Been a while, but I just recently have finished the main campaign. In the process my UR got all sort of additional tools, which naturally ended up becoming quite for improvising combat against the Akrid.
Without doubt, the most useful upgrade I got was the winch, essentially providing the UR the means to engage enemies at long range. Basically S-CAT Akrid get killed instantly, while M-CAT Akrids get caught from afar and brought right in front of the UR, at which point you just need to decide how are you going to dispose of the unlucky fellow: drilling him, crushing him, incinerate him, electrocute him or simply toss him to the other end of the map. I must applaud the creativity of the people that came up with these killing sequences.
The second most useful upgrade is certainly the T-ENG absoerber, that allows you to collect dropped TE without stepping out of the UR. Taking down Akrids with UR is far easier and faster with the UR, which means that the only that was left was the need to step down in order to collect the rewards, specially if there were other enemeis left around.
However, as expected, there were other upgrades that I didn't find very useful, and in the end I felt like I should have left them for last. The Double Arm Smash had limited usefulness, mainly against a few bosses which you didn't need any strategy against to defeat (at elast durign aprt fo teh fight), just some good old pummeling. Even then, it certainly didn't make a dramatic difference, or at least it didn't look to me that way. Then there's the forearm bash which I'm not even sure I ever got use or at least never got the cue to try it.
On a different note, I also tried multiplayer mode and tried a Vital Suit, and despite its simplicity, I did liked it. I did try to find more info about this VS, but it seems it doesn't even have a model number or any additional info available.
I'll comment some more on other features of the UR and VS later one.
