Update: 7.016 hotfix for a goof I made that had all mark-levels of enclave only getting mark-1 drones. Also some other changes from last night, but no time for a full blog post for just a few things, focused on TLF during the day.
Glad to see this fixed. My expensive Merc Enclave was so severely underperforming, I was wondering if it was actually an AI unit in disguise.
But the Enclave nerf overall... 45% reduction to the Mk IV? Sad Toranth. Need to play a bit more to see how bad it hurts, but my first impressions say 'a lot'.
Mentioned it elsewhere, but I think the Sabotage hack cost change may have been too much. Before, the per-unit cost of Sabotoge didn't reach 10 until the 5th hack. So the player basically lost the ability to do those first four Sabotages, for any given HaP expenditure. Doing those 4 hacks used to cost 16 HaP total, now costs 150. A player really willing to shell out the HaP could do 8 or 9 Sabotage hacks - not a whole lot, considering most AI systems have multiple things that can be Sabotaged.
Dealing with AI Types like One Way Doormaster, Fortress Baron, Grav Diller, Peacemaker, or Shield Ninny benefited from Sabotage's ability to do something about all those annoying AIP causing goodies they got. Even at the previous Sabotage pricing, your Hacking Progress were never enough before. And now, they're rather less.
Instead of 10 base, maybe 4 or 5? That makes the per-unit hack approx 10 at the third hack (5th before, 1st now).
The Exotic AIs seem to have gotten a bit of an unintended-buff/nerf in this patch, too. Now that Reprisal waves are separate, the Exotics actually get something from those points. Previously, that extra strength just went *poof* somewhere. On the other hand, lack of free starships seems to have cut the Exowave budget a little, especially in the early game.