Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries | 5 Best Tips | EZ Mode 

1. Move a mech chasis to cold-storage and you pay nothing to remove weapons and equipment. 2. Only run a Firestarter if you want minimal salvage. No mechs destroyed = no salvage. 3. Just hit “tab” from the hanger and access menu immediately with no movement necessary. 4. In my own personal play there is no rhyme or reason to where specific mech chasis can be found. It appears to be completely random in my experience. 5. Run multi missions with bonus payout and do not waste your time with single action. You will never have enough salvage points to get the more expensive mechs from single missions without the multi bonus.

I'm at the late game stage and I'm going to write some tips that I haven't seen anybody else mentioned, if you find this useful, please thumbs up so more people can benefit from it. AI Companion guide: First of all, every guide I watched says: "always press F1 twice to focus fire on your target mech." This is the absolute worst idea, let me explain why. Every battle has 60+ mobs of tanks and helicopters. Starting mid game they are armed with PPC and LRM15s, focus fire on a mech will leave all the mobs unchecked and they will end you in 30 seconds. Your AI companions are actually fast at taking out small mobs, 2 or 3 shots usually, don't stop them. My strategy is to pilot a mech with more armor to aggro the enemy mechs until my AI companions clean the little mobs, then use focus fire when there are only multiple enemy mechs left. Don't spam commands to your AI companions, if you pay attention, every time you issue a command, they will stop what their doing for about a second, then do what you asked, so if you keep spamming F1,F2 to form up on you, they will just slow down and stand there. I only use it when one of them broke off to chase an enemy, they usually follow you anyway. On top of jump jets, don't use unguided missiles on AI companion mechs, they suck at using it. Battle guide: When you start any battle, always look at the map first (press B) and walk along the parameter, the direct line to your objective is usually an ambush and you will be overwhelmed with enemies from all sides. This is especially the case in main quest battles, take the road less traveled and use hills to hide behind from long range enemy fire. The difference is night and day. Sticking to walls is critical, sometimes it can't be helped you are surrounded by enemies, most of them targeting you, if you're near a hill, you can reverse into cover and wait for them to come to you with all 4 of your mechs ready to gun them down. Late game logistic guide: When you're heading into a higher rank war zone, save your game at an industrial hub first, then fly over and see what the new tonnage requirement is at the new zone, reload the game back at your industrial hub to chose which 4 mechs to load to meet that tonnage. This will save you lots of money in repairs and refit at the warzone (usually cost 300% more). Not all higher rank war zone will allow more tonnage, my tip is stay in the lowest ranking war zone with the highest tonnage of your mech capacity for farming, it's not worth losing your valued weapons in a more difficult battle capped at the same tonnage. I have more strategies but this is all I can remember for now. Good luck.

You can just press tab to access the menu

Want to add a note, putting all weapons in the Torso has a serious disadvantage against aircraft as the limbs can pivot to improve their firing arcs, this isn't so bad against the copters but when the Gunships start turning up with their extremely damaging autocannons they can make mincemeat of you and your lancemates in seconds who cant aim high enough to return fire.

One thing to add about customizing mechs is to remove jump jets on any mech you aren't piloting, the AI almost never makes use of them.

Just press tab anywhere in the spaceship

Have been addicted to the genre since the days of FASA and cardstock cutouts...have played (excessively so says the spouse) every vid gane produced and currently have over 950 hours in MW5 Merc. Your Vids are like a breathe of fresh air ;) MY TIP - The AI and most firearm instructors will teach you to go for the center of mass NEVER PUT ANY SORT OF AMMO IN Head or LT or CT or RT and while your at it skip the arms as well. Make PGI' much maligned AI yout ALLY and BTW I am still looking for a couple of those hidden achievements POWER UP and START WALKING

Another tip for demolition missions: spend negotiation points on an airstrike if available. As you're running towards the enemy base call in the strike. Heck even while demolishing one part of the base with your mech you can airstrike another part. That saves precious time so you can get in & out quickly.

