Bionic Dues:BD Pilots

At the beginning of your game, you will be prompted to select your Exos and your Pilot. Your Pilot provides you with unique bonuses. It is worth noting that no Pilot (as of release) has any penalties; every downside listed here is simply to indicate the weaknesses or limitations of their bonus. As such, do not worry about trying out a different pilot or feel you have to restart for a different pilot--they are all very capable of taking on the incoming robot horde.

Axis

A professional scout drone pilot before she became an Exo driver, Axis has the ability to see 4 missions out on the city map instead of the usual 3. Even more importantly, she has the ability to undertake missions that are 2 away, rather than the usual 1, thereby letting her skip missions at will.

Benefits:

1. The ability to strike 2 missions out is huge. Axis can avoid Blockade, Outrun, and Fuel Tank missions that other pilots would either have to perform or go around.
2. Being able to scout farther means she can find important missions, like Bahamut Installations and Robot Command Centers more easily than other pilots.

Downsides:

1. No in-mission combat bonuses.

Emma

A young socialite from the relatively privileged upper-middle class, she was still not able to afford the expensive bionic implants that could have saved her from the accident that claimed part of her face and neck. Thanks to her social connections and black market contacts, the store can offer her a much better variety of items in both quality and kind. She also gets more money back from the store when she sells something. For other Exo drivers, the store is a useful tool. For Emma, shopping is a way of life (and death, to robots).

Benefits:

1. Can purchase Legendary (orange) quality items from the Store.
2. Gets more money from selling parts (bonus unknown).
3. Additional store variety lets Emma min-max better than other pilots.

Downsides:

1. Her bonus doesn't help much for the first 2-3 missions, as she needs credits to make good use of her passive.
2. Legendary items are extremely expensive.

Meg

Formerly a mechanic before the accident that led her to becoming an Exo driver, Meg is able to utilize her skills and knowledge to get better performance out of the Exo Parts loot that she finds (so a Mark-4 part for her will have stats like a Mark-6 would for someone else, etc).

Benefits:

1. Since parts are naturally more effective, Meg therefore achieves more efficient min-maxing during the game than a cash-limited Emma.
2. Effectively allows access to maximum-Mark items earlier. (Personal note: her ability does not seem to increase the maximum performance cap on items; it seems to flatten out - will need to check.)

Downsides:

1. None that I can think of...

Tuck

Tough and resourceful, Tuck's skills at sleuthing lend him an enormous tactical advantage in missions: he can see both his objectives and the location of all terminals and loot without first exploring to them.

Benefits:

1. Can rush missions without losing out on any loot.
2. Knows what is behind every locked door without hacking an Intel Terminal.

Downsides:

1. Occasionally, enemy bots will take advantage of Tuck's knowledge of mission targets. This can be especially annoying during Hostage Rescue missions.
2. Rushing missions will not give as much credits as completely clearing the whole map--Tuck's passive is wasted if you want to completely clear a level and have enough hacking points to open all Locked Doors.

Genji

Born and raised in the part of town where the robot presence was strongest, Genji is very familiar with the robot menace. So familiar, in fact, that he was able to sneak into the Bahamut Device installations and bring back all four Epic Exos before his mission in the city even begins!

Benefits:

1. Starting with the most powerful Exo weapons will trivialise the first days of the game.
2. Not needing to fight Bahamut missions gives Genji up to four more days to freely explore and spend on offensive strategic targets, such as Factory, Lion's Den and Assassination missions.
3. Customisations are slightly simpler for min-maxers, by eliminating the procedure of switching over your gear after each Bahamut mission.

Downsides:

1. In losing the Bahamut missions, he also loses out on obtaining their guaranteed epic loot (up to 20). This doesn't hurt as much if the player always fight them early (see strategy section on when to do missions).
2. Genji's bonus doesn't add anything to the late game, whereas other pilots will have likely completed Bahamut missions and still have their passive.

Rey

The teleportation technology used to deploy exos to the battlefield is highly demanding on the Exo Driver managing the neural link, so few can perform any but the simplest transportation. Rey has a brain of such a caliber, however, that he can use one of the cheesiest, er, we mean "most powerful" exploitations of teleporter technology: "flipping" an exo with a copy of it from the past. In practice, this means that the first two times you lose an exo in each mission it will instead be replaced with a completely restored version of itself. This man's outta control.

Benefits:

1. Having this safety-blanket is a significant bonus for tough missions and error-prone pilots.
2. There are also missions where you run out of kitchen-sinks and might want to suicide an exo to obtain a full reset.
3. Sometimes, RNGs can just screw you over and lose you a piece of loot. That need not happen with Rey.

Downsides:

1. Mainly attractive for tougher difficulties and in-cautious pilots - Rey does not benefit the perfectionist player.

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