Vanilla game sucks. Install Yet Another Mech Lab (YAML) and associated mods at minimum. Other ones I use that make the game more fun: Stacked Crates (vanilla crates are practically worthless), Long War 2 (to compensate for leveling too quickly), and Mech Delivery (so you can order mechs to be delivered instead of jumping all over the map). Lore freindly things that should be part of the base game.
