DLC Review - Mechwarrior 5 Mercenaries - Heroes of the Inner Sphere 

PGI's refusal to take inspiration from other mechwarrior games is their biggest flaw

i really enjoyed this dlc, adds alot to the game that i like. I can also say that my favourite mission so far, by far, was the final steiner quest from the dlc, as you basicly engage in one massive battle alongside the fifth lyran guards to take down rebels who have assault mechs and artillery support, and a nuke. Felt like i was actually part of a massive battle!! Also, beachhead is the most fun mission type, but i wish there were mission types that were like the final steiner mission.

I miss Nav points. And being able to order my lance ahead of me to objective

100% about the beachheads and adding waypoints, as well as for sure needing mech equipment flexibility and more immersive mission varieties. I hope so as well that they continue adding unto the game. Perhaps going as far as making the game like Bannerlord; creating your own house or wiping out the established houses!

Even this lack of control could be used to the game's advantage: are you into a command mech with advanced electronics and communication gear: great, you get a grid, waypoints, detailed maps, advanced tactical commands. Are you into a bruiser with no advanced electronics: a lack of info with the ability to only get ordered around as a "penalty". That would make lights true scouts that really are useful beyond the speed. All this would fit right in with the lore. Alas, maybe in another year or two with conversion mods this will finally be a proper battletech game.

The downside to this game and dlc is I still feel I had more control and customization over my lancemates and mechs in MW4 Mercs. The missions were faaar better scripted and mapped in MW4 Mercs. I do enjoy this game and I'm hoping more comes in the future to improve it further. This dlc was a step in the right direction.

Positives i noticed with update/DLC: Faction specific dialog, force composition, paint, etc is all better, feels more like you're fighting a unique opponent. More friendly ai in battles, and the beachhead dropships O.O. "News" tab finally starts bringing the lore into focus like it should, especially since now its time sensitive and syncs with your career experience, so you feel the context better. Id say worst part of this is the teasing of how great this could be...hopefully it will be. The skeleton of the game is solid, and I believe the possibility for eternal DLC is a way better investment than $90 mech packs.

Pretty sure Mechwarrior 3 had grid map ai control, we seem to be going backwards in sense of game design.

Your gripe about mission variety is spot on. I was so pleasantly surprised when I ran the final mission on the Dragon quest (stumbled across it, had no idea it was a quest), and that was the first time I realized I felt really engaged by a mission in this game. Just created a real contrast, showing how generic every standard mission is, and how repetitive they become if you run them 2-3 times.

100% agree with the review. The base game is almost there, but it still needs improvements. It's such a close "winner" of a game. My recommendation to my game circle still remains: Do you like Mechwarrior, - NO? then don't play. - YES?, then play, knowing that it's not perfect. Improvements to the meta-game are also needed. eg, like inside the dropship. Make things upgrade-able, start with only 3 working mech bays, and buy more later. Improve the repairing speed. etc.

Frankly losing the HUD mods was a blow that almost had me delete the game, David's HUD mods made the game playable. I am sick of PGI's forced updates that remove commonly loved features added by fan mods because PGI was too non-visionary to do it right themselves.

As a modder, I find that the weapons as a whole are a bit lack-lustre. Chem lasers are probably the best, I like them a lot, very powerful. Mech rifles... just autocannons with low cooldown and low damage, quite literally a 30 minute modding job to add myself. There isnt even any new weapon models to differentiate between ACs and MRs Stream srms... I made them myself. Nuff said. Short burst lasers, same thing, you can control duration and damage with just 2 quirks. 10 second change per weapon. Hopefully in the future, they are more creative with their weapons. Im loving the equipment tho.

