[Rezz]

You could have something akin to "type" requirements and energy requirements to equip each component. Ie, restrict speed enhancing chips/addons to medium/light with medium to high energy output.

An example would be using the concept of light/heavy/medium mechs, comprised of similar pieces. A light mech would be using light mech equipment, and would inherantly be more mobile than medium or heavy mechs, though with less durability/armor and lower heat/energy creation/use. Hrm, lots of /'s in here~

Perhaps there are core units that comprise the mech, such as arms, legs, torso, sensor array (head) and then peripheral slots. You could also equip non-standard parts in the various core sections, as long as they fit the requirements, such as instead of legs having a hover-motion unit, or instead of "arms" you could equip batteries of missiles.

You also let the core units of the mech determine how many peripheral slots you have. Ie, if you have missile batteries instead of arms, you couldn't have a pistol in one fist and a rocket launcher on the shoulder, as the battery wouldn't be sturdy enough to support the rocket launcher as well as a full on arm/shoulder assembly would. The "heavier" the unit, the more average slots could fit into the mech. The actual components and peripheral units that could be added would vary from type to type with additional requirements. The search for better cooling systems so you can carry increasingly more powerful equipment, the idea of lightening parts so that you could increase your speed. Stuff like that.

You could also have jury-rigged components that affect the amount of additional components/peripheral units in a more direct way. Such as adding more plating to a heavy mech would reduce the amount of possible peripheral units as well as reducing mobility and what not, or lightening a medium mech's legs could reduce the total encumbrance potential of the mech while increasing it's mobility.

Graphically, additions such as thickened plating/lightening wouldn't need to be expressed, as they would be more statistical enhancements/reductions. But that sort of stuff would affect the amount of peripherals the affected parts could attach.

Hrm, to illustrate, you have a medium mech with standard medium arms, legs, torso and array. The arms start with two interior slots, 2 exterior slots, and is considered medium type medium energy medium weight. Legs would have 1 exterior and 2 interior slots, med/med/med (type/energy/weight) sensor array would have 1 exterior 4 interior med/light/med and the torso would have 3 external 4 internal and med/heavy/med.

You decide that to start off with before you start buying parts, you want to add an additional layer of plating to the sensor array and the arms as they have the lowest armor level of core units (an example) and you apply Mark I Ceramic thermal plates to the sensor array and arms.

This would reduce your exterior slots on both by 1. This means you can eithe r have one shoulder mounted weapon and some form of internal weapon or one hand based weapon and some internal weapons, not a shoulder and hand weapon. You couldn't add any additional radar functionality to the sensor array, but you would still have access to adding chips that help with targeting, lock-ons or other systems.

Perhaps you want to lighten the armor on the torso to make up for the lost mobility of adding the ceramic plates, you reduce one internal slot in the legs and slightly increase the mobility but slightly lower the durability of the legs. This would mean that you could add an external and an internal, but not two internal.

This would immediately change the "spec" of the possible mech, as you now have a partially "heavy" configuration on some pieces and a possible "light" configuration on other pieces. Note, this wouldn't be the true effect of having a heavy or light mech, as they are still considered medium, just altered in stats/possible component configurations.

Man, that's kind of all over the place hah, my apologies. Very interesting project though!