I'd like to eliminate legs entirely and make a humanoid actor which has a "hover pelvis" or whatever you'd call it to effortlessly glide over the map surface. Is it possible, or do actors have to have legs with which to propel themselves?

See example (but imagine it with arms!).

http://loop.net.ru/Images/Quake%20IV%20-%20Concepts/Q4%20Hover%20Tank%20FBS%20torso.jpg

Yes. Invisible legs, or lua based.

You can just totally remove the leg section of the AHuman or ACrab code and make it move with Lua, yes.

Probably getaltitude, some automatic Y movement, and player-controlled side-side w/ maybe a jump.

Thanks. As a beginning modder I have a lot of reading to do, but I'm glad to hear it should be easy.

Keep in mind that if you use the "remove legs entirely" method, that your actor (if an ACrab, forgot if it's also true for AHuman) will start to bleed out and die automatically if it only loses its arms.

Couldn't you have the legs use null.bmp, so it wouldn't bleed out? Either that, or you could have the legs look like hover pods...

Yes, and that option was mentioned. Well, hinted at, since it was called "invisible legs", but yeah.
Probably the best option if you want to keep the thing alive.

For the umpteenth time (and I have no ♥♥♥♥ idea how this idea persists) an actor with NO LIMBS DEFINED AT ALL has no breakwounds to bleed out from and is therefore utterly incapable OF bleeding out. It'll still get wounded (if it has any wounds defined, that is!) but without limbs it will just be AN ACTOR WITHOUT LIMBS.

Gah.

EDIT: Ha ha ha! Turns out Data is a useless ♥♥♥hole and crabs are majorly ♥♥♥♥.

http://pastebin.com/m6598e91c

Go select this in bunker editor mode. Then wait ten seconds and place one. Then wait until it hits one health in preview, and place it up in midair (nothing to hit horizontally)

then watch in utter amusement/amazement at how ♥♥♥♥ crabs are

Another reason why I hate crabs.
FYI dreadnoughts are only good for propelling into other non-crab, non-suck actors.

all actors get the status "dying" if they have no limbs, and lose health quickly. they dont bleed out, but it gets the same result.
this can be circumvented with lua that adds HP.

you know, if one were to build a Quake based abomination of flesh and cybernetics melded together. It would infact be quite appropriate for it to be bleeding out pretty badly.

It will give it that "rushed into battle" feel to it like its a new experimental cyborg thats not 100% ready yet.

That is one of the most funny things I've seen this month.
Kudos to you for finding this.

lulz.
Though that is kinda what I expected that to happen, cause, well... You know... Actors always seemed to start rotating upon death (In 90% of the cases), even in early builds...
But its still rather amusing, and needs fixing.