Hi Rob. Is there an answer yet on what happens to my Panther and Deadly’s T-bolt? It’d be nice to know especially if it impacts maintenance costs for October.
posting this in the questions thread as wellYou don't automatically lose the Mechs. However, if you don't have enough time to finish them, then you have to cancel the customization. Which means that you essentially have a naked Mech skeleton (or a mech with everything you removed from it, anyway), a pile of parts, and have to start the "adding things to the Mech" section of the customization from scratch somewhere else.
What that means for the future is that if you want to do the same customization, you'll have to find a factory somewhere else. If you want to take what you've removed and add everything back in, that's already covered in the existing rules. If you want to take what you've removed and create a NEW customization which doesn't require a factory, then that's also OK *as long as the removed components aren't going to require a factory to replace*.
In that last case, say your customization was:
1) Remove 3 MLs, DHS swap, add 2.5 tons armor and CASE.
That's a Factory-level customization (b/c of the CASE). However, if you have to cancel the customization due to loss of Factory conditions, your Mech is in the following condition:
1) 3 ML's removed
2) SHS removed.
You could find a new factory and recalculate a new customization from that point. Alternatively, you could decide on a new customization:
1) Install all DHS, add 2.0 tons armor and a TAG unit.
This new customization (which, again, must be recalculated from the point of "installing new things") would only be a Maintenance-level customization, and therefore wouldn't require a Factory.