Battletech combat has mechanics that are unique to battletech and others that have similarities to other games. Some key combat mechanics this section will cover is heat, individual lifepools, terrain and accuracy modifiers. So, let's get to it.


We'll start off with the simpler mechanic. Heat is analogous to Mana systems in other games. Jumpjets and weapons like spells. To use these, you generate heat (Or consume mana in comparison to many other games). Half the heat management is done in the MechLab and the other half on the battlefield, let's delve into the battlefield aspect.

The following are pointers you need to note when firing your weapons, we'll talk about each pointer later.

• Chance to hit with weapon
  
• Damage per Heat (dph). Derived from dividing damage by heat generated. A basis of how heat efficient a weapon is
  
• How much overkill will be dealt
  
• The resulting heat level after the salvo is fired

1. Avoid firing weapons that have a low chance to hit unless you desperately need to kill a specific enemy then and there or not firing those low chance to hit weapons would result in your mech being totally 0 heat. By virtue, if you're shooting, make sure your mech is never at 0 heat as it implies some of your heatsinks are not doing any work which means wasted tonnage for that turn.
2. Dph is a ratio of damage dealt for heat generated. It's a rough quantification of how heat efficient a weapon is, but do not rely on this ratio entirely. There are other factors you need to consider such as stability damage, damage spread and debuffs applied (PPC only).
3. Damage dealt is gated by your heat dissipation. Damage is a resource and overkill is wasted resources. When considering how many weapons to fire, avoid overkill damage but also consider the fact that damage spreads across different parts of your target. A cored mech (A mech with 0 armour left on its CT) may not die because the weapons you fired hit other components. So inevitably you would fire more weapons than the remaining health on the CT to account for this.
4. Play with the weapon list on the bottom right. The heat bar on the bottom left will show you how much heat you will be at after you fire the weapons you selected. Avoid it going down to totally 0, and don't overheat.


This is unique mechanics to BattleTech. Every battlemech has 8 separate lifepools for 8 parts of the mech. Vehicles have 4 or 5. Note that the paper doll showing the front is facing you and the back is looking away from you, this means that the arm on your left is the right arm of the mech, however the rear side torso (RST) on your left is indeed the rear left torso (RLT).

Mechs can be destroyed in 3 ways either both legs are destroyed, the centre torso (CT) is destroyed or the head is destroyed. A mech also is removed from the game if the pilot dies, but that is a discussion for another section. damage dealt to an already damaged part transfers to its neighbour towards the CT. the right arm (RA) will transfer damage to the right torso (RT) and the RT will transfer damage to the CT. Legs transfer damage to its respective ST. Damage transfer is at 100%, dealing 10 damage to a destroyed ST will deal 10 damage to the CT. Damage transfer follows the same rules as weapon damage in that it damages the armour first before the structure.

Direction of Attack
The direction of which the attacker is relative to the direction the target is facing greatly influence which parts of the target will be hit and the probability. Attack from the right side will means that the left side will not get hit, only the right.

The game determines the chance to hit by the formula: BaseAcc + GunnerySkill*0.025 + AccModifierScore*0.05.

This modifier score is determined by many things, You can check the modifiers by placing your mouse over the weapons list on the bottom right with a target selected. The following is a non-comprehensive list of common modifiers.

• Elevation (+1 for shooting target lower, -1 for higher)
  
• Arm-mounted (+1 for weapons mounted on the arm)
  
• Evasion (-1 for each charge the target has)
  
• Indirect fire (-3 when no Line-of-Sight (LoS) is available)
  
• Sensors disrupted (-1 When attacker has been previously hit by a PPC)
  
• Targeting Enhanced (+X When a compatible TTS is mounted on the attacker.) (NOTE: I am unsure of the name of this modifier.)
  
• Long Range

Now that we understand the combat mechanics let's put it to use. Please note that this guide does not cover the details of individual terrain and you should use them as you see fit, you can see the effects of terrain by scrolling over it with the move command on.

There is one thing we must not do in combat and one that we must do. First, we must not die. Second, we must kill the enemy. So we'll first talk about how to not die.

There are 2 strategies to not die, one is to use evasion, the second is to use bulwark. We will talk about each strategy first.


