Lucky head shot from a Gauss rifle and scored an intact CP-10-Z Cyclops with a battle computer. Changed out the AC20 for an AC5 and added armor, jump jets and stablization gyro for stand off attacks with missles and ac5. The rest of the lance gets the initiative boost. Even makes the Awesome awesome.

I get that the game doesn't check location when assigning or using salvage, but a head shot of a Cyclops should really make it impossible to get the battle computer. That's where the thing is. You blew it up.

It took a little bit of extra management, but my playthrough was Po8 and I kept a little spreadsheet with what locations were destroyed and chose salvage from what remained, so that even if I had 8 pieces of salvage, they were no use unless they were the *correct* 8 pieces. Made the game far more interesting, honestly. Significant addition to tactical considerations. Also chose to require (and consume) salvage pieces for any chassis loss requiring replacement. Made for a cautious play style, but, again; more challenging and more fun.

Wouldn't it be better to use mod MechEngineer? As I recall, computer battle computer is a special cockpit, that can replace regular one, and of course it must survive battle to be salvageable.