I realize there are a decent number of things that might not be immediately obvious, as this was drafted with other MW fans first and foremost in mind (created, as it was, back during the EGS release window, and the only ones of us who cared enough to buy MW5 were almost exclusively people with some degree of experience in Battletech/Mechwarrior). There are far too many abstract things that go into how potent a 'mech is, beyond the number and type of hardpoints (and even those are subject to what meta you're building for and your playstyle, your opinion on certain weapons, etc.) I'll leave it there as a legacy, but it's mainly for the flavor of knowing which 'mech in a chassis family is REALLY undergunned compared to its brethren variants.

I'd largely ignore the 'ordnance score' thing I go over above, especially if you're a new player (even though it was kinda sorta targeted at them specifically). The primary reason it exists is mainly to point out really, REALLY niche/poorly-armed 'mechs like the SHD-2K.

There's an 'Ordnance score' I arbitrarily assigned based on personal opinion of what each weapon hardpoint type and size was 'worth', giving a general idea of offensive capability for each 'mech, but this also doesn't factor in heat management, or something more abstracted like whether weapons are on the arms (better firing arc, but more likely to be shot off), etc. Feel free to add comments if you see something that I got wrong. Click these to see the 'mechs within that weight class.

The tables are divided by weight class near the bottom of your browser tab/window you should see sheets labeled 'Light (20-35T)', etc.

Battletech why 78 critical slots