Battletech armless mech.

[Jackaccount]

Does anyone know if the rules for making an armless mech in maximium tech are still valid/were they ever replaced?

[Erloas]

I'm not sure about entirely armless, but there are rules for removing an actuator and a hand, which is what many of the "gun" or "missile" arm 'Mechs do. Like the Catapult. I'm not sure you would want to remove the whole arm anyway, as that would remove 10 crit locations per arm, 8 plus the two you can free up by removing the hand and lower arm actuator. Any potential reduction in weight would be less than what you would get by switching to advanced armor or internal structure, both of which would be almost impossible with the crit location loss of the arms being removed. Just strip the armor off them too and move it to other locations.

[Alex Knight]

Quirks were introduced in Strategic Operations and among them I believe is the "Armless" quirk.

[Drasius]

I'm not sure about entirely armless, but there are rules for removing an actuator and a hand, which is what many of the "gun" or "missile" arm 'Mechs do. Like the Catapult. I'm not sure you would want to remove the whole arm anyway, as that would remove 10 crit locations per arm, 8 plus the two you can free up by removing the hand and lower arm actuator. Any potential reduction in weight would be less than what you would get by switching to advanced armor or internal structure, both of which would be almost impossible with the crit location loss of the arms being removed. Just strip the armor off them too and move it to other locations.

As below:


Quirks were introduced in Strategic Operations and among them I believe is the "Armless" quirk.

There are rules for entirely armless 'mechs with IIRC, a 50/50 chance of any arm roll either missing completely or being allocated to the respective side torso, though it's been a long time since I have paid any attention to that specific rule though, so I could be incorrect.

[Jackaccount]

There are rules for entirely armless 'mechs with IIRC, a 50/50 chance of any arm roll either missing completely or being allocated to the respective side torso, though it's been a long time since I have paid any attention to that specific rule though, so I could be incorrect.

I don't know what IIRC means, do you know ow where this rule might be located?

[Aeson]

I don't know what IIRC means, do you know ow where this rule might be located?
Unless I'm much mistaken, IIRC here means "if I recall correctly" and is not a shorthand for a rule.

[Drasius]

Unless I'm much mistaken, IIRC here means "if I recall correctly" and is not a shorthand for a rule.

You are indeed correct - I missed a comma making it more difficult to decipher what I meant. Thanks for pointing out what I meant.

[Erloas]

Well I have the TechManual, Strategic Operations, and Tactical Operations, as well as checking Sarna.net and I couldn't find anything other than the quirk regarding armless 'Mech construction.
The quirk also seem to be the just adding an advanced rule to 'Mechs that have removed the hand/lower actuator.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

There are rules for mechs who remove their lower arm and hand actuators to basically turn the arm into a turret. I think there's even a custom rule that if you do remove the hand and lower armo actuator, the arm can then spin 180* to shoot at targets behind you. However, it comes at a cost to piloting checks that can become extremely prohibitive and basically makes you a turtle if you fall over if you do it too much.

There's also quad mechs which technically have no arms and instead have four legs. They have more stability which translates to bonuses on piloting skill checks, but... well... far fewer crit slots because... no arms. You only get two crits per leg as opposed to 8-10 crit slots in arms. Makes things like EndoSteel hella difficult to pull off.

[Drasius]

Well I have the TechManual, Strategic Operations, and Tactical Operations, as well as checking Sarna.net and I couldn't find anything other than the quirk regarding armless 'Mech construction.
The quirk also seem to be the just adding an advanced rule to 'Mechs that have removed the hand/lower actuator.

As the OP mentioned, it was in maximum tech, but that's out of date (it was basically invalidated with the release of TacOps) and has been for a long time.


There are rules for mechs who remove their lower arm and hand actuators to basically turn the arm into a turret. I think there's even a custom rule that if you do remove the hand and lower armo actuator, the arm can then spin 180* to shoot at targets behind you. However, it comes at a cost to piloting checks that can become extremely prohibitive and basically makes you a turtle if you fall over if you do it too much.

There's also quad mechs which technically have no arms and instead have four legs. They have more stability which translates to bonuses on piloting skill checks, but... well... far fewer crit slots because... no arms. You only get two crits per leg as opposed to 8-10 crit slots in arms. Makes things like EndoSteel hella difficult to pull off.

Not what the OP was looking for, this was a rule for construction options back in the day. The ability to flip arms if you don't have the usual actuators isn't a custom rule either.


Does anyone know if the rules for making an armless mech in maximium tech are still valid/were they ever replaced?

10 seconds on google says it got replaced when StratOps/TacOps came out, so yeah, technically the design rules are invalidated, but houserules are always a thing, so if your group allows it, then it's fair game, but it's pretty strong (10/36 of all hit locations are invalidated when hit) which is why it was phased out.

[Erloas]

As the OP mentioned, it was in maximum tech, but that's out of date (it was basically invalidated with the release of TacOps) and has been for a long time.I was trying to make it clear that I had checked all of the current rule books and couldn't find any mention of it.



There are rules for mechs who remove their lower arm and hand actuators to basically turn the arm into a turret. I think there's even a custom rule that if you do remove the hand and lower armo actuator, the arm can then spin 180* to shoot at targets behind you. However, it comes at a cost to piloting checks that can become extremely prohibitive and basically makes you a turtle if you fall over if you do it too much.
As mentioned, it is a standard rule to flip the arms. I don't recall it having any real penalties though, short of those just related to not having hands, as limited as that is. I think there are advanced rules for standing up without arms, from them being shot off, but I don't recall any standard rules for it. Though I know you can't shoot while prone unless you have at least one arm, or maybe you have to have two, can't remember if you can shoot torso weapons from prone.