Aside from equipping your mech in Perpetuum Nic your robot's strengths and weaknesses are also determined by how you build up your "pilot". This is set from the start via the choice of alliance your pilot has and focus on what skills your "pilot" should have. You can further determine this in-game every time your character levels up. Perpetuum uses a more customization friendly setup because the game let's you choose the "skills" your character can acquire.

While the customization of the mech is pretty thorough, the avatar creation is on a whole different plane but not in a good way. Yes you can "tweak" your avatar's look you don't really see it in action. The only use for your avatar is for the headshot of your character shown in your "character screen" and that's about it. I should also add that your character's headshot is comic to look at. It's pretty obvious that Avatar Creations didn't really put a lot of effort in the avatar creation compared to the other "customization" aspects of the game and that's forgivable in my book since you won't really bother with your avatar in the long run.