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I'd recommend building the first mechs you issue to the players. Leave aside the same amount of CP for weapons, then build models that are sniper, support, whatever. Then add CP gradually, to trade in for upgrades, captured equipment, or new models.
MIx it up a little. It's easy to make a build where you take nothing but Mecha fighting, gunning, piloting, etc. Having a boarding action, or escaping from a crash/being shot down can convince players to learn the training rules pretty fast.
Try having all your players be rookies. I ran it with another GM, on a rotating basis, and we both made our characters as experienced, so that a couple of episodes in the experience boosts from the rookie templates made the other player more skilled than us, but we could take out the guys on their six until he got up to speed.