longer.blue

Here's how to make the best pilots using MW5: Mercs' new Pilot Traits and Academies system added in the Shadow of Kerensky DLC. The most common perks provide bonuses for specific weapons or 'Mechs, like Atlas Affinity or SRM-2 Specialist. These are helpful, but unless they fit the specific Mech they're piloting, they're not particularly practical. Of greater utility are the class traits, such as Assault 'Mech Affinity or Autocannon Specialist/Master. These will help across an entire range of 'Mechs and weapon systems, allowing you to slot these pilots into various 'Mechs you acquire throughout the game. There are also rare traits like Speed Demon, Hot Dog, and Bulwark that are always useful regardless of the 'Mech they're piloting. Sadly, these class traits are much rarer than the specific traits. Also, one can commonly find faction-specific traits, such as Hates House Davion or Liao Noble. However, these traits aren't acquired by sending pilots to Academies--they're random, and also not always useful. Because there is truly a VAST array of possible traits, sending your pilots to an Academy in the hopes of acquiring a particular trait is highly unlikely, with four notable exceptions: the Nagelring, NAIS, Sun Zhang, and Princefield Academies. Taking the graduate degree program at these academies always provides their respective graduate trait, which provides a host of incredibly beneficial buffs that often combine multiple other traits. With all this in mind, the best way to build your pilot is to first search out a pilot that has a particularly desirable trait already; either one of the class affinities like Heavy/Assault 'Mechs, Laser Specialist, or one of the other blanket buffs such as Speed Demon or Hot Dog. Second, get that pilot to level 50+ so they can be sent off to graduate school. To see what each graduate program does, check out this extremely helpful spreadsheet produced by Reddit user KGeddon! Kudos to you! https://www.reddit.com/r/Mechwarrior5/comments/1ndx7p8/google_sheet_of_pilots_traitseffects/ Once they get back from school, they'll have acquired their graduate degree trait, as well as one or two other traits. This leaves enough room to go to a different Academy for another degree. Pick your second favorite Academy for another graduate degree, turning your pilot into a polymath. This will provide your pilot with the six maximum traits, two of which will have massive bonuses alongside at least one particular trait you really wanted. You could also get lucky and get another highly desirable trait, but odds are you'll just wind up with UrbanMech and LRM-5 affinity, so don't count on it. Downsides to this method: it's HELLA expensive and time-consuming. You'll want to either have millions of C-Bills to fly around the Inner Sphere waiting for your pilots to get back from school, or start a brand-new campaign so that you can afford to have your best pilots go off to earn a degree while you're still paying the bills through combat. Of note, there's currently a bug that seems to allow pilots to acquire more than six traits. It's not currently known whether the traits beyond the sixth are active in-mission. PGI is aware of this bug and will eventually fix it, so don't bother stacking 20+ traits on a single pilot. There are also Hero Pilots available. These guys often have at least one of the rare traits, although some have two or even three of them. However, they have high salaries and can typically only go to one graduate school before maxing out their traits. Overall, I think this system is great, but I'd like to see more academies provide specific bonuses. For example, Davions love their autocannons, so going to one of the non-NAIS schools could have a greater or even guaranteed chance of providing the Autocannon Specialist trait. This would temper the complete crapshoot the Academies are in terms of traits. Currently, it's almost undesirable to send your pilots to school because they're just too likely to get a completely random trait that uses up a precious trait slot without providing a useful bonus (excepting the four big Academies, of course). Thus concludes my lecture on the new pilot traits. Thank you for coming to my 'Mech Talk.