pilots, ranks, skills, and medals
pilots
there are 26 pilots in total, with one (rooster) returning from the original mechcommander.
| pilot |
|
joins in mission |
starting rank |
starting skills |
 |
meat |
start |
regular |
medium autocannons |
 |
twitch |
start |
regular |
lasers |
 |
palerider |
start |
regular |
sensors |
 |
hacksaw |
start |
regular |
toughness |
 |
worm |
start |
regular |
sensors |
 |
flash |
start |
green |
none |
 |
longshot |
start |
green |
none |
 |
shadow |
start |
green |
none |
 |
dagger |
start |
green |
none |
 |
cobra |
start |
green |
none |
 |
hammer |
start |
green |
none |
 |
creep |
start |
green |
none |
 |
chopper |
start |
green |
none |
 |
psycho |
start |
green |
none |
 |
jinx |
start |
green |
none |
 |
steel |
5 - night ops: liao raid |
regular |
toughness |
 |
claymore |
8 - combat rescue: claymore |
regular |
toughness |
 |
nuke |
13 - remote assault: eclipsed |
regular |
SRMs |
 |
payback |
13 - remote assault: eclipsed |
regular |
light autocannons |
 |
wicked |
18 - defensive counter: bannikburg |
veteran |
lasers, LRMs |
 |
venom |
18 - defensive counter: bannikburg |
veteran |
ER lasers, scouting |
 |
bubba |
18 - defensive counter: bannikburg |
veteran |
medium autocannons, medium mechs |
 |
scooter |
18 - defensive counter: bannikburg |
veteran |
sensors, jump jets |
 |
ghost |
20 - combat recovery: dropship |
elite |
sensors, jump jets, long range |
 |
rooster |
20 - combat recovery: dropship |
elite |
toughness, LRMs, PPCs |
 |
mother |
20 - combat recovery: dropship |
elite |
lasers, medium mechs, heavy autocannons |
my favourite pilots are twitch, flash, longshot, meat, steel, claymore, and shadow, and some other ones i like are dagger, jinx, palerider, payback, and nuke. your pilots can win medals during missions, as well as get specialty skills when they get promoted to a higher rank.
overall, i enjoy the personalities and lines of the pilots, and especially my favourite pilots (although i would prefer that one of them wasn't called the P-slur). i really enjoyed that mechcommander 1 had short (like 1 or 2 sentences) pilot descriptions as well as their stats, but MC2 doesn't have this so you don't really know anything about the pilots, however some have a bit of backstory:
- steel: a civilian spy who was sent into liao territory by colonel renard. he was a mechwarrior about 20 years before the game's timeframe. according to his in-game lines, he is hoping to retire soon.
- claymore: the sole survivor of steiner's task force sig-9, which had been en-route to destroy a bandit airfield.
- nuke and payback: captured clan bondsmen working for davion, who become your bondsmen after you defeat them on carver V's moon. from their lines, they both imply/say that they are both trueborns.
- wicked, venom, and bubba: veterans who join the mercenaries after the liberation of bannikburg from steiner and liao.
- rooster: he served in the first davion guards on port arthur and cermak against clan smoke jaguar in 3059, during the events of mechcommander 1 and its expansion. according to his MC1 pilot profile, he was "born and raised on a backwater world of the lyran commonwealth. rooster can steer a mech through the toughest terrain." he ended up with the mercenaries after the dropship he was in was shot down by house liao.
- ghost and mother: davion pilots who were in the same dropship as rooster when it got gunned down.
ranks
there are 5 ranks a pilot can be: green, regular, veteran, elite, or ace. these are determined by their rating in these two skills:
 |
piloting |
 |
gunnery |
each pilot can have a rating of up to 80 for each.
| rank |
|
rating |
 |
green |
40s |
 |
regular |
50s |
 |
veteran |
60s |
 |
elite |
70s |
 |
ace |
80 |
although these ratings aren't exact, and your pilot will probably have a higher rating in one skill than the other (for example, i currently have longshot who is veteran, even though her gunnery is ace and her piloting is regular).
