First - thanks for writing these great guides guys. Top work. These guys did a great job, so I don't need to write anything here, except go and read these. My apology to anyone I missed, these are three I found really useful.

Best Mech for AI in Early Game, IMO
By Zako Mk.II

Yet Another Revamped Weapon Guide
By LittleTex2112

MW5 Main Campaign Progression Guide
By ZoomBeast

If you read them, you will get a lot out of them. You need to know what Mechs are good and which are crap. What weapon setups and combos are good, and how to equip your dumb buddies, the AI, so they will function properly.

There are Mechs you build to pilot yourself and Mechs you build for the AI to pilot.
You need to be very clear on this. For the Mech you are going to pilot yourself, build whatever suits your style. I recommend having two or three variants of your Mech, suitable for different missions or roles you need to play. Aim for a minimum of 8 good, effective Mechs in your bay. Three for you, and 5 to swap and mix for the AI. If you are short on cash, enable the 'don't strip weapons in cold storage' in YAML and put some in storage - be aware it WILL strip any upgrades.

Be very careful giving one of your Mechs to the AI, you might get unexpected AI behaviour. I keep them as two very separate groups.
You can't fire that awesome alpha strike if you are dead - so max armour is better than being a glass cannon - regardless of what Mech you are building, always try to have max armour. Even better, why not have more armour than the maximum armour on your Mech, just read on to find out how.
Make a style choice - brawler or sniper or mixed - up to you.
If you read the guide 'Best Mech for AI in Early Game, IMO - By Zako Mk.II', you might use a Hunchback-4P as your Mech. Or you can travel to Valentia and use the Wolverine Mk2. I used the Wolverine for a while, the UAC5 is easy to aim, has a big hit and good rate of fire vs what you will meet at this stage in the game.
Large and Medium lasers - Standard LL and ML is all you really need.
PPC - good damage - harder to hit with - better for the AI IMO - ER PPC not worth the heat
ER lasers - Pulse - SB - not worth it early game
Small laser or MG - no - save the weight for heat or armour or a bigger engine for more speed.
SRMs - hard to manage - most Mechs can't handle more than SRM6 x 2 (or max 3) combined with massed lasers - lasers will do most of the damage and use SRMs as the killer blow to finish a Mech.
LRMs - One 10 or 15 is useful early, to shoot down flyers. Can be variable against tanks.
Putting LRMs in your Mech is not a good tactic because when you get charged by enemy Mechs they can get inside your minimum fire distance and then you have no weapons. Better for the AI to have LRMs.
I like mass lasers. Sustained damage with a good recycle rate.
Early builds are all ML, or LL x 2, ML for the rest. You want 6 to 9, or whatever Mech you find early.
Hero Trebuchet is a good early find. My early game fave is the Hero Trebby. Use SRM6 x 4, ML x 2. Downsize the engine to 84 kph and up the heat management. Kills lights and even mediums. Another early Mech is the Blackjack-1X, LL x 1, ML x 6.

Blackjack-1X and Hero Trebuchet:

---

------
Charger-1A1:
Everyone hates the Charger, but you can get one fairly early in the game and fix the design problems.
Strip all the SL weapons and downgrade the engine to core 325 (65 kph). Install ML x7 or LL x2, ML x5 or LL x4, ML x3, depending on having a double heat sink kit, etc.
Why it works - it has massive armour compared to the OpFor at this stage in the game - has a 50+ alpha strike from ML x7 and fast recycle, good heat management, and a massive fist punch.

---

------

Jack of all trades - master of none
I am not a fan of the mixed weapons approach. The advantage is situational flexibility and having different weapons to take out different threats. This is ok early game, but I specialise by the mid game.
The disadvantage is too many choices. Do I use the PPC now, or the ML x 3, or the AC 5 or AC 10 against which targets? I like to keep it simple and focus on piloting and identifying the biggest or primary threat and navigating the objectives. Lasers are simple, they are either long or medium range and you just have to keep them on target for the burst duration.

High damage per hit - but have a slow recycle rate
I am not a fan of multiple ballistics in my Mech and only put them in the AI.

This is why.
AC 2 - I find AC 2 really hard to aim and use. Too hard to stay on target long enough to do enough damage, leaving you exposed to return fire for too long. Can be great in an AI Mech because of the AI ability to maintain target lock on and the really fast fire rate.
AC 5 or 10 - Can be good early with ML as backup.
AC 20 - Good if you hit - bad if you miss - short range - too slow refire - I don't use them
Rifles - Heavy might be worth it - all the guides say small and medium are meh.
LBX - up to personal choice - good once you get some high tier ones.
Gauss SB or Single shot - Single shot needs no explanation
I mounted an SB fairly early and used it to cluster shot pesky things like tanks and light Mechs, even VTOLs and Igors at range.

