MechWarrior 5 – How to Recruit New Pilots

You’ve evacuated from your recent raid in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries with a heavily damaged mech and half dead lance, so now you need to recruit new pilots. So long as you can reach an Industrial Hub, you can replenish your ranks.

Recruit new pilots from the Barracks menu in an Industrial Hub.

Pilots cannot be recruited in Conflict Zones: they are all contributing to the war within, so you need to head to an Industrial Zone if you wish to hire on new talent. Find the systems connected by a dotted line, and head to one of them. Once there, go to your Barracks menus and select Pilot Hire.

In this menu you will find a list of pilots looking for work. Their skill level is the cumulative total of their six skills across Ballistics, Energy, Missile, Shield, Heat, and Evasion skills. The higher their general skill level, the higher their individual skills will be. You’ll still want to review the six skills themselves (a pilot with ten in ballistics will get nuked in harder content if their evasion is a two). The higher number is the cap on their skill, and the lower number is where they are sitting currently (meaning you’ll need to level new pilots in order for them to reach their max potential).

After skills you’ll notice the pilots’ hiring costs and salary. The hiring cost is the initial fee required to bring a pilot on to your lance, while their salary is what will be added to your quarterly bill alongside maintenance for mechs in your Active Hanger. The fee isn’t too bad, all said, but better pilots cost more to hire and support over time. You will need to eat this cost eventually though, because the harder the missions, the better your pilots need to be. I promise you this: hiring and paying a pilot is cheaper than repairing a mech and replacing damaged equipment.

At any point you want to remove a pilot, go to your Pilot Roster, and dismiss the pilot you want to remove. You can do this from anywhere, no Industrial Hub needed.

That’s how you hire new pilots in MechWarrior 5. For more guides keep an eye on our guides page.