There is support for a lot of level 2 (both IS and clan) equipment, support for hover, wheeled, and tracked vehicles, a new minimap, a new mech selector, optional double blind play, a completely new AI opponent, limited scenario support, and many other bugfixes and small feature tweaks.
Equipment (weapon/heatsink/jump jet) critical hits should now actually disable the equipment, and blk files will now load under Java version 1.1 (Microsoft VM).
New clubs & hatchets, map selection, basic server administration & logging, ability to leave & rejoin a game in progress, basic team support, support for two more mech file formats, and many more bugfixes & improvements.