If you've been following along with the Waypoint crew, you will probably have heard their talks of Dekker, one of the 5 starting Mechwarriors (including you) that your merc crew has.
And he's a totally nondescript redshirt.

This has led to a lot of talks of people losing Dekker in hilariously fleeting or heroic fashions, as it would with anyone bearing a resemblance to a specially selected member of the Tactical/Security whose face you just didn't recognize.

So what's yours been?

On my end, I actually haven't lost a single character yet, and Dekker has actually become one of the most distinguished 'mech pilots I have. The guy won the battle at Panzyr almost entirely on his own. I threw him into my just recently acquired Firestarter, as I had dealt with a swarm of them in the past and got freaking rocked. Unfortunately I didn't think about how ineffective flamers would be in the snow. Thankfully, the Firestarter has such a massive jump distance with its stock equipment that I didn't really need to do much damage, and more just survive with the rest of my lance, while Dekker bounded his way to the control center and machine-gunned the damn thing with 5 rounds to spare.

Motherfucker is a legend.

Dekker bought the farm in the first mission before I really knew how dangerous Scorpions could be. He'd been rumbled a bit by missiles earlier so I pulled him back from a mech but still within the line of sight of a Scorpion and boy that AC got him reeeeeeal good.

I nearly lost Medusa early on too. A Firestarter jumped up a cliff behind him and got him with a flamer causing an ammo explosion in his CT. Never seen a mech go from Fine to Fucked so quickly haha. Medusa lived though but was benched for 50 days.

My Drekker is still alive, though he got pretty beat up in the first mission when I didn't have a real idea what I was doing. I'll be honest and say that for a while there it was rough being a light mech pilot in my company. For a while there Drekker would get out med bay, go on a mission, and immediately go back into med bay. As of now he is still my designated light mech pilot, and currently he is having a good old time alpha-striking people in the back with a Jenner while occasionally getting to pilot one of my mediums if I got one available for him.

The only pilot I've lost so far is Medusa, who was my back-up light mech pilot for when Drekker was out of action. Had him in a LRM-loaded Locust. It was already beat up, so I had him well behind my other mechs just lobbing LRMs at range, but the other side wanted him dead, and managed core out the center torso in a single volley, taking him out.

Dekker is still alive in my game. Glitch died instantly though, and turns out that may have been a pretty important pilot for those early missions, especially since her mech which is the only sniper thing you start with got beaten up to the point that repairing it uses up almost the entire budget.

My Dekker seems to be an invincible terminator of a mech pilot.

Amusingly, my first in-combat death was...my own created character, killed by a DFA, Natasha-Kerensky-style, from an armless House Liao Wolverine.

He’s just useless bait! He always ends up in the smallest mech and every enemy seems to fire at him first! He was wounded for a couple weeks and i had to use a backup pilot, Medusa and he kicked ass.

I’m not a Dekker fan so far.

I've finally got my own Dekker story. Just spent a number of hours trying to clear the Samithon-whatever mission, the one Austin mentioned as being a real asshole of a thing.

They wouldn't leave him alone. I don't even remember all the harassment he took leading up to it except for the final moments. I think he was just hit with a few missile barrages causing him to go unsteady. I was running a bit hot at that point fending for my life. Then this little shit head Firestarter who I kept trying to kill but would not die, the dude DFA suicide bombs on me, blows out both his legs, flamethrowers me with everything he has left, Drekker overheats but.. the knockover from the DFA registers first so he falls over.. Then the Firestarter falls over from breaking his own legs I think. Both of them laying on the ground like morons. All fifty enemies proceed to rail on him while hes on the ground of course, ignoring everyone else.. No idea how he was still alive. I'm desperately waiting for his turn so I can try and get him up and away. I finally get my chance, stand him up, check my movement options.. okay I'm going to move him two feet over this way kinda behind a cliff and I'll jump jet so I can face the only limb I have left toward the enemy horde..

..he jump jets, lands, overheats and falls over.. injury kills him.

I sat there, cursing and bitching out loud to myself, and then just stared at the screen for awhile. I was actually having a good run up until he did that.

Yes, I did restart the mission because F that. It was my own stupid fault and I only have the four original pilots still. I'm not going to honor a death like that. I did go on to complete the mission after another try or two, full bonus rewards, but for the first time I had to eject a pilot, and Drekker was near death again as well. In the end it cost me $400k in repairs for two mechs, I lost a cockpit mod + and two LRM15++s, plus weeks and weeks of injury time. I accepted this result. That mission sucks.

My Dekker is the god of LRM. He sits behind the line and lobs 3 sets of LRM20 at the enemy. He is invaluable to the cause.

