I play scout in my group so I constantly look at the map to check for patrols. There are times I’ll check a spot for automatons, turn around and back again to see a new pack spawn there behind my back, just standing there menacingly. When you’re in a fight and moving around it very easy to walk into a freshly spawned pack.

Clearing outposts reduces the pack spawn rates. There are patrols that spawn from there before patrolling around the map, but I think the game spawns them around the players to reduce tracking random mobs on the map.

We have one or two guys hunting outposts with grenade launchers, so about halfway through a mission we have free reign on the map with little to no patrols and other pack drops.

I think the many patrols spawning is intended, but the spawn location was bugged. My group is playing on Suicide, and with the Nuclear Radar upgrade it’s easier to see patrols on the map responding to your activity. Kill some bugs/bots at an objective and you’re guaranteed to get one patrol responding to your activity. Drop an orbital or a strike at an objective and you’re sure to get multiple patrols. In rare instances I’ve seen a patrol spawn right on top of us, like literally blink into existence, but the patrol itself wasn’t the issue.

Using stratagems constantly, getting 30+ kills each one you throw, and still the enemies never stop coming.

That’s why the enemy keeps coming. My theory is that the game director responds to your activity. The bigger yours actions, the bigger the response (orbital > eagle > support > primary > secondary). To keep this from being an infinite loop, I would guess the director has a reinforcement budget. The game “going back to normal” was the budget running out. It would make sense if the budget scaled with the size of the squad, so a player dropping could explain why the reinforcements ran out at that time, or it could just be coincidence.

Manipulating this system is how my group clears the “impossible” civilian rescue mission vs. bots on Suicide. If everyone stacks on the extraction area then it gets overrun with dropships within minutes. But if three people run around outside the civilian extraction area, making as much noise as possible and kiting the reinforcements around, then the drops are pulled outward and the extraction area stays mostly clear. One person is the Button Man and focuses on summoning civilians while killing any stray bots in the extraction area with as little noise as possible. Eventually there will be some drops in the centre, usually when the Button Man runs out of secondary ammo and the distraction crew runs low on orbitals/eagles, but the objective is usually 80% done by then and we can converge on the middle the get the last few out and extract.

The spawning can be a little goofy. I specifically remember a level 5 mission where we were wrapping up and 4 bile Titans spawned. I didn’t think they spawned at that low of a level.

I am sure there’s something funky going on, but idk exactly what it is.

The longer a mission goes on and the longer you stay in one placethe worse it gets. I think what’s happening is while you’re in combat you’re attracting more patrols who are triggering new bug holes which spawn in and if you don’t clear them quickly they might call in another but hole. Moving around seems to help as they target hot spots but I think all of that is working as intended.

All that said I’ve certainly been in a mission that bugged out spawns where we had 12 chargers at one point and every one we killed two or three more would take it’s place.

I’m not sure if it’s a bug or if it’s just poorly balanced but yeah sometimes my squad will have to abandon an objective because an absolutely overwhelming amount of enemies will spawn. I notice it moreso with the Automatons but maybe that’s just because swarms of Bugs are a bit easier to deal with.

It kinda seems like patrols keep showing up which means breaches/drops keep happening. Maybe they should change it so patrols will avoid you if you’re already engaged in 2-3 breaches/drops.