How does all 3 DLC change the Campaign?

[Astral Projection]

- finished main Campaign just after release
- just got all 3 DLC on xmas sale

Starting a new game. How much does the DLC change the main Campaign and the Career mode (which I have not tried)?

[Wolf Knight]

campaign - no change. it only changes the random missions you get, has no impact on the story missions, you will not encounter any of the DLC mechs in the story missions.

career - you will encounter the DLC mechs in random missions, but collecting them does not count toward your career score. the flashpoints will start showing

[MortVent]

You will also not get the flashpoint missions till after all the story missions in campaign mode without modding

[wesnef]

Yeah, most of the DLC content - the new mechs, new mission types, new enemies, new terrain maps, etc - just get mixed into the random contract generator. New gear will show up in the stores.

Flashpoints don't start in Campaign mode until after the story. And there's a few mechs (Raven, Hatchetman, Bullshark) that have to be 'unlocked' by specific Flashpoints first.

[Mudpony]

As far as campaign mode goes, it makes it easier due to the access to Heavy Metal weapons/gear and how stores were changed. First planet I was on, for example, had 2 Ultra 5s for sale at the start. Bought those and upgraded my SH to use one. That increases its firepower by quite a bit.

Other than that though, it is the same.

[OrbPlaytime]

Astral,
for campaign you will probably find the biggest change is actually the free update rather than DLCs, although buying the DLCs the new maps and some of the random contracts (used in Campaign) add much needed diversity and the DLCs also give after campaign more scripted missions (which I prefer doing over just random contracts).
Without DLC lostech has been upgraded quite heavily now, with the Heavy Metal DLC you will find new weapons challenging lostech in terms of power but add a different way to approach fighting.

You will also find since you last played that in general the stores are much more common in terms of rarity items-weapons- lostech; so much so I spent ages changing all the itemCollections stores and factions and advance stores to reduce it; especially Pirate store and while a few lostech is typo'd and not available there in other ways someone messed up the weighting and now have either too much of one type or find lostech mechs are weighted to be more common relative to other mechs.
But if you never really got the chance to play with the rare cool items the updates gives you the best chance now, and you can ignore them if prefer (or try stingy difficulty).
So the structure of stores has radically changed and you will notice this a lot in Campaign when building up your initial mech lance with the travelling you now need to do and then later strong items-weapons once you start taking over the Directorate space for the Restoration; Once an area is under Restoration control all those systems in their space become Advanced stores and this has a big difference to the normal stores; again so much so you may decide to come up with a way to limit how you use them.
But you finally get to try to build nice items into your mechs if you missed that 1st time round.

Factions finally make better use of their stores but that is only after Campaign or Career.
As you are probably aware there are also new weapons (DLC Heavy Metal) and lostech upgraded (depending how you like to play you might want to limit yourself to just Stock/+ as they have been upgraded a lot along with some of the newer weapons).

[Rodrigo]

the new gear and mechs that will be found thru the campaign will make things a whole lot easier, as said before the campaign elements arent changed, but just the new weapons and mechs will affect how hard it used to be then and now.

[Ichthyic]

I'd say the only dlc that adds content that could seriously affect how the campaign plays out is the Heavy Metal DLC. soooooo many uber OP weapons and mechs, and so easy to get! would basically make the campaign a roflstomp.

most of the equipment and mechs added by the previous dlcs were ok. pretty well balanced overall. but not the new ones. very fun, but totally OP.

[MinenSpecht]

You will get access to Black Market and endgame weapons and mechs early. This can completely destroy your gaming experience. Its because of Heavy Metal DLC.

[Ichthyic]

there are mods already out there that fix that, btw. I highly recommend getting one of the store mods that resets the stores to what they were like before HM dlc came out.

you will still find parts to mechs, but rarely whole mechs, and usually only 1 or 2 parts if you use these mods.

one is stricter, and resets the stores to the vanilla mode before the dlc came out flat, and the other kinda goes halfway, and allows a few more mechs and parts and gear to be available.

[OrbPlaytime]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

there are mods already out there that fix that, btw. I highly recommend getting one of the store mods that resets the stores to what they were like before HM dlc came out.

you will still find parts to mechs, but rarely whole mechs, and usually only 1 or 2 parts if you use these mods.

one is stricter, and resets the stores to the vanilla mode before the dlc came out flat, and the other kinda goes halfway, and allows a few more mechs and parts and gear to be available.

Could be handy for those that do not want to mod the game themselves.
Do you know if those mods added the new weapons-items/mechs to the stores or truly pre 1.8/Heavy Metal in all ways?
Also might be handy for others do you have the links for the mods.

[Ichthyic]

check the mods. there are descriptions on each. search nexus for "store" in the title.

ezpz

[Astral Projection]

Hehe you guys aren't lying about the new gear in starting area. Going into "Liberation of Weldry" (4th campaign mission?) with Victor, Cyclops, Warhammer, Marauder.

That's fine I can blaze through the Campaign then start a Career mode.

[Ichthyic]

I find the sandbox mode, with all the mods that are available, to be endlessly replayable.

if they would add a map editor so we could create our own custom maps... that would extend it even further.

[Rodrigo]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

I find the sandbox mode, with all the mods that are available, to be endlessly replayable.

if they would add a map editor so we could create our own custom maps... that would extend it even further.

imagine a huge ass map with several objectives and armor repair points and ammo, i mean no structure repair or replaces, either do well or do nay.

[Ichthyic]

yup. adventure mode activated.

I could create some awesome gauntlet style maps, with traps that require teamwork to bypass for example.

I really don't think HBS has put anywhere near the creativity possible in creating maps for the campaign, let alone the career maps.