Great changes not only for combat balance and friction smoothing, but also for giving the GM punchier decisions around force composition. The extensive design notes explaining the purpose and reasoning behind very change really elevate this from “just” mechanical fixes to a 5/5 sourcebook. Love the Assault, love the grunts, love the Veterans.
I’ve yet to actually play a game of Lancer, but even from reading the core rulebook there’s been a bunch of awkward/confusing design decisions that have stuck out to me (why does the Archer have three abilities that are different takes on the same concept? what’s the point of the Ace? Cataphract huh? what does the Priest even do?) and this book fixes all of them and then a bunch that you’d only feel through playing. I have a few differences of opinion, but ofc it’s trivial to keep using the existing core version in those cases (Size 1 Guardian is fine), or use my own fix informed by your well-explained reasoning on a similar issue elsewhere.
(Ex: imo the core Mirage’s Multiplicity ability is cleaner as “save or tele-dodge”, so I think I’ll keep that but add a chunky heat cost to the Mirage and/or rescued ally so the player is more tangibly burning enemy resources & rewarded for applying heat pressure.)
The only major choices I disagree with are for the Demolisher. I think it’s actually fine if the players choose not to interact with it by never going within 4 hexes of the objective it’s guarding, and meaningful that the stock Demolisher is the only defender without Overwatch — if players want cede zone control by walking away from a Demolisher that got next to them, the Demolisher is still doing its job. Likewise, the rocket hammer dash optional feels like it negates the fundamental question that the class asks players (“Do you want to be in hammering distance, or do you want to be somewhere else?”). My preferred solution is give it the Pyro’s Explosive Jump Jets; that allows it to redeploy without giving it 8 hexes of surprise reach (unless piloted by an about-to-be memorable Veteran).
(On the other hand, the idea of a Demolisher being deployed to guard a gate and then ripping that gate off of its hinges to throw at someone to stop them from breaching the gate they’re guarding is extremely funny.)
Special thanks for cutting the Scourer’s Flash Lens option. I’ve been working on a minor faction specializing in lasers, optics/RF, and ECM in general. Obviously, their signature line mech has to be a Scourer. Obviously, if anyone is going to build a jamming suite into their standard combat mech, it’s them. But… even having never run a Lancer combat, I got the feeling that e.g. 3 Scourer + 1 support + 1 defender + 1 controller would be hell if every Scourer could draw a 5 hex cone of “your mech no work”. I’ve spent hours going back and forth between “but they’re the SigOps folks!” and “that’s too much shit for their basic mech to do, I need the complexity budget for their support/controller!”. Now they’re getting Emergency Vent and I can stop thinking about it. Huge relief :)