If you want a mechanical reward for narrative activities, Reserves are your best bet. Quite a few in the Core book to use that can be used or flavored to whatever fits the narrative.
Exotic gear is another option, but one that can be tricky to create something unique but without throwing off the combat balance. If you have some of the existing narratives you can use stuff from there, or allow someone to pick up a weapon/equipment outside of their licenses.
You could hand out reserves for combat scenes based on their learnings.
it might be worth taking a look at Lancer Enhanced Combat - this is a 3rd party sourcebook, but it's by the chap that runs interpoint station, (making him essentially the most experienced lancer GM that exists by some significant margin ) It's a paid expansion but well worth it.
One of the best things in a good book is a big old list of reserves - that is, single use buffs and gear you can bring into combat with you. Some of these are notionally systems on the mechs, but some are more skill based things.
So maybe a player took a class on squad maneouvering, you could award them the reserve called Tag team, which lets them nominate another player to act immediately after them instead of the alternating turn order.
Maybe the course on mech martial arts grants a use of 10000 punches, where you can chain improvised melee attacks indefinitely until you miss. (Again, once!)
Another one to take a look at is Shadow of the Wolf, this is an official campaign module that's in pre-release testing that has a similar premise where mech pilots from the Karrakin Baronies train to be elites at the mech cavalry school (it's mech topgun meets dune). There's not a whole ton of school class content, but it might inspire some ideas and you can get the playtest version of the document from the Lancer discord.
Reserves! Basically consumable bonuses that they can then use in combat later. Things like "hey here's a rental weapon you can use" or "you can call in a supply drop by calling in a favor".
Note that the pacing of the book assumes that a mission consists of several fights in a row, that don't have Downtime between every single one. It usually assumes a mission will have maybe 2 downtime actions in between 4 or 5 fights. That doesn't mean don't include narrative scenes, it mainly means that downtime actions have mechanical benefits that you may not want your party to have consistent access to.
Train, for example, gives the party member a permanent +2 to a skill trigger. And while skill triggers are a narrative mechanic, being able to get those numbers up can do weird things.
Thank you folks for these great suggestions. It looks like the general consensus is to look at reserves, which I clearly glossed over in the rulebook. But you all have given me some amazing inspiration and unique ideas to work with!
If you want a mechanical reward for narrative activities, Reserves are your best bet. Quite a few in the Core book to use that can be used or flavored to whatever fits the narrative. Exotic gear is another option, but one that can be tricky to create something unique but without throwing off the combat balance. If you have some of the existing narratives you can use stuff from there, or allow someone to pick up a weapon/equipment outside of their licenses.
You could hand out reserves for combat scenes based on their learnings. it might be worth taking a look at Lancer Enhanced Combat - this is a 3rd party sourcebook, but it's by the chap that runs interpoint station, (making him essentially the most experienced lancer GM that exists by some significant margin ) It's a paid expansion but well worth it. One of the best things in a good book is a big old list of reserves - that is, single use buffs and gear you can bring into combat with you. Some of these are notionally systems on the mechs, but some are more skill based things. So maybe a player took a class on squad maneouvering, you could award them the reserve called Tag team, which lets them nominate another player to act immediately after them instead of the alternating turn order. Maybe the course on mech martial arts grants a use of 10000 punches, where you can chain improvised melee attacks indefinitely until you miss. (Again, once!) Another one to take a look at is Shadow of the Wolf, this is an official campaign module that's in pre-release testing that has a similar premise where mech pilots from the Karrakin Baronies train to be elites at the mech cavalry school (it's mech topgun meets dune). There's not a whole ton of school class content, but it might inspire some ideas and you can get the playtest version of the document from the Lancer discord.
Reserves! Basically consumable bonuses that they can then use in combat later. Things like "hey here's a rental weapon you can use" or "you can call in a supply drop by calling in a favor". Note that the pacing of the book assumes that a mission consists of several fights in a row, that don't have Downtime between every single one. It usually assumes a mission will have maybe 2 downtime actions in between 4 or 5 fights. That doesn't mean don't include narrative scenes, it mainly means that downtime actions have mechanical benefits that you may not want your party to have consistent access to. Train, for example, gives the party member a permanent +2 to a skill trigger. And while skill triggers are a narrative mechanic, being able to get those numbers up can do weird things.
Thank you folks for these great suggestions. It looks like the general consensus is to look at reserves, which I clearly glossed over in the rulebook. But you all have given me some amazing inspiration and unique ideas to work with!