Idea
This might sound odd but why not give away all new mechs and weapons for free. Hear me out! Still have your five star version at 100 quid or whatever but as you drop stars reduce the price to a 1 star version that is absolutely free. This would help with marketing as you can legitimately say all your latest content is free. This won't affect whales as they still would but top tier stuff but f2p and pocket change players would get to play with very weak versions and let them decide to upgrade or not. You'd get quicker userbase feedback as more people would be using without affecting balance in my opinion.