specialty skills
regular skills
 |
light mech specialist |
ability to avoid and evade a great amount of enemy weapons fire when piloting a light mech |
 |
laser specialist |
ability to fire the laser, large laser, heavy laser, and heavy large laser with high acuracy |
|
light autocannon specialist |
ability to fire all light autocannons with high acuracy |
|
medium autocannon specialist |
ability to fire all medium autocannons with high acuracy |
|
SRM specialist |
ability to fire all short range missiles with high acuracy |
|
small arms specialist |
ability to fire all machine guns and flamers with high acuracy |
 |
sensor specialist |
ability to discern additonal information from sensor readouts. level of information increases with pilot's rank |
|
toughness specialist |
ability to withstand personal injury that would typically kill a normal pilot |
veteran skills
|
medium mech specialist |
ability to avoid and evade a great amount of enemy weapons fire when piloting a medium mech |
|
pulse laser specialist |
ability to fire pulser lasers and large pulse lasers with high acuracy |
|
ER laser specialist |
ability to fire ER lasers and ER large lasers with high acuracy |
|
LRM specialist |
ability to fire all long range missiles with high acuracy |
|
scouting specialist |
ability to spot enemies beyong normal line of sight |
|
jump jet specialist |
ability to control jump jets, enabling longer jump distances |
elite skills
|
heavy mech specialist |
ability to avoid and evade a great amount of enemy weapons fire when piloting a heavy mech |
|
PPC specialist |
ability to fire all particle projection cannons with high acuracy |
|
heavy autocannon specialist |
ability to fire all heavy autocannons with high acuracy |
 |
short range specialist |
ability to accurately target enemies within short range. any target within 60 meters is easier to hit |
|
medium range specialist |
ability to accurately target enemies at medium range. any target within 30 - 120 meters is easier to hit |
|
long range specialist |
ability to accurately target enemies at long range. any target further than 60 meters is easier to hit |
ace skills
|
assault mech specialist |
ability to avoid and evade a great amount of enemy weapons fire when piloting an assault mech |
|
gauss specialist |
ability to fire all gauss rifles and light gauss rifles with high accuracy |
|
sharpshooter specialist |
ability to target specific body parts on enemy mechs with higher accuracy than normal |
personally i preferred it in mechcommander 1, when jumping and sensors were stats you could advance like gunnery and piloting, instead of how they've made them into special skills here. i suppose the sensors in mechcommander 2 are more advanced then in MC1, since the sensors in MC1 just old you if there was an enemy who had sensors or not (which usually was a mech, but also the occasional swiftwind scout vehicle). the sensors would also register burning trees, buildings, etc as enemies too. in MC1 all the mechs had sensors (some of which were more advanced than others), but only a few mechs have them in MC2 (the uller, anubis, razorback, raven, sha yu, men shen, and cyclops). in MC2 pilots without the sensor skill can still use a mech with sensors, but if they have the skill they can also detect if the enemy is a mech or vehicle (at regular), what weight class it is (veteran), and what specific type of mech/vehicle it is (elite).
personally i like to try and give pilots specialties that match their names where i can. for example, i usually make shadow my sensors person since her name sounds stealthy. i usually give her sensors, scouting, and then medium mech since she usually ends up in the men shen for most of the game. if she reaches ace, then i usually give her toughness (even though it's a regular skill) since the men shen is fairly lightly armed compared to the other mechs i usually use, so this skill helps her to get less injured and to stay alive.longshot i usually give light autocanons (or toughness, but light ACs are a long range weapon so it fits better), LRMs, and longe range. and dagger has SRMs, small arms, and short range.
my other tactic for picking pilot specialties is to pick specialties that work with a specific mech modification. in my recent playthrough, i modified a starslayer for twitch to have just lasers/heavy lasers (since he starts as a laser specialist), then later i made him a jump jet specialist (since the starslayer has jump jets) to use his ability to jump extra further to help capture bases. then i gave him the PPC skill, since i had captured the lao hu (also jump capable), and outfitted it with lasers and clan ER PPCs. when he got to ace i gave him the sharpshooter skill, which has allowed me to salvage many mechs, since the skill allows him to target a mech's head so the mech's body takes less damage and is less likely to blow up. meat has medium autocannons, jump jets, and heavy mechs, and he's currently piloting the thor, which is jump capable and has been modified with a clan ultra medium autocannon, instead of the heavy one it came with.
medals
campaign 1
 |
campaign 1 ribbon |
for participation in campaign 1 |
 |
campaign 1 honour ribbon |
for participation in all missions in campaign 1 |
 |
steiner alliance star |
for uncommon bravery and honour (only pilots who go on the mission "breach: bandit headquarters" will get this) |
campaign 2
 |
campaign 2 ribbon |
for participation in campaign 2 |
 |
campaign 2 honour ribbon |
for participation in all missions in campaign 2 |
 |
liao sunburst of gallantry |
for heroism under fire (only pilots who go on the mission "remote assault: eclipsed" will get this) |
campaign 3
 |
campaign 3 ribbon |
for participation in campaign 3 |
 |
davion sunburst medal |
for exceptional duty, devotion, and sacrifice (only pilots who go on the mission "baxter's gambit" will get this) |
there is no medal for participation in all missions in campaign 3, since the game cuts immediately to the ending cutscene, rather than the usual medal awards screen.
other
 |
valour |
for killing 3 or more mechs during a mission |
 |
uncommon valour |
for killing 7 or more mechs during a mission |
 |
purple heart |
for being wounded in battle |