You should consider the following points very carefully, especially when wondering how to spend your Cadet Bonus CBills! Your Cadet Bonus is intended to help you get a smooth transition into Mechwarrior Online and this should help you to kepe soldiering on once it's gone.
Choosing the "wrong" mech can have serious implications on how your game experience changes once the Cadet Bonus runs out!
1) Understanding Progression!
It is important to have a basic understanding of how you progress in Mechwarrior Online and there are three basic ways you progress in MWO (and one more which I get to below).
- Cbills. This is the currency with which you buy 'mechs and equipment to put on them.
- Mech XP: this is the XP that you use to upgrade individual mech performance. This XP is unique to the mech you are driving and you can't spend it on another Mech.
- GXP: this is awarded at a rate of 5% of your Mech XP. GXP can be used as Mech XP OR it can be spent in the "pilot trees" section of the Pilot Lab to unlock abilities across all of your mechs (such as the ability to install Modules or upgrade Consumables).
Additionally, you must train 3 basic variants of the same type of mech to unlock the "elite" skills for the mech you want to pilot. So, for example, if you want to pilot an Orion, it's a very good idea to buy 3 and train them all so you can unlock further skills on the one you intend to keep. This can be a long process so it's well worth understanding how it's done!
2) To get it out of the way, the "paid up player" option.
Mechwarrior Online uses a "micropayment" system allowing you to purchase Premium Time and individual mechs (as well as vanity items like Cockpit decorations and paint schemes for your mechs). This is done by purchasing Mechwarrior Credits (MC) which you can spend in various ways.
- Buy Premium Time: This awards you a +50% cBill, Mech XP and GXP bonus per match no matter which 'mech you drive.
- Buy Standard Mechs: All mechs can be bought using either cBills or MC. Buying a Mech with MC will allow you to skip the play time needed to earn the cbills to buy these mechs.
- Buy Champion Mechs: Champion Mechs are only available to buy using MC. These are existing variants of a mech which you can buy with cBills but with the special bonus that they generate XP and GXP with a +10% bonus. Apart from this, champion mechs follow all of the other rules governing every other Mech in the game and are not "inherently more powerful" in any way.
- Buy Hero Mechs: Hero Mechs are only available to buy using MC. They are an existing mech type but a unique variant allowing different loadout options from the standard variants. They also provide a +30% cBill bonus. Apart from this, Hero mechs follow all of the other rules governing every other Mech in the game and are not "inherently more powerful" in any way.
In the screenshots that follow, my intention is to show the relationship between the different ways of earning XP and Credits and the total earnings are a secondary factor. it must be noted that I use the Premium Time payment option and all final totals for earnings reflect the +50% Premium bonus to both XP and CBills. These bonuses are added after the individual scores are tallied so all individual awards shown are what every player gets regardless of whether they are a "free player" or utilize a paid option!
3) Earning cBills and XP.
It is perfectly possible to make a lot of cBills and make very little XP OR make a lot of XP but very little money in any given match.
- It is also perfectly possible to make a lot of cBills and a lot of XP without getting a kill.
- Being a team player is critical to making both cBills and XP.
- Winning is not critical to making cBills or XP (although winning certainly makes it easier!)

The first thing you will notice is that kills and Kill Assists are reversed in order of importance between cBills and XP. A kill Assist is generally worth more money than a Kill but it is worth less XP. In the end you have to make a bit of a choice between killing a Mech for the larger XP bonus or letting someone else kill it to garner you the Assist to make you more money instead.
Next is Damage Done. The more damage you do, the more more XP and cBills you will earn.
Saviour Kills: This is a special award you will earn for firing on mechs that have scored a critical hit in the 10 seconds before they are destroyed (you must be firing on the mech at the time!). Despite what the patch notes and many forums say, it is NOT necessary for you to get the kill in order to score a Savior Kill (see this screenshot). The rewards for these are quite large at 6500 cBills and 150 XP per Savior Kill.
Spotting Assist & TAG/NARC bonus: These are special bonuses you receive for helping spot for Missile mechs. If you have a Line of Sight to a mech which is the target of LRMs and have that mech locked as your current target (R is the default lock target key) you will receive a Spotting Assist bonus. Additionally, if you have a TAG equipped and are using it on that mech you will receive a TAG/NARC bonus. If you hit a mech with a NARC beacon and this mech is hit by LRMs, you will recieve the TAG/NARC bonus whether you have line of sight or the target mech locked as your target.
Winning: Whether you win or lose you receive the same amount of cBills as the "win" reward. However you will receive an EXTRA bonus depending on the game type. For Assault you will receive a Salvage Bonus and for Conquest you will receive both a Salvage Bonus and a Resource Bonus.

As we can see in this screenshot, the Salvage bonus is 13,681. When we take into account the extra 200xp from winning the game? Winning the game is worth more in cBills and XP than 2 kills (2 kills in XP, 3 kills in cBills).
What's not in the screenshots:
Capture Assist. Capture Assist is a bonus you receive for capturing a base or resource node. At the time of writing, you can only receive this bonus once per match regardless of match type. this means that playing in a Conquest match with multiple captures per game, you will ge tthe same bonus whether you cap 1 point or 10.
Defensive Kills: When you kill an enemy mech within 10 seconds if it contributing to the capture of a friendly base or resource node you get a Defensive Kill. This is equal to the rewards from a Savior Kill. In my experience these are rare but not unheard of either.
Putting this all together:
It is clear that working as a team is the primary way to make money in MWO, especially for beginning Mechwarriors. It's clear from the screenshots that the vast majority of my CBills and XP come from a source other than actually killing an opponent. In the linked screenshot for Saviour Kills, I actually have zero kills and still make 220,000 cBills and 1755 XP (before the "first of the day" bonus).
Winning alone is (on average) worth more to you than 2 solo kills. In the Screenshot above, my largest single earning in both XP and cBills is from savior kills and playing with a group will rack you up more savior kills. In the screenshot above that, my Spotting Assist + TAG/NARC bonus is worth about 2 kills in cBills and 1.25 kills in XP.
I cannot state this strongly enough: In the end you will make MORE money and xp from understanding and fulfilling your role in a team than you ever will by chasing down and killing opponents or hiding to survive when you should be helping to press an attack.
4) An important note on a different kind of progression.
While there is no "kill stealing" in MWO, some people will still react as if there is. These are generally people who are farming up their Kill/Death ratio. It is important to note that your Kills and Deaths are tracked in MWO but it does absolutely nothing for you in game terms. It is not a stat that is used anywhere in the game and is purely a status symbol.
The game uses Win/Loss ratio to determine what skill bracket to put you in through the matchmaker,that is your ability to be a functioning part of a winning team is what matters.
At every port of call, being a good team player is what is most highly rewarded in Mechwarrior Online.
Class Dismissed.
This post has been edited based on input from the following players; Arnold J Rimmer, Koniving.
Thankyou for your help!
Edited by Greyboots, 03 May 2015 - 03:36 PM.