Pilots

Hiring Pilots

After you purchased your units you will need to man your machines. Vehicles and BA come equipped with pilots, but Battlemechs don’t. To purchase pilots click on the Campaign tab, select Personnel, then Pilots and then Hire Pilots. For every weight class you can buy a maximum of 5 pilots in one go, so you will have to repeat the process until you bought enough pilots for all your mechs.

Make sure that you buy exactly as many pilots as mechs! Then you buy exactly 5 more of each weight class. The rationale behind this is that your pilots will gain experience in battle and develop new skills. While this is in general positive it also has its downside. Leveled pilots like 4/4, 3/4, etc. raise the BV of the unit they are assigned to by roughly 20-25% for each point their skill is below 4/5, so 25% for a 4/4 pilot and up to 50% for a 3/4 pilot. On special occasions this makes sense, but in general you should stick to the regular 4/5 pilots. The reason is simple, if you equip your mechs with leveled pilots you will pay a higher BV for them, resulting in less units per army, which in turn will get you outnumbered (As usually happens to Clan or WoB Shadow Division players). So think twice whether you want to keep or use a leveled pilot.

By keeping a supply of regular pilots you reserve yourself the choice of swapping those ‘overprized/overbv’ed’ pilots and keep your army BV competitive.

Pilot Assignment

The most effective pilots in regard to cost/efficiency are the regular 4/5 pilots. When you hire Pilots these will be the standard pilots. You should always strive to get the 5 extra pilots per weight class to maintain a good pilot pool. Only if a mech would benefit from improved PSR rolls (like a fast spotter or backstabber that needs to stay upright, or TSM mech) should you consider using 4/4 pilots.

Make sure that you use all pilots with extra skills that are still 4/5 to raise the average skill level of your pilot pool and to prepare for the eventuality of your pilots leveling. If you have to use 4/4 or 3/4 pilots for whatever reason, it would be beneficial if they had acquired other skills also. Especially valuable are the Maneuvering Ace (MA) and Melee Specialist (MS) skills.

Pilots that have improved gunnery like 3/4 or the rare 3/5 makes good sense in machines that have strong long distance weaponry. Albeit beware into which mech you put it. Some mechs are already quite expensive and when adding a veteran pilot the cost might be excessive. Look for mechs that have long range power, but are cheap to get the best cost-effect ratio. E.g. don´t put your 3/4 pilot in a Cestus-3S (1910 BV), but rather in a Archer or Maelstrom (around 1650 BV) which have comparable range firepower (better range brackets than a HPPC) and/or speed.

One of the few other reasons to use 4/4 pilots is to utilize their edge skill that comes automatic with the rise in skill level. You can use edge to protect mechs that are important to your battle plan or coincide the edge with the desired improved piloting skill for mechs that carry a Heavy Gauss Rifle (HGR), or will engage in physical combat (TSM). The edge skill will give you one reroll for KO rolls, HD hits or critical hits and improve the survivability of the unit.

Exceptional Pilots

Some pilots have additional skills like “Melee Specialist” or “Maneuvering Ace” that predestine them to pilot a fast and/or close combat mech; the typical example being a TSM mech like the Nightsky-6T. If the purpose of a mech is to close for physical combat, it makes sense to put a 4/4 pilot into it, to ensure that he actually hits his target and stays upright (passing PSRs) to sustain its mobility and survivability. The raised BV cost is well worth the investment.