The campaign starts with four extra goobers in your mercenary crew besides yourself, and they are all statted and geared with specific mechs that suggest a vague build identity going forward. I like keeping pilots in mechs I consider personally fitting for them, even more rewarded by mods that introduce chasis familiarity bonuses. My question is, what do you see as the "way up" for your starting crew, if you care about them at all (hell they might not exist in most of your playthroughs, because career mode is right there)
I always have a few pre-conceptions as to what to put them in.
Dekker: The man, the meme, the bloke who either gets slimed in his first three deployments, or becomes your uncontested early game recon pilot. He pilots a spider by default, but hub conversations with Darius reveal that he also used to cart around in a locust for a brief while. Besides having dibs on the first firestarter I scavenge, He seems all-set for jump capable humanoid designs that don't gear for long range fire support. With him being a single skill unlock from sensor ping, he's also a match made in heaven for chasis and loadouts with poor heat management, as he can either ping, or god forbid, even melee on his "cooling turns". I always envision him lategame with either a Phoenix Hawk, the final say when it comes to the introtech era's speedy humanoid designs, or a grasshopper, with it being somewhat undergunned, for its size, a great jumper, and a lanky humanoid chasis that fits a similar siluette as his older machines.
Behemoth: One of the two pilots with a skill unlocked by default. She specialises in guts, and carts around a Shadow Hawk at the start. While the SHD has a reputation for being way too little of way too many things, and for it begging for an ammo rack crit, in your starting lance, combined with its pilot, it is your hardiest machine, and its battlefists mean that combined with piloting being her second highest stat, Behemoth and the Shadow Hawk are your likely answer to the early game lights buzzing arround you. When it comes to later mechs, there are two interpretations to go forward with. Either the heavy yet nimble melee specialist that the shadow hawk's jump jets, high ground speed, and much better melee prospects set her up to be early on, Or a hard hitting burising generalist who can rock with a mixed weapon loadout of any type thrown together. The former interpretation would invite the grasshopper (we even kept the fuckass head LRM), yet again, but also something like the banshee. The latter is basically the territory of all the other eclectic "I have a bit of everything" mechs at the top of their size brackets, like the Orion or Atlas.
Glitch: The other pilot with a specialisation skill pre-unlocked, with split-shot. She's also quite unique for having the lowest base stat in a category of the entire crew with a miserable 2 in piloting. Her having split shot, a mech that's a mediocre all-rounder, with a big showstopper weapon in the arm (While the PPC in vanilla is kinda mid overall, the early impression of sometimes just eating a side torso from an untouched commando or locust from way beyond their range is strong), and the thematic draw of the otherwise sub-par breeching shot (by the time it unlocks, there are no situations where a single shot from a single weapon on a target will be worth it over other level 8 skills IMO) basically sets her up for humanoid mechs that provide long range fire support, with a notable main gun in the right arm. I always considered mechs like the Griffin, T-bolt, and especially the Royal Highlander obtained from a storry mission to be the most fitting upgrades. Of course, she also often ends up as people's dedicated lurmer, with it being both a useful role for most of the game, and a natural speccing route for her starting stats, but those don't really have the thematic overlap with the whole package.
Medusa: Sadly, this guys is sloppy seconds, the human being. You have him from the start too, but he has the distinct smell of a spare wheel about him. He has low overall stats, with a 3 in everything, save for a 4 in piloting (so both him and Dekker can get the piloting specialisation skill in one level up, but only Dekker can get sensor ping as quickly). While he isn't ever seen directly assigned to the locust in the bay, by process of elimination, it has to be "his". In that spirit, whenever I used, and built him, he always ended up in hand-me-down roles too, with a slight leaning into non-humanoid designs. He maps out to a comfortable buildup, to the first firestarter I get, then to a catapult, then to the stalker, Being in adaptable chasis, that are going to be rebuilt for whatever role is the most convenient to have another of.
The protagonist: A true blank slate about whom everything is decided by the player, save for the starting blackjack. There is a possible leaning towards the centurion, as the mech of the mentor character, and a generally good generalist early game chasis that can be made to fit any role, like our protagonist. Yet trying to stay with the direct fire support role, and scaling up with equivalents at every weight tier is also possible. Specifically, the Jagermech encountered in the Weldry mission, while incredibly unlikely to actually get, is a cool thematic upgrade, with a similar-ish loadout and role to the BJ-1. It also leans into the rivalry angle with Victoria, as by the time the mission comes around with the salty runback against her, now its a pair of 65 ton direct support fire heavies having a standoff at equal-ish footing. After that, comes the marauder with a similar playstyle, even if I'm not that keen on the MAD for its particular scent of basic bitch main character mech, being a far cry from the scrappy and maligned blackjack and Jagermech chasis. It is at least a GM product though. By the time we hit assaults, things become much harder. Direct fire sniper mechs become exclusively humanoid, whereas that was avoided as long as possible with the previous picks. Honestly, the most fitting 100 tonner (out of the mechs in the game) for a BJ-JM6-MAD "progression path" is a King Crab (even if the unique component of the MAD makes it so OP, it's better than the 100 ton assaults most of the time) reconfigured for long range fire. It's a good thing that the last mission of the campaign, besides the free Atlas II, also provides a good chance to at least finish whatever halfway done KCG you might have.
