However, that Commando will cost you around 8 million C-Bills for double heat sinks, high grade XL engine, ferro fibrous armor, ECM, streaks and streak ammo, and endo steel internals.
Just to put that into perspective, 2/3 of this amount is the XL engine, all it gives you is the lagshield and a higher repair bill. good thing to have, but not mandatory to be useful on the battlefield.
Ferro fibrous is argualby useless on a light mech, it gives you less than one ton of free space but eats up lots of critical slots, especially together with endo steel (which is a much better choice).
It's also a about a third of your earnings to repair and rearm should it be destroyed if your side wins or half your earnings if destroyed and your side loses.
Not sure how this proves that the economy is atrocious.
Commando is possibly the best non-hero mech moneymaker in the game, standard engine variants cost below 20 000 to fully repair, depending on loadout.
With good play, it eats up 25% of your earnings if you lose and get killed, 15% if you win and get killed.
If you slap the XL engine on top of it (which is notoriously hard to repair), it becomes slightly worse than a standard medium mech at making money.
To compare, in a typical arrangement, an XL engine heavy mech eats up 90-100% of your earnings on death and a lost match, 60% of your earnings if your side wins and you get killed.
This means you have to accept the smaller payroll or alternate playing with a more economical setup when you need more money.
There is some retardation in the current system, but as it is I actually think it is beneficial to the game. Expensive toys cost more to repair, assault mechs cost more to repair.
Without this, we'd have Mechwarrior 4 all over again, assaults and heavies being the only viable mech classes in game.
The current economy favors light and medium mechs, while most people instinctively lean towards heavier chasses.
I think in the end it promotes build diversity.
due to their entirely fucked up implementation of ECM
Do elaborate.
I like a lot of things about the ECM, even though I think it does a little too much for the tonnage.
For one, it opens up a new dimension of the game, allowing for electronic warfare and stealth.
Second, it made people play ravens, cicadas and commandos. Before ECM you'd rarely see one in the field, unless it was a trial mech.
One patch earlier you could easily get into an all-heavy match, with only a handful of mediums at best. Now, people are suddenly playing lights again.
Finally, it's a nice counter to noobtube streakcats and LRM boats. Before ECM, the former became a bit of a problem.