So I take it you're enjoying the mechwarrior beta. I wish I could bring myself to play it more, but I'm really waiting on the devs to put in "community warfare", so I can fight over something and for something. Kinda got tired of dropping into random matches that might end up starting with 2-3 teammates disconnecting and against a premade of 8 people all in 3rd party voice coordinating hard as fuck. Also not very fun when you get a premade and rick-roll and dominate everyone. No challenge.
Yeah it can be pretty hit or miss. I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I have though; especially considering it hasn't even reach open beta yet. I fought a premade team full of jenners and commandos the other day and it was probably the funniest thing I've seen in a while. Been working on mastering the Atlas mech, so I have to get used to doing as much damage as I possibly can to make it worth my while. Learning the weak points on mech variants, where they tend to keep their ammo if they carry any, how do disarm their main weapons fast an effectively, etc...
Still learning the ropes, but I'm getting pretty good rather quickly. Thought I still have to be careful not to rush an area alone, in hopes of achieving a crossfire, as I'm fond of doing.
My go-to build with the Atlas is currently a reconfig of the vanilla variant. 4 medium lasers (1 in each arm, 2 in the center mass) complimented with 2 AC/5's in the right torso with about 100 shells of ammo and an anti missile system carrying 2000 rounds to help nullify LRM boats. It's a good all round choice that excels in medium to close range and can perform well throughout the entire round.
I've also been using a long range variant, I created earlier this morning, that boasts 2 PPC cannons, a gauss cannon, and 2 medium pulse lasers. Very good at laying some hurt at medium to long range though it can overheat fairly easily despite how many heatsinks it's loaded with.
I've found it's better to try mastering one mech at a time rather than spreading your focus out. Though you have to find the mech that's right for you first.