My thoughts on the weapons: the mech rifles are great as they allow good ballistic builds on mechs that really couldn't afford the weight in the past. They are also the opposite of their AC counterparts (the larger the rifle, the farther it shoots, which is a nice balance in my opinion as it's kept in check by the slower rates of fire). For my part I use the rifles almost exclusively over ACs, and the heavy rifle has more utility than the gauss in my opinion (especially as it's half the weight...more heat, but still) The burst lasers are okay, but only really the tier 5 versions. Their rates of fire are faster than pulse lasers, but you're taking such a hit to damage output that I'm not sure the dps will make up for it. I use them mixed with regular lasers if I'm really worried about heat on a given mech as they generate less than a standard laser. The chemical lasers are also good when you're worried about heat as the trade off for ammo is ahead of the curve compared to heatsinks. More heatsinks are needed than ammo tonnage, so if you're okay with the drawbacks, they're also worth throwing into the mix. I hate the stream fire missile launchers and only use them if they out tier my standard launchers. I just think my damage on target is always less, could be just me, but it's my perception on how effective I've been with them. The streak is a tough one. As they're going with lore and only the SSRM-2 is available it's a tough call...unless you've some crazy SSRM boat build in mind. They have the fastest rate of fire of any SRM by a wide margin, so I guess there's a build for that if you want. I haven't done it yet, but I think a Kintaro with the appropriate quirks would be interesting. I'd definitely want them on a faster mech rather than a slower one... As far as the non-weapon equipment, I haven't tested the ECM enough yet, but I think it just has a reduction effect on the enemy's hit probability or range. At least its stat breakdown in the mechlab seems to point that way. The active probes are useless to me and just waste tonnage. I know what they can do, but given the behavior of your lance and the enemy AI, it just doesn't matter. It's the same with the sensor quirks you can unlock: they're just unnecessary with the game the way it presently is.

We really need to be able to command the AI lancemates more. Ideally we could open up the map right click on a point, have drop-down menu open. And in that menu have a selection of commands, like Attack Move. And hav extra ones show up if the cursor is over an objective, adding extra commands like "Destroy Objective" or "Defend Ally" if you do so over an allied Mech you want to keep on the board somehwy.

Some great points Phil, there is a good bit of room for improvement with the DLC. Career paths could definitely be expanded upon: currently there is no dialogue or true interaction in Cantinas- just pick up a side job or discard a side job. There does not seem to be a real career path...it just kind of just adds secondary/tertiary objectives to your missions and gives perks/bonuses for completing them...which is nice, but again this could be much more. Starting position/faction on the star map could add other benefits like MW4 (special access to uncommon weapons/equipment early on, C-bill bonuses, etc.) ...or confer some additional bonus for doing missions with your 'favored' faction. I remember that PGI early on said something about wanting players to have a more in-depth experience with factions so that if they continue to complete missions with a given faction there would be some additional merit there rather than just switching sides whenever the pay or negotiation points are better...have not seen much of a change there really. When career mode was first announced I think folks were also hoping for some scripted missions specific to each House in the Inner Sphere...as it stands starting position does not confer an entirely unique experience in this regard either. Depending on play style it will take some time to even come across the hero quests if you are doing a blind run. -As for Beach Head that gametype does need some work. Something interesting that I noticed though was that artillery would mostly aim for you the player and not lancemates...so as long as you order your lancemates to keep some distance from you during the strikes it does make it viable to rig up atlases for all your lancemates and head out in something a bit lighter in the 64 KPH range. - I think most folks would agree that special equipment is not widely available enough across the various mech variants. Same problem as before with the core game before the update (example being AMS.) good luck finding something to mount it. You are more likely to find mechs outfitted with superchargers in systems with pirates/periphery realms though. I have seen a couple of them in Kuritan space early on alongside mechs rigged up with rifles as opposed to autocannons. -No Full Instant action with all weapon tiers...this really should have been included standard in the game as tier 1 weapons really limit what you can do in higher difficulty missions. Hopefully that mod comes back for the current version of the game. - And PGI still really needs to fix what appears to be 'z-fighting' on terrain for AMD 6000 series video card users... DLC or no DLC it really is an eye sore.

Being able to take control of any pilot in your lance at any point would help , taking control of your light mech? And then switch back to your heavies? Maybe?

go Elite dangerous and call the career path engineering upgrades, tie it into what Fahad can do. He has been messing with mechs all his life and these are just some tweaks he has come up with but needs certain parts or tech books. The missions are you nabbing them, functions the same just sorta ties in better and gives Fahad a little love

Impressed to see a genuinely honest review. I was expecting a somewhat "Fan boy" promotion of the game and I was PLEASANTLY surprised that he didn't pull any punches about what's wrong with this game. Keep up the good work.

