Group has players interested in customs but reasonably shy of min-maxing.
My reflexive response [1] is on the crunchy end, and the solutions I'm familiar with [2] are too campaign-oriented. I'm also surprised I don't know more folk-formats given that the opportunity for abuse is long known.
So I'm looking for battle-tested alternatives for pickup play that are more interesting than hard limits, while also being slimish and ideally a bit self balancing.
[1] My boardgame brain cells immediately jump to storage-wars like bidding with players spending BV on collections of random bits, and/or a "I cut, you choose" twist where players sort pools of bits into allotments other players draft from -- all aimed at letting players self balance things like pulses and jump jets etc. while granting the fun of solving optimization problems, and maybe granting a novel/funky decision spaces for the old hats.
[2] Resource-tight campaign play offers the simple "can't afford all that you want" as an easy control. Another entertaining one I've played under was where omni-mech podding was allowed _but via request to the quarter master (GM)_ who'd give you back half of one thing you wanted and just Fing your shit up. "Yea so we got the large pulse and three of the five jumpjets you wanted -- had remove half the heat sinks and then someone ganked them off the tarmac so had to balance her out with a gaggle of flamers." Good times for another time.
[Edits for typos]