The evasion strategy makes use of the evasion charge mechanic to reduce the accuracy of incoming attacks. Evasion charges are the arrows pointing right beside the mech model and health bar. They are generated by moving. The farther you move in one turn, the more charges are generated. There is a maximum number of charges which can be increased through the pilot skill. Charges are set to 0 on activation. Being attacked removes 1 charge from the target regardless if a miss or hit is made. Sensor lock removes 2 charges.

Evasion related skills are in the piloting tree.

Long story short, the evasion strategy just means you are always moving during combat, and moving as far as possible each turn.

Jump Jets
Jump Jets (JJs) uses the movement action to jump to another location. It generates heat proportional to the distance jumped. A mech can jump up or down elevation. A mech may turn to face any direction after jumping.

JJs are ridiculously important for this strategy. Although you probably shouldn't jumpjet every turn due to heat generation. Use JJs to generate charges while in terrain that slows you down, such as forests and water. Remember, the less you move, the less evasion charges you will generate and the more likely you will die (the thing you must absolutely not do), so you need to jump around if you intend to use special terrain that slows you down.

Note that jumping around in the forest is pretty good defence but can lead to a lot of heat. Jumping around in water generates heat that is mitigated by the cooling effects of water. Evasion mechs don't benefit as much from water as bulwark mechs simply because evasion mechs need to use heat to keep up evasion charges when in water which negates the benefit of being in water.

Weaknesses
This strategy relies on JJs to survive on difficult terrain, this means while on difficult terrain, your mech will generate heat just to survive (and not killing your enemy, that other thing you must do). Evasion charges can quickly be removed by sensor locks. Sensor locks are not too much of a problem most of the time but some turrets have sensor locks and will use it if it has no target to shoot at. Of course, some enemy mechs have pilots with sensor lock. Going unsteady also removes all evasion charges, which can be a death sentence to an evasion mech.


Bulwark is the first skill in the Guts tree. This skill is required for this strategy. If the mech did not move, it will gain the guarded buff reducing incoming damage by 50%. The mech may turn on the spot, it will still gain guarded. The mech does not gain entrenched which reduces incoming stability damage by 50%. Entrenched can only be gain through Bracing or Vigilance.

Guarded increases your effective health by 100%. 1/0.5=2
Being in forest (25% incoming damage reduction) increases your effective health by 33.33%/ 1/0.75=1.3333
Hence, guarded is 3 times more effective than the forest cover buff.

Because you cannot move, using bulwark will generate no evasion charges so you'd get hit a lot, but at 50% damage. Guarded does not stack with the cover buff given by forests which makes being on forest less rewarding. You may choose to walk into a forest hex and fire to benefit from the cover buff for one turn.

Long story short, move only when you really have to. Also, move all your mechs at the same time into a better position if you decide to move. The enemy is likely to prioritise attacking a target without guarded so having one mech move may draw all the fire making your other mechs guarded buff useless. You may use this if you need to redirect incoming fire but you will take heavy damage.

Weaknesses
Beacause you don't move, range will be an issue. This limits the mech builds you can use on Bulwark mechs. Bulwark mechs are going to require some sort of weapon it can fire at longer range, such as large lasers (LLs), particle projector cannons (PPCs) or long-ranged missiles (LRMs).

When you do decide to move a mech, that mech will be vulnerable to fire. To compensate, a good strategy is to fire all your weapons and getting as close to overheating as possible one turn before moving. Then on the turn you move, you brace instead of firing, allowing your mech to cool down and still be protected from moving.

Standing still and getting hit means you get hit more (duh), this inculdes your head and because of how pilot damage works in BATTLETECH, the bulwark strategy will receive more pilot injury than the evasion strategy.

The evasion strategy is inherently better for fast light battlemechs whil the bulwark strategy for slower assault mechs. In that, your intuition is correct. Assault mechs don't move fast and therefore don't generate many evasion stacks and also have an accuracy modifier when being attack of +X Target Size, so trying to evade attacks in a large and slow mechs is not effective. Larger mechs have a lot of armour and since guarded doubles your armour into effective armour, the guarded buff is more potent on high armour mechs. Small mechs have a -X Target Size modifier when attacked and move faster but have little armour, so the reverse is true.

The rest is up to you to decide which strategy you want to employ.


Start the engagement facing your front towards the enemy. This spreads their fire across your entire mech except the rear armour. After taking enough hits, face the healthier side of your mech towards the enemy, try to keep at least 1 enemy in your firing arc so you have something to shoot at, but if you're desperate, just brace with that side facing the enemy.

