The payoff was set for one choice of parts, so I wasn't going to get a full Assault 'Mech out of it anyway. As I said, I'm hesitant to do that again, at least until I've got a force that can handle it and make called shots with some hope of hitting. I was fortunate enough to get 2 parts of a QKD on an earlier contract, and bought the third part, so I had one fast Heavy to work with, the rest were Mediums and a Light. Taking on 2 Assaults plus a lance of Lights was a bit much at that point, even if they weren't shooting at me, and afterwards I needed about 2 months of down time while my heaviest 2 'Mechs got replacement sections and my second-best pilot recovered from 2 pilot hits.
Since then, I've added a Marauder and a Catapult, and just took out the "smuggling" Dropship in the campaign (managing to string out the opponents with a fighting retreat, and take them on one or two at a time). THAT was a brutal fight, and this time I had one pilot incapacitated (but survived) and another with a single hit, the QKD lost a side torso and arm, and the Catapult lost its CT, which in the TT game would have resulted in an unrepairable wreck reduced to spare parts. I was essentially reduced to fielding a pair of Mediums and a pair of Lights, and one of the replacement pilots was barely above a rookie, until the repairs and medical treatment were completed.
I notice that taking a leg off an opposing 'Mech causes a knockdown, but oddly doesn't reduce its movement very much on subsequent turns; in the TT game, it would be reduced to a mere 1 movement point per turn (hopping, or dragging a wrecked leg behind) IF the pilot managed to pass a very difficult piloting check (automatic success in this game), and then suffer a HUGE penalty on any future piloting checks. Damage in this game really doesn't seem to matter much, until something is totally destroyed, while in the TT game, performance degrades significantly with such critical hits.