Flamers and machine guns are more effective against tanks and buildings. Something to add to the demolition missions.

An unorthodox guide with some useful tips. I fully agree that demolition missions need to be performed asap. Still, at higher difficulties, at some locations heavily populated with painful vehicles, I take time to clean the approaches methodically (LRM), because respawns start only after facility health bar appears - when you come close to it. I recommend taking time to clean the area before stepping near the base to save the armor of the lance. That usually helps to reduce required insurance to 1

Just getting to try this out on XBOne, loving it, thanks for the helpful tips!

Good faction increasing tip. Thank you!

The demolition mission tip is very helpful. I'd stand and fight until my arms fall off 😅

Thanks , I love demolition mission now, rampaging the base like no tomorrow

Thanks a lot for the tips, this did help quite a lot 👍🙂

This was helpful, thank you!

just YOLOing it with the demolition missions might be a nice strategy,i should try it.thank you for your guide.

Wow, that advice with Firestarter is awesome, i am having blast. :) Instead of lasers i use flamers because they have increase damage vs buildings.

Another important tip - for your AI lance mates you should use and buy the best pilots as your AI gets better with better pilots.

Thanks this helps

In general, regardless of the pilot being human or AI, you only want big-hitter weapons in the arm if you're actively preserving that arm, ie: shielding (most famously with the centurion) and armour rolling. This applies to MW5 and MWO alike. In MW5, the AI probably only does those things if you're using something like "TT rulez AI mod 2".

Your right about mechs with heavy weapons in the arms... I love the Warhammer... but I lose at least 1 PPC every other mission.

Great video

Chargers and Banshees are good late game lancemate mechs. Most or all weapons are torso mounted and they have arms with big hitboxes so they soak up most of the damage.

I love Demolition missions second only to Assassination missions:)

WOW thank you for helping me never use those damn stairs again!! good vid, learned a lot

Thx for the tips. Just got this on Xbox. Game is a bit overwhelming.

note for demolition: later on when you get access to assault mechs, just equip one with a ballistic that moves at a decent pace and go in alone, saves on repairs and lets you blast buildings fast while running into them. I use a marauder with lbx and keep two med lasers for those pesky helo's that fly around you.

for lance..I give them archer mostly as they blast the enemies from distance with the LRMS

I like destroying all the enemies when i do a demolition mission LOL...So my team gets to ahve a bunch of fun along the way. I used a mod which gives ?/60 mercs at industrial hubs. I pick the ones that the biop says are still blood thirsty. They are aggressive and very destructive of enemies :) Defense missions are the ones i dislike the most. rest are a joy especially the assassination ones.

Good tips

I didn't know about the mercenary review "View Intel" button that you show at 5:07. Probably wasn't intentional, but it helped me lol

Great video, very informative, clear and concise. Just started my play through as I was experiencing end of tutorial game freezing.

Great tips! Question: playing on ps4 here, and I'm noticing my upper torse turn speed is nowhere near as fast as what I'm seeing on these PC clips. Is that a gameplay thing, do I need better mechs/perks attached?

For some reason my AI do really well in the CRB-20, and the Caraphract.

Why do we even spawn near Fahad? Surely the commander should start in his personal room or near the command desk thing.

I've watched a lot of content on MW5 and I can say with absolute certainty it is always better to max out and take all the salvage you can foregoing insurance. Let me explain, it only takes 1 point into salvage which grants 2 points overall to grab a couple pieces of salvage that will cover the repairs if/when sold and add up to the same amount in insurance. It is however always an issue of not having enough salvage points to pick up a mech on offer so on the slim chance you can afford to grab a mech offered that 1 point you put into insurance instead of salvage in negotiations could very well be the difference. Also if you don't need all the insurance money to repair you end up having spent points that gain you nothing as you are not paid the extra if there's cash left over after repairs. These means that they are effectively dead points with zero value since they were used for insurance when they could have gotten two points towards salvage that you will always be able to collect on...