Be aware of where your equipment and weapons are located on your mech, If you're using an AC20, it is prudent to make sure the side of which your AC20 is placed doesn't blow up first.

There isn't much to say about this. Remember, staying alive is more important than killing the enemy, if your mech is unsteady or has high stability damage, just brace. If your mech gets knocked down, the AI WILL focus individual components of your mech and with neither guarded nor evasion charges, you will get severely damage. Don't get greedy for damage, brace if you have to.

Ejecting destroys the head of the mech and whisks the pilot away to safety. Repairing a head of a damaged mech is cheap and fast. An ejected mech is treated as destroyed mech will no longer take damage for the rest of the game. Ejecting is done by pressing the bright red button at the bottom left of the screen.

Ejecting is VERY useful. If you have a mech in a bad position and is doomed to die very soon, eject. The pilot will survive and preventing further damage to the mech will save repair time and money. A head will cost at most 30k C-Bills to repair and a couple of days, a CT and whatever STs may get destroyed will cost hundreds of thousands to repair and weeks of repair time. Not to mention you lose any equipment and weapons on destroyed components.

Withdrawing is done by pressing the button on the top right of the screen. Withdrawing ends the mission and the payment for the contract will be docked inversely proportional to the amount of objective you've completed. Completing an objective halfway is still paid, just less. Withdraw if you have to.

So now that we know how to not die, let's get on how to make other people die. If you've understood the previous section of how to not die, most of that is true for how to make the enemy die, just the opposite.

Here are some general tips for attacking:

• Kill vehicles, they tend to be glass cannons, high firepower but low survivability.
  
• Consider how much firepower it will take to kill each target vs how much firepower.
  
• Be mindful of buffs the enemy may have. Such as evasion, guarded or cover.
  
• Be aware of which direction you're attacking from and which parts you will hit.
  
• Focus your fire on one target.

There are several vehicles of which most have ridiculous amount of firepower. They should be the first thing you kill when given the chance. Destroy Demolishers first, then SRM and LRM carriers, then Schreks then Manticores.

Vehicles actually have decent armour all around but the destruction of any part will result in death. To this extent, spamming small weapons like medium lasers and volley weapons like missiles are ineffective against vehicles. To kill a vehicle quickly, use weapons such as AC10/20, PPC, LL, or Gauss Rifle.

Melee deals double damage to vehicles and hits one part very hard, it is the perfect tool to destroy vehicles, but it may be challenging to melee a demolisher or SRM carrier considering that it will be surrounded with other enemies and also have very powerful close-ranged weapons.


It may take a while to slowiy click on all the enemies to check their armaments but overtime, you'll more or less know which mech model has what. You need to weigh how long it'll take to kill a target against how much firepower that target has. That's why you usually target vehicles first.

In my experience, the targeting priority list are usually vehicles, Turrets, Assaults, Heavies, Mediums then lights, in that order. There are exceptions however, Banshees and Griffins tend to be lightly armed so they drop down to nearly the bottom. Jaegars and Quickdraws tend to be higher on the list.

Once you've decided on what to shoot, focus fire on that target.


It isn't much use focusing fire on a target from every direction, in fact, it's a mistake. Try to focus fire from a single direction, normally the front first, since that's the first side you get to shoot at. But When you get the chance, choose a side to focus fire from, either left or right. Inspect the target's paper doll and consider 2 things. The first, which side has scarier weapons, the second, Which side has less health. of course, if you can alpha the rear of a target, just do that.

Volley weapons and weapon spams are more effective when hitting the sides. When attacking the sides, The hit chances are mostly allocated to 1 ST, 1 leg and 1 arm. a small percentage for the head and CT. This means that even though you're firing many weapons, they tend to land in only 3 places, and mostly the ST.


When your morale is above 25, your pilots get a +1 to accuracy. Morale is generated by destroying enemies and parts. Comms equipment passively generates a bit of morale every turn.

Vigilance
This is a free action. You can still attack and move on the turn you use vigilance. Vigilance grants guarded, entrenched, removes all stability damage and increases the mech's initiative by 1 for the next round. Use vigilance when your mech is unstable or when the mech is in a tight spot.

Precision shot
This skill is your best friend. The fastest way to kill a mech is do destroy its CT. Do that. Pilots will gain a buff on called shots (including precision strike) when they have a tactics level of 6 and 9.


