Comments - Autohummer

I have replayed that mission and some of the things I have said above are inaccurate. The last time I have played Exodus was more than a year ago, after all.

Firstly, the fastest way to get the convoy rolling is to salvage the Hunchback in the pirate base and run it to the rendezvous marker. It is imperative that you get the convoy rolling ASAP or else the clanners' main forces would see the convoy. Note one of the Ambulances is actually inside the walled complex containing the Hunchback.

Secondly, there are only three enemy mechs in total that you need to defeat in this mission: one Hunchback and one Firemoth in the central part of the map and one more Firemoth at the extraction point. You should not engage anything else if you are doing this mission properly. The main problem is the Hunchback and its AC/20. The Firemoth has very little firepower. Depending on what mechs you have bought at the beginning your current force may not be enough to defeat it without serious damage. Use the Hunchback the pirates gave you to even the odds while your main force tangle with the central group. The lone Firemoth at the extraction point is only there to trip up players who neglect to scout ahead.

The last time I played that mission, the clanners attacked the base then fought each other. Afterwards the survivors will not tend to move from the ruins of the base. Unless you dally with making contact there should be time for the convoy to get out of sight of the clanners. The enemy in that mission seems to be fixated on destroying the first target they see, whatever it may be, regardless of the circumstances. So if they saw the convoy first then there is nothing you can do to stop them from being destroyed. I am downloading the latest version now and will check if that has changed.

Regarding the Wolf forces blocking the extraction point, I usually tie them up by sending a fast mech to engage them immediately after the mission starts and then get to the base with the other (slightly slower) mech. Salvage the Hunchback and run everyone to help the fast mech now being attacked by several Wolf mechs (this is doable since the Wolf rearguard consists only of light mechs.) If the entire thing is done fast enough the clanners would not be able to see the convoy first/are too fixated on something else to care. I admit, I have failed/restarted this mission so many times that I have to use "premonition" rather than tactics/quick thinking to win.

I would recommend deliberately dragging that mission on for you to build up a resource base. In particular, you should let the shipyard gradually repair itself rather than helping with repairs. For the initial Vaygr attack, just send some interceptors (evasive) to buy you time for the bigger guns to arrive.

BTW the mission where the Dreadnought misfires is even more difficult-I had to edit the files to give the dreadnought 10x health to make it.

I see. That's another way to solve this problem.

The problem with mission 13 (Balcora Gate) isn't that serious, perhaps due to me using the Dreadnought as a sponge, but I imagine it would be very difficult if the Dreadnought wasn't modified. Even with "cheating" I still lost both my battlecruisers and a battlecarrier and assorted capitals fighting off the main attack. The attackers on the power modules were easily taken out by 1 strike cruiser and 5~6 plasma frigates with strikecraft cover, though. The most difficult module to defend is the one on the horizontal plane, right next to the main Vaygr fleet, which would take potshots at my ships.

I have yet to see the ADW firing anything in mission 15, maybe I will replay that level later if I have time.

I ended up completing it by adding a zero to the Dreadnought's health, ie multiplying it by a factor of ten. It was a bit excessive, though, So I would recommend multiplying it by five or less.

I made the Dreadnought so resilient that during the final battle with Maakan that the only other thing that could stand up to his Dreadnought was mine. And they were merrily blasting each other with the big guns for minutes with little effect until I decided to capture the enemy Dreadnought. I was also surprised to see that the two dreadnoughts could do in a planet killer in 2-3 shots each, and I was so fast that they never had the chance to deploy the ADWs. This is quite interesting and (plot-wise) realistic, though, as Progenitor technology is supposed to be very powerful and durable.

(I hope I haven't made this comment too late for additional changes to be feasible or made you feel that my comment is too unreasonable, if so, disregard the rest.)

I am blown away (literally and metaphorically) by all your excellent work, but I have only one minor comment about this particular model: Is it possible to remove the eyepatches for this model and/or that of the Renegade Commando? I understand that eyepatches add to character and makes him/her more distinct, but two female special units with eyepatches has caused me to mix the two up quite often for some reason. I know the eyepatches are on different sides of the eye for those two, but my brain just somehow couldn't process it for some reason. Apart from that, I just can't wait for the next release. :)

Excellent work for integrating so much content into only playable package. I am doing a campaign playthrough now and it is extremely challenging to say the least. I have encountered a problem in Mission 9. The Dreadnought has already lost ~70% of its HP in the cannon misfire, but it is immediately attacked by swarms of missiles (most likely frigate class. They are fired BVR so I couldn't see who was firing them.) This left me with at most ~2.5 seconds to react before the Dreadnought explodes, or ~5 seconds, if I skipped the fleet intelligence briefing. I am unsure if this was intentional or not, as my fleet wasn't exactly massive in the last mission so the difficult scale shouldn't go up so dramatically. (admittedly I did build a few extra Strike Corvettes, a strike cruiser and a light carrier to deal with the Keeper Drones.)

If you are blocked by GF like I am, you can try a workaround by copying the "download now" link, and adding "/all" after it. This shows all mirrors available for use.

For instance, use this link to see a list of mirrors for this file:
Moddb.com