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Okay, an explanation: In lore, a "Frankenstein mech", sometimes known as a "Frankenmech", is a mech that was cobbled together using components from different mech designs. One canon example being a mech with the upper body of a Rifleman being connected to the lower body of a Warhammer. Such a mech of course would be fraught with technical problems and reliability issues since you're putting components together than were never designed to work with each other.
Of course, this is MWO, so we can wave all those issues away.
Still, there ARE technical issues, what with MWO being a computer game at all. So here's some Frankenstein Mech ground rules as PGI might implement them:
1) Choose a tech base.
The Frankenmech must have either a Clan or Inner Sphere tech base, even if the chosen components come from both sides of the fence. All of the mechs innards and equipment will be of the appropriate tech base. For the purposes of construction, the mech is treated as a "standard" battlemech despite the ability to choose components.
2) Choose a weight class.
Light, Medium, Heavy, Assault. Only mech components in the chosen weight class can be used for a given Frankenmech. That's to avoid scale issues that might arise such as might happen when trying to put Dire Wolf Arms and Legs on a Locust torso.
3) Choose Components.
Components can come from any pre-existing mech model in the game, and determine both the visual appearance of the mech and what hard points the mech has. Components that can be selected are...
- Torso (all three Torsos plus the head come as a single unit because that's how PGI models them)
- Legs (both must come from the same mech in order to have a smooth walking animation)
- Right Arm, and Left Arm (arms are chosen independently).
Each component chosen has the same available hard points as it does on the mech model it came from. Also, the mech's exact tonnage is determined by the Torso component.
4) NO QUIRKS.
Any quirks a component might inherit from their source mech are lost when used on a Frankenstein Mech. Otherwise, the Frankenmech has its own skill trees.
So what's your Frankenmech build? What component combination do you chose either for fun or as an optimal combat build?
Edited by evilauthor, 06 July 2017 - 11:15 AM.