I very much wanted to start as a pirate, I imagine it would be very difficult but its the pirate life for me.

I wanted to be part of the Taurian Concordat and show those pesky Capellans what, "Hippity-hoppity get off my property" means. But alas, PGI... 🙄

Because the devs really went with the MW2 Merc mission system, they should add multi mission story jobs. They dont have to be big, but must be coherent, like it must happen on one planet, on multiple front maybe, with some small dialog to connect them together. Good counterpart example from MW2 is the Free Mutiniers story. That was a blast how they hire you to slowly break the Curita tirany (or maybe Liao), under the radar of course, not a full scale war, just guerilla missions.

Orders for AI lance mates should be expanded indeed. It's very frustarting that I can't order the AI to protect me or any other human/AI players, to stay away and use long range weaponry, to attack certain locations...etc. Also the fact that I can't see and compare useful mech stats like max structure/armor points and see the hardpoint sizes in the mech bay and in shops just by hovering my cursor over them is pretty frustrating too. All you can see is how many hardpoints they got, current weaponry, speed and armor. Basically I have no meaningful way to compare mech variants apart from buying every single one of them and go to the equipment screen for every single one of them and write stats down. I find that pretty ridiculous in 2021

I have mixed feelings about Beachead, sometimes it works out really well and is a blast but the issue is most times it's the opposite and I could see how it would turn some players off completely. I wonder if the guy that did the Mechcommander mod would be able to modify it into an overhead objective system for your squad, so if you bring up the command system it goes to that view then you give your commands then return to the cockpit when done.

"Mason, this is Rex over" 30 years later, still in head......

I agree with the "career path" which could be lots of other things. In a way you would almost say it is a reputation for headhunting/collecting/etc. So in a way it could be like a infamous/famous system.

For beachhead missions I've noticed some variance in what triggers the artillery. And sometimes there isn't any artillery active in the mission...there may be pieces present on the map, but they don't fire. I start by hunting arty first thing now, rather than going for the antennas, and yeah, it can be a hassle to keep your guys in line and not have them run off attacking what you don't want them to. I constantly spam form up on me, annoying, but it works most of the time. Also, if you can target the artillery (you can't always, and when you can it's a good indicator that it will become active later in the mission) you can have your guys prioritize attacking that. I've been playing around with finding out what triggers what and when on different missions (as I like to explore for salvage). I've found that on the defense mission (usually the ones that don't have a health bar associated), as long as you don't come within 200 meters of the mission icon, you're free to explore the whole map without triggering the rest of the mission. The game's got its flaws, but I wouldn't be 80 hours into it already if I didn't at least like stomping around the maps a little.

I am enjoying Heroes of the Inner Sphere a lot. I bought the highest tier package for MW5 on EPIC but then only played it a couple hours because I was invested in HBS BT at the time. Once the DLC for MW5 came out, I really started the game from scratch in campaign mode and I am having a great time exploring it (about 12 hours in). I am not bothered at all by the more restrictive Mech Lab relative to MWO. While the Mech Lab in MWO was fun, it also caused balance nightmares in that game and took away the uniqueness of Mechs and variants. Part of the core of MW5 is finding new variants and using them to fill certain roles in your lance. I like that. I am a huge fan of the Cantina system. I appreciate the improved AI of both my lancemates and my opponents. I like the variety of biomes and missions. Of course, there could always be more of both. I am satisfied with the weapon variety and if anything there are more Mech chassis and variants than we need for a good game.. I do agree that we need more control over our lance. I hope that we will get that in the future. I also would like more scripted missions and hope to see that in future DLC. I am disappointed that infantry did not make the DLC. I would have loved to see manned bunkers, demolition teams and APCs carrying infantry as part of the game. I know it is being released as a official mod so maybe I will get to see those things someday. Overall, I am pretty happy with MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries with the Heroes of the Inner Sphere DLC and I think it is well worth the money spent.