Alas, the Dire Wolf would make short work of those pesky Demo missions... If only a pious modder would grace us with a time-displaced one so that we can just indiscriminately stomp skyscrapers and light mechs into rubble.

The Trebuchet is really fast and destroys stuff just by running through it, as well.

Dude I don't know about you but I'm at the location for fighting Pirates and there's no Pirates to be found because I've managed to make myself sworn enemies to house Davian and I kind of want to correct that but at the same time I don't want Target house kurita maybe this location was patched out or maybe there's another location I don't know I'd love some help.

NIce! Thank you.

cant wait until bushwackers are added. all around perfect

You're slightly wrong about the Demolition mission. Try loading up the firestarter with flamers and machine guns and watch how much damage can be done really quickly.

For demolition, I just use a locust and go usain bolt lol

I just use a locus for demo missions. Buildings do very little damage if any to the mechs so i just run into them all then run to extraction. Very fast

Chem laser ammo locations along with heavy rifle ammo would b really helpful

Wish i knew that sooner. The draconis combine hate me so much rn

i should probably add that i dont even take my lancemates into the demo missions just me in the Zeus and smash and grab kinda deal lol

The demolition mission in the dust planet I get one shot by a tank with blue laser even at full health on the centurion

Hi, how would you set up shadow hawk for AI pilots?

TAB works also to get to the starmap.

Ah I didn't like Demolition for the endless waves of enemies... but thanks to your tip, I'll take out my BlackJack with 6x Machine Guns to destroy the base quickly!!

1.5 TONS OF AMMO?? 1.5 TONS!!!!! IF YOU ARE AMMO RACKED AND "NOT" SEEN FROM ORBIT, YOUR WRONG!!!

Hunchback man not shadowhawk

Your demo method works for raid missions too.

Pro tip that helps immesurably in early game is f1 f1 down enemy mechs. Early game works so well but late game i more so leave em in a zone or just follow

i always wanted to play as a pirate, basically raid and make other factions supply me and use defeated factions as vassals to supply me with money and other resources

Why would you want Hero Status for the Draconis Combine and not the Lyran Commenwealth? I mean the Kintaro is an OK mech (for a 55 tonnwe, qhixh are not a sgood as 50 tonnres to be honest) the Dragon is a dumbster fire of design, imho. The only reason for me would be to get access to Catapults, as those would be decent support mechs, if the ai were capable of usoing long range weaponry properly. Id rather have hero with Seiner for access to the excellent Banshee-S or the Zeus, then to the aformentioned 'mechs

*Me with a hunchback with only laser slots* Did somebody say laser damage? *becomes walking flashlight of death*

Actually, if you hit the tab key anywhere in the ship you get the main home interface.

is it still worth buying today?

I just have a bunch of Autocannons. Should I use the AC/2?

I have seen some Tubers videos where they have changed the lance Icon from the 'Eridani Light Calvary' [the blue Pony] to some other icon. I have not found out how to do that. Anyone actually been able to change it? Think about it , your chased by a Legion of enemies , and your new Lance has the same Old Icon. Paint me as a target. PS: your video name says EZ Mode. There is a difficulty setting?

I just hit the tab button fyi.

lol right or press tab... like many have said...

But you have to go upstairs when you want to progress in campaign.

Good information overall but the torso is not an ideal location for ammo as 1 shot to the back and you are open for cook offs. Safest locations are IMO Legs > Head (yes really, AI will strip a side torso before the cockpit is vulnerable 99/100) > Side torso closest to your weapon > Arm that has a the weapon that uses ammo in it. never put it in the ct.

Man, 20 hours... 🤔 I've only had 30 years of experience with MW. 😂 JK, buddy, that is for the guidance.

ammo at top? bruh

4 years later, the AIs on your side are still *IDIOTS* The enemy AIs focus on a mech (usually mine) and do all kinds of damage, while my lancemates do a lot of aimless meandering with some occasional shooting.

Step 1: dont do raid missions

For the demo mission I just speed run those ...demo what you gotta and gtfo