.5 without a penalty.
  
  
• Bonus from software. You can get computers and install them on the mech, then install software on them that gives bonuses - like +1 MV or +3 TR or whatever.
  
  
• Bonus from having oversized and/or more than 2 legs. The oversized leg part seems to only apply to the smaller mechs (those with size 3 or below engines). If they have legs 1 size category larger than their engine, they get a +1 MV bonus. The size 4 and up mechs don't seem to get this bonus, even with size 5 legs from a BuruBuru. To get this, they need a third leg of the same size as the ones it has to get this bonus - so it's pretty useless to them, since their legs are so heavy that you'll probably just wind up losing a TR in the bargain. The IceWind and the Trailblazer are both outfitted with oversized legs like this by default, which explains their MV difference that I saw a few people wondering about.
  
  
• Penalty for not having sensors. This isn't really a mech design problem, since you'll always have sensors unless you have a death wish - but if sensors get destroyed you get a -1 penalty to MV and a -5 penalty to TR.
  
  
• And finally the various bonuses from the diff types of mechs, but thats in the help file and on the wiki so I won't list it. Suffice to say, the battroid mechs that I actually have experience with get a +1/+1.
  
  
• I did some experimenting with heavy actuators. These affect the equipped mass by 0.5 per level of actuator. Seeing as they weigh 0.5 per level of actuator and take up one slot per level of actuator, their usefulness seems kinda iffy. I guess if you had extra mounts and some guns that were light but used up lots of slots so you couldn't install them it might be useful, but I haven't really found myself in a position to use them yet. Missiles maybe?, a size 4 actuator would give you carry space for 2 of the 1 ton swarm missile packs, and those take 4 slots each, so installing the actuator and mounting two of them might work... but you would need the extra 3 tons of installed space for the actuator and two mounts and the space to mount them. All total that would add 5 tons for the 2 tons worth of weapons, when you could just add the 1 gun in place of the actuator and shave off 4 tons. They're still good for melee though (I assume, anyway, I've never tried melee, but they supposed to add bonus damage).
  

That explains all the MV/TR results I've seen so far, but im not too far into the game yet so if anyone has spotted some other way to change them let me know

-edited to make the wall of text a slightly more agreeable organized list.

-edit2 added point 7

[Earthquake Damage]

Things that affect MV and TR:

• Penalty from installed mass.
  
• Penalty from equipped mass.
  

Seems I was off a bit.  Close, but off.

Also, does #4 only apply when walking?

Also also, for #4, I suspect what matters is total leg size relative to engine size.  Try a BuruBuru with 3+ very small legs, or whatever.

[Paul]

Not sure if #4 is only when walking or not, I'll have to see if it still shows the bonus in space.

-edit- Yea I just tested, its only when walking. Not getting the bonus when flying in space or skimming on the surface. Oh well, still a handy +1 MV when walking.


My other char kept freezing up when loading the save for some reason, so I made a new one. My very first mission gave me the option of joining the Silver Knights, and my joining bonus was a Mighty Firestarter Ice Wind with a bunch of crazy weapons. It had 4 incendiary missiles and 3 volcano rifles with -2,-3 for the stats. I modified it a bit and got the stats to -1,-2 and even managed to add an extra set of swarm missiles that I had looted from the mission target onto it. I'm not sure how it'll play yet, but I imagine it will be pretty lethal when I unload all those missiles.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Total weight is 47t, 29.5 body and 17.5 carried (absolute max on both counts without getting more negatives). It wouldn't have been possible without some of the items being reduced weight. One of the volcano rifles is 1t lighter and its ammo is 0.5 lighter, so thats 1.5t of carried free. Then the torso seems to be 0.5 lighter than the standard (compared to my other char's ice wind, anyway). One leg and one arm are also 0.5 lighter. So all total it has 3t less weight than normal. Without those it would weigh 50t and be over weight on both counts and it would be at -3,-4

In any case this is the first time I've even seen volcano rifles, so hopefully they work well. I've never used BLAST 2 BURN BRUTAL weapons before, but I have a feeling they're going to strip armor off stuff really fast.

[beorn080]

I'd say replace one of them with a high powered single shot weapon, preferably with armorpiercing. Those rifles will decimate the armor of anything in their blast zone, but won't do too much damage to internal parts. Invest in a rank of Electronic Warfare to get the most out of the Burn status.