Right from day one, do not equip any SL, MG or SRM in any AI Mech in your lance - they confuse the AI and stop it using the better weapons they have. Remove them if you have to - this is mostly true for the whole game.

The early game is a bit of a grind in low value Mechs. You may be running a Jenner, or Javelin or Firestarter with you in the Centurion. Keep the AI Mechs simple and give them ML x4 and max armour.
The best early game AI Mech is the Goblin Phoenix Hawk. It may be tempting to use it yourself, but I always let Goblin pilot it as an AI Mech and stayed with the Centurion.

The next Mechs I chase are Blackjack and another Centurion because they are common. I aim for a lance of Centurion x2, Goblin and a Blackjack. The blackjack is a specialist AC2 or PPC Mech. Centurions are general purpose. See the examples below.

Blackjacks:
Centurions:


By now, your personal Mech might be a Hunchback-4P, the Wolverine Mk2, Blackjack-1X, Hero Trebuchet or anything else with good short to mid range hitting power. I use a customised Charger-1A.

At this stage I start chasing a Rileman-3N and a Jagermech-6s for the AI and specialising these two AI Mechs for ballistics and PPCs. The AI does one thing well, so group PPCs or ACs together in one Mech and use ML for the other weapons.

The third AI Mech to chase should be a mutli-role Mech. The Marauder or Orion make good choices for this role at this stage of the game. A mix of LRM, AC or PPC is good.

Rifleman and Jagermech:

Orion and Marauder:

Buying or salvaging gear is a always a trade off between price and function, and rarity. Do I need it now or can I wait? What benefit will it give my Mech? Can I afford it? Will I ever see it again? Can I afford NOT to buy (at any price)? These are the choices we face after every mission or trip to the shop.

This section helps you understand much of the gear available and make choices about what to buy and when.

Heat sinks can also go into Engine Heat Sink slots - a double heat sink can be put into one engine slot instead of using 3 crit slots - saving 2 crit slots!
Heat banks do not give additional cooling - they only increase the heat cap at which a Mech will shut down - the Mech will still need to dissipate this extra stored heat
Thermal transfer duct increases overall cooling by 2.5.% - one in each leg gives 5%
Upper exothermic housing, Cooling jacket, Cooling lines - these all give a heat bonus that applies to the weapons mounted at a specific location.

This table summarises the heat gear I have seen so far. Items in italics are a recommended 'always buy'.

Install into Engine Type in the centre torso. Each engine reduces engine weight by a fixed percentage, but take up fixed slots in the left and right torso. For earlier light engine types, a Mech is destroyed if a single torso is destroyed. Keep an eye out for engines that need BOTH torsos destroyed before you die. Always buy these and retrofit Mechs to remove the older (more vulnerable) types. QS engines appear fairly late and are cheaper to buy in stores. This is the most effective weight reduction for a Mech - heavy and assaults get 8 to 13 tons for an XL engine.

This table summarises the gear I have seen so far. All of these are really useful and are a must buy until you have plenty in stock.


Endosteel Structure - reduces structure weight of Mech by 50% and takes up slots on the Mech.
Structure (QS) - small weight reduction (0.25 to 1 ton)
Ferro Armour - saves weight, adds more armour per location and takes up slots.
Modular armour - adds a fixed amount of additional armour to a location for a fixed weight cost. Only applies to front armour. Also comes in a 'rear armour' version.
Modular Ferro armour - adds extra armour capacity at a location. You then need the weight available to allocate any more armour to that location.
Hardened Armour - adds double armour at every location for double the weight - manually remove armour to get down to the correct Mech weight

This table summarises the gear I have seen so far. All of these are really useful and are a must buy until you have plenty in stock.


Why? - It fixes the "I keep getting my arms blown off and losing my fav Lostech weapon" problem. It also fixes the "my Mech died when my XL engine got torso hit" problem. For me, I always buy every single piece I see. You run out so buy it all the time.

Here is the breakdown - most Medium and Heavy Mechs have about 30 to 45 armour points in the arm. For the cost of 1 ton you can add a MKII module (0.5 ton) to each arm and add 16 points per arm. That is 30% to 50% more armour in each arm! I put it in the arms and torsos of every Mech I build. In an assault Mech I put 4 x MKIII or IV for 85 to 100 armour points in each arm and torso.

WIP - watch this space

Things that make your weapons perform better

WIP - watch this space

Things that make your Mech handle better or faster.

WIP - watch this space

Things that increase sensor range or targeting.

WIP - watch this space

Who to buy to get the best pilots long term.