Damage output is gated by heat. You cannot deal more damage than you can cool off, except for melee and Death From Above (DFA). But even those have their limitations.

It is important to understand this concept as it means that you DON'T have to fire every turn. You only have to make sure your heat sinks are working every turn. It is okay to alpha, generate a lot of heat with the intention of not firing the next turn and do more defensive actions. This is also important to understand when we talk about the MechLab.


Don't do it. Taking structure damage from heat is not worth it unless you really really really have to. Remember, overheating is NOT extra free damage, it is borrowed damage. Whatever heat you overshot in one turn has to be cooled off eventually and the damage 'repaid' in the cooling turn.

Also, taking structure damage means you need to repair your mech and cannot field it as all armour will be stripped from damaged structures.

Also, please do not shut down. under no circumstance should you ever shut down.

Every Pilot is the same other than voice and portrait. Assigning Exp to skills increases a MechWarrior's monthly salary. The resulting salary from training will be lower than a MechWarrior of equal skill hired the Hiring Hall. Assigning Exp is irreversible. Pilots can die. Your avatar pilot (You) cannot die.

There are 4 different skills with 8 abilities. Each mechwarrior can get 2 abilities from one skill and 1 ability from one other skill. The first skill of guts is required for the Bulwark strategy while both piloting abilities is highly recommended for the evasion strategy. It is very important you decide which pilot does what early on and lock in the first skill of either Guts or Piloting as soon as possible.

Details on individual skills can bee found in Eck's guide URL:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365402907

This guide talks about things not covered in Eck's guide. Note that every point has a baseline bonus and usually have an added benefit tied to it. Eck's guide covers it all.


This skill has 2 abilities Multi target and breaching shot.

Multi-target lets the pilot assign up to 3 targets to fire his weapons at in one activation. This is useful for firing your weapons at targets within appropriate ranges, LRMs at far targets, Med Lasers at closer targets. And to reduce overkill damage, perhaps a turret is almost dead and you only need a few weapons to destroy it. Note that you will not be able to call shots on prone or shut downed mechs when using multi-target.

Breaching Shot bypasses guard and cover buffs when a single weapon is fired at a target. This effect works with Multi-target as long as you only fire one weapon at a target, that target will be 'breached'. This works best with large weapons, LRM20s, AC20 and the like.


This skill influences mobility and melee damage. The abilities are Evasive Movement and Ace Pilot.

Evasive Movement generates extra evasion charges as you move. It is then obvious that this is strongly recommended for the evasion strategy. The farther you move, the more you benefit from this skill.

Ace Pilot allows you to move after firing. This is useful the for evasion strategy as you want to move as far as you can resulting in you being at an angle or range you don't want to shoot at. This skill allows you to shoot first then move. It is essential for some archetypes like Hit-And-Run builds.
Note: Hit-And-Run builds has the mech with high initiative. It reserves its turn to the last phase, run in, fire at someone and on the next round fire again and run away.


Guts is important to get early on as it reduces the chances of your pilot dying from incapicitation and head destruction (although even at 10 guts, a pilot only has 10% chance to survive head destruction) and give pilot Health.

the two skills are Bulwark and Juggernaut. At the present, Juggernaut is near useless and shouldn't be bothered with.

Bulwark grants the guarded buff if the mech has not moved that round. This is essential for the Bulwark strategy, hence the name. Note the mech can still turn on the spot and benefit from Bulwark, it only may not move, sprint or jump. Guarded is 3 times more potent than cover as illustrated above.


Tactics skills are Sensor Lock and Master Tactician. Note that level 6 and level 9 of this skill grants a bonus to called shots and I strongly recommend getting level 6 tactics once you have locked in your first 2 skills of your choice.

Sensor Lock reveals targets out of vision range but within sensor range making them available for long ranged attacks. It also removes 2 evasion charges. Sensor Lock is a handy tool but you can go about the game without using it. Use it to strike targets out of vision or to reduce evasion charges on mechs with high evasion.

Master Tactician allows the mech to move an initiative phase earlier than its class normally allows. This is extremely useful for heavy and assault mechs which then suggest it is a very useful late game skill. I highly encourage training up at least 1 pilot with this skill as you start to encounter mechs approaching 80 tonnes so you can put him in your first assault mech.


You as the player are a MechWarrior as well. An immortal MechWarrior. Your character cannot die and that means you will be around throughout the game. Be careful of what 3 skills you lock into for this character as they are permanent and you don't get another immortal MechWarrior.