I instinctively disliked Dekker at first like everyone else, I suppose mostly because of his flakey starting Spider, but he quickly became my dedicated spotter/sensor lock pilot in the ShadowHawk. Eventually he worked his way up to be one of my most distinguished sharpshooters too, but uhh...

The last time I saw Dekker was also (not coincidentally) the first time I saw an SRM-Carrier. He was piloting my heavy JagerMech, and the carrier ambushed him around a corner on turn 5, almost all of the 60 SRM-6 missiles hit him at point blank range tearing up his armour, knocking him to the ground, and pushing him back into turn 5 for the next round. Because of bad terrain I couldn't get line of sight from any of my other mechs to the carrier, so when the SRM-Carrier got another chance to move before Dekker, it opened up on him and cored him out.

I was so bummed out by it, I turned the game off and I haven't come back to it yet. I know it's been that way since the table-top game, but a tank with 10xSRM-6 launchers just seems broken.

I want to play more, but the metagame is so stressful that I don't know if I'm actually having fun with it. I really appreciate the brutal-blow-for-blow wargame nature of the combat, but it clashes horribly with the story and progression mechanics that feel much softer and more personal. It makes me wish the meta was more grand-strategy and less XCOM, or that combat was a little more "correctly winnable", and less about getting constantly worn down by out of range missile fire.

My Dekker got killed while trying to " deathfrom above" a heavy quickdraw, i got killed instantly and learned my lesson RIP Dekker.

My Dekker took a headshot injury every mission for the first 5 missions. Now I mostly let him stand around behind mountains and target lock enemies. He's ok but I don't really trust him enough to turn off the weapon safeties.

@section09: Seeing this is all sorts of wrong. This is like some sort of Star Trek mirror universe thing.

I had Dekker with a almost fully mastered skill line, then it happened. A simple battle mission. Do a little recon, Dekker. Gets sensor locked. Oh no. Then I see three little ol PPC shot slowly moving across the screen. Oh gawd it's happening. Blam. Nothing left but a lethal shot made and me yelling at the screen, "What are the chances!?"

@section09 said:

There but for the grace of God goes Dekker. Mean while my Dekker's scorched bones are bleaching in the hot Detroit sun.

Dekker lasted probably twenty missions for me. He was piloting a Wolverine in a pretty standard mid-game mission. I was winning handily, one mech left to kill, he'd just jumped in close and taken out most of a Griffin's armor. I went to check on something elsewhere when I ended my turn, then came back. The Griffin had punched Dekker in the head and killed him in a single shot. Only mechwarrior death I've taken in the entire game. (I have reloaded a few times on missions that seemed impossible)

I didn’t really understand the consequences of mechs going down and the first “big” mission my MC and Dekker went down. So they’ve been out basically the whole game for me so far. Finally the two female characters that you start with died so I guess once Dekker and MC come back I’ll probably use them.

Dekker had a close call, a head shot from an AC/20. Fortunately I had put him in vigilance.

Dekker got blown up during the first "real" story mission to retrieve the Argo. Uh, I think it's taught me that I need to upgrade to bigger mechs as soon as possible, because the small ones sure do crumple under the slightest bit of focus fire.

My Dekker is great. I equipped his starting light mech with a large and a medium laser in the general crotch area. He is now a speedy mid range burst machine. I mostly have him run the outskirts of fights and clean up the small vehicles, but he's also done a good job assassinating weakened mechs from behind with the mobility of the mech. He also has the luck of a devil, somehow my much more safely positioned Medusa keeps getting fucked up instead. It's like Dekker siphons karma out of him.

Met his untimely end on the prison assault mission. A noble spirit embiggens the smallest mech.

The fucker has gotten cocky thinking he runs the show on the battlefield. It's no wonder why all of the enemies like picking away at him.

No idea what you guys are talking about. Dekker is alive and well and a valuable member of my crew.

It finally happened. 60 hours into the game Drekker finally got killed. He was hopping around in his grasshopper just shooting dudes in the back, then suddenly a half-dead enforcer staggers up to him and melees him directly in the head. Dozens of missions, dozens of kills...all lost to freakin' head punch.

RIP Drekker. The Gods of RNG hated your guts, apparently.

I still have Decker after 40 hours (knock on wood). Got him out of that Spider ASAP - I think first into an armored-up Jenner, then a Commando.

My first fatality was Medusa. Some rando mission to take out a pirate lance of a Jenner, Wolverine, and Commando. We were rolling up in four mediums. Medusa is in an Enforcer, circles behind and gets in some good close AC shots. Then his pristine 'Mech got punched in the head. First damage he took in the fight, and his cockpit is destroyed. The guy I hired to replace him sounded like he was from Space Chicago; he bought in on Panzyr because I had him in a light, trying to flank around the starport on his own to get the tower.