Hm thats a pretty tough call.

What does sound more appealing to you, something you'd enjoy driving for months on months end? If you didn't have to worry about NIC, what would you choose?

Basic Robotics 5
Basic faction weapon 5

That's what you need for mechs later anyway (or was it 4?).
Stay with this until you got for example the fitting and energy extensions to 5 too (you will need/want them later for mechs too). Once you got them, you will very likely have no NIC problems anymore too . So "small" Mechs like Kains aren't a biggy if you lose one (except full T4 fit *g*) when used with T1.

To start with PvP light bots with full T1 fits can be fun too ^^. And if you lose one ... farm some new T1 stuff from NPCs .

I would do both. I skilled up my combat character that way, as well as putting alot of points into Ewar. It takes you longer, but you're not hemmed into one bot. Nothing would suck more then your buddys going out to do something and you can't go along because you can't pilot the type of bots they are. Plus, for light stuff, I still farm in my baphomet mk2. My seth with 3 stabilizers and percision firing 9 still doesnt kill lights as fast as my bapho. For assault bots and up though the seth wins out.

Mechs can be handy on roams, but assaults are just more versatile in a lot of ways. With the upcoming nuke of lwf and buff in bot base speed, mechs will be slower and light class stuff better able to dictate engagements.

If you intend to solo, you're more likely to get people with an assault than a mech thanks to 25% higher masking. Big difference. You also have higher base speed, which you can exploit with expensive gear. But you are less likely to kill rivelers solo in an assault (correctly tanked riv can get to nearby outpost before you can kill it thanks to plate demob resist and huge buffer) than a mech.

So if you like solo ganking, assaults would be the better pick (masker, demob, amp, gunz, lwf, resist plate, repper or second resist or evasive module). If you prefer bigger engagements a mech has the range and tank advantage, but a light or assault can still be viable given sufficient speed and skills and good gear.

We use assaults heavily in engagements and while we're bad and our stats are awful we like assaults for their ability to fit a variety of useful gear on inexpensive bots. Every time I take one out I find it can do something else neat and cool I'd have never known just by looking at the stats.

After the lwf change, the only thing assaults could use is a buff of ten or twenty points to masking so that they're more useful as sneaky gank bots. An actual covops bot would also be cool, but assaults should be slightly better at it.

Do remember that a well fit and piloted light can take you down in your assault, and that you will never outrun ewar tackle in an assault (although you can take them down before the gang shows with enough range and a lot of luck). Your best defense when solo is remaining unseen.

Mechs are the assault of the medium class, and a Kain can be very dangerous solo. Your list of viable targets will be higher, but you're more likely to die solo as most tackle (light and ewar) can catch you. We don't really use them, but in a gang theyre invaluable as a high range support unit that can pound stuff from a distance.

What upcoming change?

probably in IRC... where the discussion came up some time ago when Alf was online.

like anything DEVs talk about in IRC - nothing set in stone, just a bit of what could be future change. Further discussions or thoughts within the DEV-Team can change that in a matter of minutes

btw, LWF discussion has its own topic