I recommend Bulwark, Sensor Lock and Master Tactician as this is a bread and butter build for late game Assault Mech pilots.

This is where half the battle is fought. The MechLab is where repairs and modifications are made to your mechs. Here are some things to note.

• MechTechs only do 1 job at a time, if you send too many jobs at a time, some of your mechs will be down for a while
  
• Removing components is instant and will skip the queue.
  
• The speed of which jobs are done is based on your MechTech points. Get more by upgrading the Argo.
  
• Everything costs money. Replacing destroyed mech parts takes a lot of time and money. Avoid getting parts destroyed. Eject your mech from combat to prevent the destruction of parts.
  
• Stock loadouts are workable but not optimal. Change them slowly to something that suits you.
  
• Max armour in the CT and both ST. 80% armour on the arms and about 90 to 120 armour is good on the legs. You WILL be outnumbered and outgunned and you WILL need as much armour as you can get. You can have 20 to 30 armour in the rear though. Just make sure you remember this weakness during combat.

There are only a few things that differentiate mechs from one another. They are, hardpoints and their locations, podspace, speed, max armour and tonnage. The game does a bad job at informing the player available pod space, hardpoint locations and speed but we do what we can.

Weapons mounted on the arm gain bonus to accuracy and this should be considered when mounting your primary weapon. The hardpoints on the arms are also a method of deciding which build is best for which mech.


The term hardpoint refers to the slot you can put a weapon in. There are 4 types of hardpoints, energy, ballistic, missile and support.

For example, an Atlas II is a 100 tonnage Assault with 2 ballistic hardpoints on its RT. It can mount 2 AC20s as its primary weapons. A KingCrab can also mount 2 AC20s but they are on the arms and therefore get an accuracy bonus. A KingCrab is better at a 2 AC20s build. HOWEVER! Because the hardpoints on the Atlas II are both on the right side of the mech, an Atlas II pilot can use his left side as a shield without much worry, something a KingCrab cannot as he risk losing an AC20. This is an example of how you analyse hardpoint locations on a mech.

You will realise that some mechs have a silly amount of ballistic hardpoints with no way to really use them. This is because in BattleTech(Table Top) support weapons don't exist, they are only 3 types of hardpoints and those slots were meant for machine guns.


The term boat refers to the focus on one weapon type on a loadout. You could boat anything you like, but limited to hardpoints available. If you came here from MechWarrior: Online (MWO) then you should probably be aware of boating. However, the only weapons to logically boat are LRMs, every other weapon can be mixed and match.

The types of mech you want to build is largely based on the defence strategy you want to take. Bulwark mechs need to have a long ranged punch. LRMs, LLs, PPCs, Guass, AC 10/5/2 fit the bill. I personally prefer ballistics and LRMs due to heat but I have had success with LLs. Gauss is so far limited since you can't get more than 1 throughout the game but it's very strong on Bulwark mechs. This is not to say you do not equip medium range weapons on your Bulwark mechs, they are ultimately are large chunk of your damage.

Evasion mechs are not free from MechLab burden though. Evasion mechs must have JJs, and a lot of them and require heat sinks to mitigate the heat made from JJs. But they can use medium and support weapons more easily.

I personally have all mechs fully armoured and jack of all trades but sometimes I field one LRM boat. It makes the lance more flexible I feel.

Here are some mech Archetypes

• LRM Boat: Has slightly less armour and employs a large amount of LRMs for heavy damage, although spread across many parts and stability damage. Great for knocking down mechs and finishing them off with called shots. Reserve till your prey has activated then knock him down and kill.
  
• Hit-and-Run: Light or Medium mech. Evasion mech. Employs JJs, support weapons and medium lasers. Uses fast speed, high initiative, reserving activations and JJs to destroy a mech on phase 1 and attack again and get out on the next round phase 5 or 6. High piloting skill required.
  
• Advancing Bulwark: Has long-ranged weapons but focuses more on medium ranged weapons. This mech alphas every alternate turn generating 2 turns worth of heat cooling while not moving then advances and braces on the next turn. Mech build important to cater for this strategy.
  
• Stationery Bulwark: Focused more on long-ranged weapons but a significant medium range weapons are also used. The enemy comes to you while you shoot them down. Extremely effective if you park this mech in water.