The fact that there ISN'T an Eve Online style Battletech/Mechwarrior MMO yet is a freaking crime... 😕

You are too afraid of the MW community. New players, players new to the MW franchise, is loving the game even on console. Heck, even a lot of people who originally didn't like it is now loving it with the DLC.

I love the Pirate idea. The goal would be to become the most hated/feared pirate within the IS.

I think the standardization of the mechs is based on Canon. There are variants for a reason. HOWEVER,,, there needs to be a way to customize your mech. It may cost you time and C-bills and/or specialty parts. Not all mech should have masc, ecm, and every “special” item. Especially if you start on the periphery. Customizable mechs is the name of the game, but finding parts can be a headache. Just some thoughts.

Guess we live in an age where the modders are better developers than the actual developers.

One thing I really hate with beachhead: I use a Warhammer, 2 PPC SRM6. the artillery guns take 6 PPC hits to damage/kill, OR 1 large laser hit... how can a large laser kill a artillery gun in 1 hit but it takes 6 PPC hits?!?!?!?

I totally agree with you, whenever I do a beach head mission, I expand the map move to the closest objective and wait for artillery to fire so I can plan my route to the arty.

I agree with all your points, well said! Feels like PGI is wanting the mod community to make up for what the game core game is missing, which unfortunately is the way several developers are going - give you maybe 70% of what you want in the game, then let the mod community give you/ fix the rest. And the craziest part is, when asked, the devs state we didn't have the time/ resources to make that happen, even though they have an entire professional (we hope) team behind them. Then, a sole mod author comes along and in just a few weeks, in their spare time, delivers on the experience you were looking for that again, an entire professional team, couldn't.

You made very good points

The Rifleman storyline had an extremely unique final mission as well.

Extrasolar is normally one word but it means outside the solar system, so would be just a free floating moon somewhere I guess. I do agree they could of just said moon biome, but eh.

Yes, we need modded commands to attack air units, attack turrets attack tanks, and also to find and destroy target objectives. I wish there were also more random targets of opportunity that aren’t part of the standard objectives.

I enjoyed the content loop of the EGS release and the addons have really elevated it. The first time I played a Beachhead I was all smiles and excitement. My only fear is like the EGS release it will run out, the replayability is extended but ultimately finite again.

I want a Solaris dlc....make a stable of Solaris mechs n become the most famous gladiator in the inner sphere....plus like everyone else I want a clan invasion dlc...we defend the inner sphere from the rampaging clans and take part in the battle for tukyyad....this dlc is a great start and I'm looking forward to the next ones especially if they are what I want :-)

I've found the Short Burst Lasers very effective for my AI lancemates. I notice a definitely improvement in their combat ability compared with an equal tier non-SB laser. I also prefer them for myself, but I don't think it's as big of a difference as it is with the AI.

Could anyone advise me where to find the hatamoto mech?

Huh, I never noticed any bodies flying around and I don't know how many buildings I have blown up by now.

Good review, thanks Phil. For my part, I still can't believe it took PGI 18 months to deliver this, and that there's so few scripted missions in the quests.

Speed is a key factor in beachhead mission, no doubt about it. If You are playing alone so I believe that the artilery will focus on the player instead of on AI pilots but I might be wrong. So my point is I never head in issue with beachhead except for my first experience when I took 46,8 Kph assault mech, I suffered a lot in that mission but that is part of the teaching experience. Sometimes the beachhead is too easy for me but I understand that there are also new players with low skill so PGI must consider that as well.

PGI's reason for such limited customizations is also stupid as well. If memory serves it was something along the lines of "We could imagine every single variant a player can come up with in order to model the mech". Given that already IS possible and it does show up on the mechs when you put different sized weapons. It's already in the fucking engine, they just plan to sell it as DLC later down the line.

That’s my biggest gripe. You can’t order your lance mates to a grid on another side of the map. It’s just follow me, go to (a visual) location, and attack. Other than that, I’m loving the DLC

One of the positives of the DLC is how the difficulty scales later in the game. Level 90 missions are absolutely insane as far as difficulty and I absolutely love it.

The humans getting sucked out of the biodome things is both funny and fucked up at the same time, lol.

