Desperate Measures

MechCommander: Desperate Measures was released in 1999. Set immediately after the liberation of Port Arthur, the player once again assumes command of Zulu company in a campaign to liberate the desolate planet Cermak in the Periphery, taken by a renegade Smoke Jaguar,Star Colonel Marcus Kotare (a character that was featured briefly in MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries), for an unknown reason that is revealed later in game.

Once again, the player starts with inferior Inner Sphere mechs (pilots and mechs from original campaign cannot be exported into expansion), though both mechs and pilots are better than in the start of the original campaign.

The expansion features a total of three campaigns. Aside from the missions, the expansion also includes a new soundtrack, new landscapes along with redesigned and new buildings, new weapons, three new mechs for each side—Stiletto, Bushwacker, and Mauler for IS and Shadow Cat, Nova Cat and Turkina for the Clan, and new vehicles including Alacorn, Pilum and Regulator tanks, as well as ammo trucks that also doubled as mobile bombs and Centipede scout vehicles.

Desperate Measures also acted as testbed for the concept of custom NPC mechs that had their own names (like Kotare's Turkina), weapon configurations and overall superiority to the standard modifications. This idea was carried on to, and greatly improved in,