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[PCHunter]

I played through DLC 7 post October update and have the following observations: both the Campaign and Career paths are harder, however the first has become exponentially more difficult. To summarize, the update makes AI players more like human players in that they will fire weapon groups more effectively. Before they didn't really alpha strike nor did they fire groups of weapons within or near their effective ranges. This is why your lance mates seldom out scored you until the mods. BTW, when I did this all my previous mods failed so I did the Campaign in Vanilla mode with the exception of an enhanced zoom mod. Also, your lance mates are supposed to be better path finders, but I found them getting trapped often. I got through the Campaign successfully, but suffered far more damage and losses than the first run before the update. I chalk that up to more effective weapon usage by the AI and the player focused agro that has never been addressed in the game from the start.

Career was where things took a nasty turn. Mission options are similar as the Campaign as are the ratings/difficulties. However, these missions are not scripted so you will be easily overrun by numerous swarms of Clan mechs, mostly lights and mediums, along with the usual tanks and flyers. Their appearance seems almost indiscriminate. Also, there are no repair bays as in the Campaign. Campaign missions generally send in waves of enemies with breaks for repairs plus you generally have a number of AI ally mechs for additional damage and armor. Another fun possibility is that a Clan will send in a strike force to hunt you as if they're a rival Merc band, and they are never allies. Like a rival Merc might be. What they generally drop will easily wipe your lance.

As a result, I added another mod for Repair Bays and Enhanced Repairs that will repair all your allied mechs with the one visit. Their appearance seem random, so you never know when a mission will have one. I think larger maps with larger bases are most likely to include one. This saves having to transfer to each lance mate to repair them. Next I will look for a mod to reduce enemy swarms including mechs, tanks and flyers. The problem is that missions not involving Clans are fun and more challenging as is, so they do not need nerfing, IMO. The Clan missions are fatal unless they are less that 100 rating. Those are possibly do-able.

That's my reaction so far.
Cheers, Mechwarriors!

Edited by PCHunter, Yesterday, 12:56 AM.