Being able to pull up the map and click where you want your lance mates to go would be huuuuge beneficial. I’m a new pilot on Xbox. And the first thought that came to mind was "Why the hell can’t I issue go to orders on the map"

I keep thinking back to playing MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries when I was 13. Took a contract in the early game where as soon as you get out of the drop ship you're set upon by a couple of pirate mechs. Got absolutely blasted and lost my mech, the whole time going WTF! Once it was done though I was like "They set me up, so cool!" In both Mercs 2 and 4 they had all kinds of great missions like that...

ECM on the mechs that can take it are beautiful. The SLDF royal stalker that comes with it is a monster of a machine and it's a colossal pain in the butt to hit. That said, the restrictions for the active probes, masc, superchargers, ecm, ect to specific variants (Without being able to add our own, hell the add-your-own-quirk system means we should be able to) is super frustrating. Regarding depth and substance..... Roguetech for HBS's battletech, it changes everything wildly. Doing the same for MW5 would be making life better for everyone.

You should play all of the dlc campaign mission there was a beachhead mission that was crazy, i can guarantee you that the developers never played that mission, its the mission where you first kill some 7 artillerie and then take over the base, suddenly there like 20 more art and they can shoot into the base. unless you field some jumpjets and play mario you flat out die in the base. My Atlas with armor+ quirk was just pummeled to death.

Just started playing and lack of command options is erritating. And the fact that you could only deploy one lance at a time is kind of disappointing

I actually really like the Beachhead mode but I do agree it has some clunk that should be worked out.

How about unlocking MASC, ECM, etc. through the career paths for mechs. Do such and such "Mech Hunter" mission and now you can use an upgrade to unlock BAP on any Mech.

Hmm. They could call it Tech tuning, Job upg blueprints etc

I think mechwarrior 4 is superior in almost every way. Remember the arena in MW4 that was fun as hell, and my biggest peev is the mechs are CRAZY limited with the electronics. I havent gotten the DLC yet and still like the game because it fills the void, but im sure its going to be short lived. (68hrs of gameplay)

How I've mitigated a lot of the problems with the ai is with the hero trebuchet with beagle and LRM Highlanders. You can run as fast as you want to the objectives and still have support. I also wish the map was more topographical than, "hey here's a barrier and then a 300 meter drop that isn't indicated."

Personally I love the beach head missions. But I do agree its sucks that you cant give orders to your lancemates to take out the artillery or the comm array's. I did a beach head mission with heaviest fog setting with the early morning time setting while on a mars like planet. There were 9 artillery emplacements with air support and ground vehicles everywhere. All my mechs had 50+ kills each. We were all heavily damaged almost critically. It was the hardest beach head mission I ever did but also my favorite. I felt like a soldier at Normandy as I was being shelled and hit on all sides while trudging through the smoke like fog. It felt awesome it felt epic. I will admit I was using the marauder 2 (my favorite mech) which is an assault mech and it was tough. So anything less will struggle even more. I will also note im playing on normal difficulty. I agree beach heads can be annoying. I see the issues. But for those intense missions really do it for me. They make me feel like a mech warrior god of war. No other missions make me feel so badass and that's why I've come to love them despite their obvious faults

A year down the line…… I haven’t seen any of the original. I have 2 hero Urbies, a hero Commando, Griffin and a Shadowhawk. And a Raven that looks pretty cool.

Could Yrrot implement anything like your waypoint system? It sounds like you're describing basically what your mechcommander mod already successfully does. Maybe Yrrot could apply part of the mechcommander mod into the fps mw5 where you tap a key and shift into a bird's eye 'Commander Mode' where you can click and order your lance around. Tap the button again and resume control of your mech.

Everything, even the DLC feels half-baked. We have less features, options, and customization compared to way older games. Not being able to order squads to go to the objective is incredibly lame. The hardpoint system is way too rigid. I get what they are going for but at least let us move around points from arms to torso if we want that extra range of movement for a cannon or something. Learn from the old games, and stop with the randomly generated missions. Most of them suck. The memorable ones are the hand crafted ones. They dont have to go all in, just hand touch the mech fights at least and fix how they stream in. Its so annoying to have a tank get stuck way out in the map and the mission wont bring in new enemies until you go and kill it. After that you get a trickle of mechs coming in who all get focus fired. Dropship enemy drops are ok but need to happen more often. I agree on the new weapons too, would have liked some more creative ideas for guns, not just what feel like variants.

