Building Your Mech
Mechs in this game are modular. The chassis is a base; everything bolted to it swaps freely between every machine you are licensed for. Pilots are as much experts at building their mechs as at flying them.
Start with a frame
The FRAME sets everything: size, armour, base HP, evasion, speed, sensors, tech attack, e-defense, save target, SP, heat cap and repair cap, plus its own traits and a unique CORE SYSTEM.
At LL0 you have exactly one — the @Missing file, the galactic standard, available to every pilot forever under the @Missing file licence. It is boring on purpose and it is the reason a great many pilots are alive.
Rank II in any manufacturer licence unlocks another frame.
Fit weapons to mounts
The frame tells you what mounts you have. The Everest has a FLEX, a MAIN and a HEAVY.
| Mount | Takes |
|---|---|
| Main | one MAIN or AUXILIARY |
| Heavy | one HEAVY, MAIN or AUXILIARY |
| Aux/Aux | up to two AUXILIARY |
| Main/Aux | one MAIN and one AUXILIARY, or two AUXILIARY |
| Flexible | one MAIN, or up to two AUXILIARY |
Smaller weapons always fit larger mounts. A SUPERHEAVY needs a HEAVY mount and one other, and can only be fired as part of a BARRAGE.
Spend your system points
SP buy systems. Your sheet shows SP used against SP available and flags the build in red if you overspend. You cannot take an illegal mech into the field.
What the sheet does for you
Everything derived. HP is frame HP plus twice your HULL plus your GRIT plus any system bonuses. Evasion is frame evasion plus AGILITY. Change your frame and the whole sheet recalculates; raise a mech skill and it recalculates again.
The only numbers you enter by hand are the ones that change during play — current HP, heat, structure, stress, repairs — and the flat effects of any core bonus you take from LL3 onward, which go in the adjustments block on the chassis tab.
A worked example
@Missing file is Ari Okonkwo's Everest. She put both her LL0 mech skill points into HULL, so her mech has 10 base HP, +4 from HULL, +2 from her Personalizations system: 16 HP, and a REPAIR CAP of 6.
Her six SP went on Stable Structure, deployable cover, Personalizations and a Custom Paint Job. Her mounts carry a heavy melee weapon, an assault rifle and a shotgun. She is built to walk into a room and stay in it.
That is one LL0 Everest. Two other pilots built two completely different machines out of the same chassis and the same six points.