It partly depends on which mercs you plan on taking IMO. Felix, Space Marine, and the new guy who's name I forget all come with Combat armor. So if you take weave armor for MC you won't need to tank the advanced tactics fights. Duraplate is better but it's more expensive in case you have competing priorities. I like to grab both Weave and Duraplate eventually anyway so I can switch back and forth a bit to spread the damage around so my quartermaster can fix it better.
I like the new system overall but it really depends a lot on whether you're doing a rise from the ashes start, a normal start, or an enhanced start. With a rise start you pretty much have to pick some negative stuff if you want to have enough points to get much. If you do an enhanced start you can get almost all the good stuff. I'm still playing around with the enhanced starts for now just to see how stuff works.
I didn't play around much with the MoR Enhanced as it seemed I could get whatever I wanted and still have points left over I had to spend on something I didn't really want/need.
With Rise from the Ashes I could get to an Expert Level, but needed to take pretty much all the negatives including at least one that limits you to a max of seventy which I really don't want to do for any stat.
The current expert perks are kind of an interesting choice. I think from a raw min/max power perspective the business expert is the best because of the combination of investment boost and workshop boost. From a story/RP perspective I like the slave trader better because it gets me another slave with a quest/backstory that ties in to MC's background. I won't make as much money as the business option but eventually you build up to enough that a little extra doesn't matter that much.
I was thinking Business Expert was kinda mediocre, what does 5% really amount to in the long run anyway? Eventually I'll have plenty of money anyway, I don't see me
needing that extra 5%. The workshop bonus is a nice kicker, but again once I get there will I really
need it?
I think for a rise start I would definitely want both deadly strike and tough. I'm not sure what else I would pick since I'm not sure how many extra points I could scrounge up. I think Brainy is also a must have. Problem is with a rise start that might mean it's not possible to also get an expert class unless you take pretty much all the negative traits.
I really don't like the idea of limiting my character to a max of 70 in any stat, so I wouldn't take any of those unless I absolutely
had to. I do tend to think Deadly Strike is better than Crackshot as the latter has a negative in that you won't want to fire at anyone you wanted to capture, and Deadly Strike makes captures easier. It sounds like in the new system Brainy might not be as useful as all it will add is another one point or so per stat per book, I can live without that and I can manage if it takes me a little longer to finish a book. Tough looked nice at first, but is it really that big a deal to take 38 points instead of 40?