Still sad Solaris arena battles aren't a thing. Best part of MW4. The beachhead missions are cool but still don't really like them when playing solo with how dumb the friendly AI is. I was mainly disappointed when I went into one of the hero story arc missions labeled as a 'campaign' mission in a Stalker. Walking that slowly towards the angry howitzers and the glowing red seas of death was soulcrushing. Then the game had the nerve to start firing a second hidden group after I finished them off...

Im currently playing this dlc (check my 50+ missions playlist) and i have been playing the epic version before with mods such as the mechcommander. Without mods its definitely less fun, but the update improved it a bit. Other streamers like Phil here, or Baradul and TTB have shown some great gameplay aswell. Overall i miss the promissed infantry the most. Waiting for Magnum to update his great MercTech v2 mod... Without that, i feel the standard mechlab just is not as good as it sounds on paper, less so the new equipment. BattleTech with the huge RogueTech mod adds so much randomness to battles that its interesting for a longer time.

I really liked the Archers Hero Quest. That last map was nioce

so miserable AI aside, I said this from when the base game launched; we NEEDED the ability to pull up the map and issue more precise orders from there.

bro if i buy the 2 DLC will it combine automatically I mean the missions the bioms will it combine or I will start a new carer with each DLC?

Beachhead is a drag. It is kinda realistic bc your not rly combined arms. It would be good to have a seek and destroy lance command and air strikes are cooldowns. The leopard can carry areospace fighter. It would be cool to have it as a sub contract like what the blue stars do with the devils aces. I never buy airstrike. I think they should be more flexible with tonnage. Your a 1 lance merc group. Not the Wolfs Dragoons.

Every single time I play this game I end up going back to HBS Battletech with extended commanders edition mod because I can't help but realize how much better of a merc company Sim that game is than this.

i like the game alot i play it with Merktech and other mods that make this game truly a Mechwarrior 5 we should get from the devs. Hope the devs a 3rd expansion that brings new stuff and then modders do the rest. So the game get even more expanded. Like new biomes more options to manage our company like better skill system for our pilots, better command options on field for our Ai pilots and some other that would be so cool if PGI is not done with the game and expand it even more

See people sucked into vacuum. Yeah, great, now i'll feel like a real monster when Capellans send me to destroy civilian targets.

>wearing a baseballcap AND headphones

I bought that active probe for sensor but can't find a mech that it fits on. An I missing something.

i miss the first mechassault on the first xbox .... that was a crazy game

OMG THEY'RE LIKE MONKEYS IN A BARREL 🤣 that brings me back to mechassault, the Lil soldiers would have their limbs fly off and their torso does a fuggin flip with a little perfectly cut scream like *HUEGH*

I think the "career path" phrase pertains/refers to the upgrades you receive from doing jobs and choose to put in your Mechs to help specialize in your playstyle.... Your role in the Lance.... Your Mech Warrior Career! Haha

Exactly my thoughts on negative reputation with a house. What do they do when you're their sworn enemy? Oh, the punish you with c-bills! So scary.

I disagree in one major thing. I think the conflict zone system is absolutely dumb (maybe better than previously but still). Every conflict zone should offer multiple quests for multiple difficulty this way you could use the complete map all the time and do whatever you want. You can still unlock them by gaining reputation (or hardlock quest to certain reputation) but do not restrict them to only one difficulty. You want to be a pirate? Guess what no high lvl conflict zone for you. This is not reasonable and a very bad design at its core. Let us play however we want.

Can anybody tell me what happened to Infantry??? They said they were going to add it.

Got through beachhead in a King Crab and a Marauder II without getting hit. It is a slog in both, BUT it turns out Maruader II can jump above the explosion damage area making it a little easier in the Marauder II. lol

Nice video! Does somebody know if you can resume your campaign with all the features of the DLC? I'm in 11th mission (out of 20 i think) and want to buy the DLC, but i don't want to start over again the campaign. Anyway, i'm not sure of many things that supossedly come in the DLC. I do not own the DLC and there is CHEM LASERS in my game ¿?¿? Also, all the changes in the IA are now in the game...