These are just some archetypes, truth is, you can do whatever you feel like doing as long as you understand the underlying mechanics of the game. Remember, decide on a strategy first, then an archetype concept, then play with the MechLab.


Half of heat management is done in the MechLab. Everymech cools 30 heat/turn (h/t). Each heatsink cools 3 h/t. The game doesn't communicate the number but instead shows you a bar. This bar is determined by some formula that involves using all JJs, firing all weapons and your total heatsinking. Unless you use your JJ and fire all weapons every turn, then this bar is inaccurate and should only be used as a guide. The best way to go about things is to count your total heat sinking ability and your weapons heat generation and work from there.

Equipment is one of the main progressions you can make in the game. Some weapons have better stats as marked by '+' after the name and the added stats highlighted in orange. There is also an array of equipment available. Some of the more important ones are heatsinks, Targeting-Tracking Systems (TTS), JJs and Cockpit Mods. Equipment and weapons are perishable in that they are destroyed if critted twice or the part they are mounted is destroyed. They are as much in the way of progress and arguably equally important as levelling your MechWarriors.

It is important to salvage them after battle if you no longer need more mechs, remember, you only can field 4 mechs at a time, you don't need another heavy mech if you already have 10. Salvage a rare weapon or equipment in place of a mech salvage.

TTS is very strong. It allows medium range weapons to fire at long range without much penalty and makes light mechs easier to deal with. Nothing is more satisfying than having an AC20 fire 270m out at 80% accuracy.

Cockpits mods are really important, especially in the early game when you have few medical points and don't have many skilled pilots. If you happen to find one, be sure to pick it up.

Doing contracts is how you begin every combat instance. It is a simple concept but one you must understand well. Every contract has 5 things you should note, max pay, max salvage, biome, mission type and the description.


Biomes differ from one another by terrain and global passive effects. Lunar and Martian biomes reduce the effectiveness of heatsinks, Lunar more so than Martian. While the Arctic biome increases the effectiveness. Different terrain types and elevations are unique to each biome but I will not delve into that.

Just note the passive effects on heat. It isn't a good idea to bring an energy mech to a Lunar biome but is excellent in an Arctic biome.


Just based on the mission type you can anticipate what kind of enemies you will encounter and the tools you will need to win. Destroy Base contracts will usually have turrets, convoy raid will have vehicles and so on. Use this to determine what to bring into combat. Perhaps an LRM heavy mech is not as effective in a convoy raid contract compared to a mech with an AC10 because there are guaranteed vehicles.


Spend 30 seconds reading the description of the contract. It sometimes hints at reinforcements or the existence of a heavy mechs. Use the description to decide on the negotiation process.


Here you play with sliders to balance Payment and salvage rights. Salvage rights is expressed as "PrioritySalvage/RandomSalvage" as written as for example, 2/8. Priority salvage allows the player to choose which salvage he desires. Random salvage is randomly assigned from the remaining salvage parts after priority salvage has been selected.

The trick is that you don't know what is going to be in the salvage pool when you are negotiating. First you must know the function of C-Bills and salvage. Salvage is for the progression of your company's combat ability, better equipment and bigger mechs, C-Bills is for the occasional purchase at the store, paying the monthly bills and upgrading the Argo.

If you understand that, then we now know that amassing millions of C-Bills has little merit since contracts are readily available and you can get C-Bills anytime you want for emergencies. Only have enough C-Bills to pay a couple of months worth of bills plus your next Argo upgrade. Everything else should go into salvage rights.

If you stumble upon an assassinate mission or the description hints to a heavy mech lance, consider going full salvage rights in the negotiation. It is likely to have mechs you want to salvage from.

The Argo is where your company is based. It is a mobile base that has everything you need on it. When a MechWarrior signs on, he never leaves the Argo unless to descend upon your foes with the fury and fire of his battlemech.

The Argo is another way the player progresses through the game. Argo upgrades and mechs are the only 2 permanent progress you can make (Aside from story progression). This is a short section as there isn't much to talk about. Here are some pointers:

• First thing you should upgrade is your MechTech points. You can stop at MechBay 2.
  
• Then Habitat pods
  
• Then your Medical Points.
  
• Then some recreation
  
• Travel speed
  
• Finish of recreation

On the Financial forecast, always choose normal expenditure. Morale does not refenerate over time taking morale hits for C-Bills is not worth it while buying the points for Morale is too expensive.