If you salvage it perfectly intact, it's closer to a Disc One Nuclear Arsenal, as the heaviest 'Mechs you can have at this point are 55 ton Inner Sphere Mechs with inferior technology.
Disc-One Nuke: If you can actually salvage the 75 ton Mad Cat (see Wake-Up Call Boss), it becomes this.Said Mech pauses and twists its torso to look back at the little Raven behind it that just tried to backstab it (and barely scratched it). He thus fires a couple of missiles into the enemy Mech, which was busy engaging other targets, essentially shooting it in the back.
Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: The Raven in the Mechcommander 1 intro is ordered (under extreme protest from his Mechwarrior) to 'get his attention' - 'his' being a Smoke Jaguar Mad Cat.They show damage by burning down into charred husks. The same goes for the CN-10 Centurion and JM-7 JagerMech sub-variants in the original, both five tons heavier from the originals that they were derived from. Canon Immigrant: The Hollander II from the original and the Stiletto from Desperate Measures both appeared here before they made it to the tabletop.'Mech designs that don't normally have jump jets in the original game get them here, including Colonel Renard's 100 ton ''Atlas''.Bottomless Magazines: Normally averted for non-energy weapons, but played straight if the Unlimited Ammunition option is enabled.As this limits the damage to the armor and weapons elsewhere, it's perfect if you plan on salvaging it afterwards. Boom, Headshot!: The head is a viable, if difficult to hit, target location that will immediately disable a Mech if it's destroyed.Black Dude Dies First: Or at least ejects out of his 'Mech, as seen in the intro.Beam Spam: A viable tactic, especially with Large X Pulse Lasers.Say goodbye to your company of salvaged Clantech! Bag of Spilling: Whatever you do in Gold's original campaign won't carry over to the expansion.Badass Normal: Gunnery Sergeant Cash, your weapons tech from the second game, used to be an infantryman in a universe where 20+ ton Humongous Mecha are the norm.Badass Crew: Forming one of these to pilot the Ace Customs you come up with is just as important.Humorously, the most stark example has the callsign Goblin. Badass Baritone: Several high-end mechwarriors in 1, typically those who come at Regular or Veteran by default, have voices that sound like rolling thunder.Awesome, but Impractical: The Long Tom long-range artillery gun and Heavy Thunderbolt medium-range missile launcher, which can cause significant amounts of damage but are slow-firing, have low ammunition reserves and take up a lot of room in weapon load-outs.Which makes some sense, as Mechs get transported long distances by DropShips, which certainly don't have infinite cargo capacity. Arbitrary Headcount Limit: A variation/justification: You can only bring a certain combined tonnage of 'Mechs into each mission.Not so obviously, they instead decide to join forces against you and your mercenary company. Blindingly obvious what will happen, since you have General Ripper meeting with General Failure, they're both riding in Assault Mechs, they both brought a sizable "Honor Guard", and your tactical officer predicted that there wouldn't be any trouble during the mission. Aggressive Negotiations: About 2/3rds of the way through the second game.Both Desperate Measures and MechCommander 2 also feature a few in the enemy's ranks, such as Katherine Furey's Railgun-equipped Vulture in the former and bandit captain Vong's ER PPC-packing Lao Hu in the latter. Ace Custom: Making these is an important part of the games.
The second game had its source code released some time ago, and a relatively new overhaul called Omnitech is being worked on. The Mechs that can be purchased will also change depending on which faction you're currently working for. The main campaign is divided into three parts, and the player alternately works for a different faction in each part: Steiner, Liao, and a group of rebels supported by Davion.