This guy needs to make his own game u got so much good ideas n input your game will probably blow this one out the water

The beachhead missions need to be re balanced. I went and found ECM specific mechs (Raven, Battle Master P variant and Stalker 3F) thinking that with those mechs I can at least disrupt the targeting. Nope, ECM might as well be worthless and without the ability to change the engines, you're pretty much screwed unless you run fast heavies, mediums or lights to do the mission. Which wouldn't be an issue if you could get access to a MFB to repair or capture an enemy base that has a MFB gantry.

Way points would help the beachhead game mode out exponentially. Tried this in a bounty hunter and the only thing that saved me against the artillery was the jumpjets.

I didn't start playing this game until it came out on Steam, and honestly my biggest complaint is that there's no thermal vision. I'm a simple man, I know, but it really bugs me.

Couldn't agree more on the points, some mission randomness/unpredictability (or surprise mechanics) would make MW5 so much replayable PS. Not to be confused with EA's sinful "surprise mechanics" x)

I tried the import from the old game before the update and it did not work. However, it did import from a playthrough career mode after I completed the campaign, but it was not as good as I hoped. So the best way is to just start a new career. I am on a second playthrough and this time I started in Steiner space. First career/campaign was from Davion space. No, it is just an upgrade for the mechs. There is not a "real" career path per see. I wonder if I can do the campaign without starting in Davion space. So I will go there and see after I get enough CBills for transport. I need the HUD mod and a transport mod(lowers cost to 1k per leg) and the mod for Hero mechs availability, and the mod that gives you the ability to go to lvl 30.. Also, the BH Atlas does not appear to be in the game. There is a quest where you temporarily help pirates. It is ok but watch out for that damn Kurita quest that makes you use a 50T max team or alone. It is easier if you watch Baradul and see how to do it easier. Otherwise, you end up frustrated. They need to ramp up the story part of it. It is not up to par as far as the game could be. I haven't seen the Marauder II yet in game. Banshee 3p is a great mech. Atlas D is as good as it gets for Atlas in the game. Battlematser 3 G and 1P are excellent mechs. I got beachhead figured out now. So it is fun to do now:) I miss the old MS Mechwarrior commands like in Mechwarrior 4 Mercs. I could tell each merc what to do with simple commands and it worked. PGI is lazy.

I don't care about spoilers. can someone please tell me which quests reward what mechs. I can't find a guide for it.

good review mate, I agree way points yes needed and required, formations yes required (ie move most wounded to rear, or form firing line, use basic armor old school formations PGI), different objectives yes (ie keep me *interested* suggestions??, take out the prepared infantry positions, head hunt commander in the field (assassin), attack rear area troops in holding area, and lots more??) AI is well less than good when I'm putting out damage figures of 1.8 - 2 k and my ai is under 300 each and I'm in a smaller mech and we arrive at location together ??? use of scouts??? maybe recon missions sort of like the last part of the dragon missions but not bait all the time. defend convoy or guard vip maybe but you would have to work on the AI to make it viable to follow waypoint orders, my opinion is the DLC is a welcome addition, but has it's flaws.

Can you acces those hero questlines from base campaign?

I agree with the video ; mechwarrior 5 is fun but the potential for it to be really, really good is right there. That's what frustrating about it the most. It has the systems already in place, its just tweaks on most stuff and some nav additions + more mech customization and you're there.

On the whole, the Cantina upgrades would be better if they could be permanently applied to a mech like a modification that only is removed if the chassis is sold.

Importing a save doesn't import your cold storage, if you value your collection

My biggest issue with MW5, is the inability to give the AI pilots target priority. The lighter mech in my Lance should be taking out the turrets and the vtols etc, not me in my atlas or archer 😅

The lead up to the Orion hero was a little different.

I love your intro music. It gives me TMNT2 vibes :)

Can you customize your mechs in this like armored core?

I miss MW3 kinds of missions so much I'd love to see a remake of the game.