Aphesius Holt, hier nicht weiterlesen!

Well, I'm hoping someone can help me with the following problem: I plan to let my PCs pick up a chimera in the next adventure, and I have some questions on its layout. First, the apocrypha lists 3 basic weapon mountings both on the left and right side of the chimera. Are these mountings exterior, so you first have to fix weapons on them before you enter the vehicle? Or are they just ports you can open from inside and then fire any basic weapon you happen to hold in your hands through the opening? Secondly, is it reasonable to assume a power-armoured, i.e. hulking person is too large for the confined compartment within, so that he either cannot enter or will have serious problems with moving in the cabin?

Well my assumption would be that a hulking person could enter a chimera because the things can hold a whole sqaud of ogryn and those guys are hulking in their own right, its not comfortable of course but they can get in there. As for my understand on chimera weapons mounts I alwys consiedere that there was the turret moihnting and then the weapon ports for members within the vehicle to fire out of, and then two external turrets (such as a heavy stubber that somone can use if they are standing out of a hatch within the chimera kind of like a smaller version of what you see the turret gunner of an American HMMWV doing.

The Imperial Armor description and designs list the forward-fixed mount (Heavy Bolter or Heavy Flamer), Turret Mount (Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer or Multi-laser), an optional pintle mount (Storm Bolter or Heavy Stubber operated by an exposed gunner threw the turret) and 3 fixed lasgun mounts on the right & Left of the roof access doors. <side note, the heavy stubber is almost identical to what the US army mounts on humvees)

A Space Marine can stand in a chimara (though he might risk bumping his head), ogryns & termiantors might have to duck down a bit, regular humans fit easily. Inquisitor lords in full Terminator armor often use chimera's for transport, so I wouldn't worry about your guys in power armor.

It is probable, however, that anyone in power armour will have a devil of a time fitting into the seats in the crew compartment.

Darth Fanboy said:

Well, it's a military vehicle so I guess the passenger compartment is equipped with benches, not seats.

Even so, powered armoured troopies have different requirements of a transport vehicle than normal blokes: there are a number of comparisons in Matt Farrer's Crossfire (although between Arbites and Sororitas RH1N0 APCs, rather than Chimera, but the principle is the same): the benches in ones outfitted for powered armour are bare metal with grip tape on top, set out slightly lower than is comfortable for most people, with less in the way of overhead and under-seat stowage, and unpadded seat/bench backs, studded periodically with the connections for armour power/life support (so, you aren't running down your 1d5 hours of powered time while riding).

While IG Chimerae tend to have lasguns in the side mountings, I see no real reason that you could not outfit your APC with other Basic weapons, bearing in mind that they are fitted in ball mounts, so swapping them out is not practical in battle conditions: it's more a job for mech-wrights at a vehicle depot or garage. The advantage of using lasguns (or, for that matter, hellguns) is that you can run them from the vehicle power plant. Projectile weaponry (including Bolt, Launcher as well as SP) requires more space for ammo stowage (as does Melta, Plasma and Flame, for that matter), and it'd probably be a right pain trying to clear a jammed weapon, so las is probably the way to go (provided the weapons in question are Reliable). Remember also that the troop compartment of a Chimera has a large top hatch, and you could probably get all 12 people in it firing if half of them use the mounted lasguns, and the other half use the benches as a firing step and treat the troop compartment as a large mobile trench section, not to mention the hull mount at the front, and the turret and pintle mount, which would be used by the vehicle crew.

Okay, thanks to all of you for helping. I will go with exterior mountings, but the built in lasguns will be destroyed, so they can put in what they want, replace them with hatches or come up with other crazy ideas. And the power-armoured PC will have to test Agility from time to time for not banging his head against the low ceiling ;-)

Have a mutant in my group with the Hulking mutation. It's got it's obvious mechanics, both positive and negative, but there are some fun flavor bits that crop up (again, both positive and negative) from time to time. Rarely has it kept the character out of a vehicle, which is good since the mutant in question is the Void-Master with the best piloting skills in the group (he's a big guy, but he's also a really **** agile big guy).