[h1]It's Not That Complicated[/h1]
OK, the main issue with Mech Engineer is that people don't understand how to play it. Things are indeed not very well explained, and I was initially at a hopeless loss myself. But after 2 hours or so you get it. And once you do, the game is [i]great[/i]. I dropped Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 to play this, and I never looked back.
With that out of the way, there are two more issues I believe are worth mentioning. One is that the [i]combat[/i] UI is atrocious. Eventually you figure it out, you understand what's actually going on, what you can [i]do[/i] to make things go a different way during missions, and despite how awful it looks, in the end it [i]works[/i]. As with the rest, you eventually get used to it, and then it's no big deal.
The second issue is the saving slots. There are only 3 of them, the game automatically saves over the last one you used whenever you move on to the Next Day, and if you get defeated your latest save gets automatically deleted. So what happens is you have to be [i]very[/i] careful about in which slot you are saving your game, and you also need to Alt+F4 whenever you want to Load, because you can't exit to the main menu without overwriting your latest save.
OK, 3 issues. But don't get discouraged because, as I said before, once you learn how to deal with that stuff the game turns out to be really, really good. After the first completely-at-a-loss 2 hours, I enjoyed every second of it.
As to [b]the game itself[/b] -- because looking at the screenshots I couldn't quite tell what it was actually about either -- this is how it plays:
You build up your Mechs, adding a Reactor, Motors, a Cabin, Auxiliary Components and multiple Weapons to them, select their Armor layers, add some Coating, activate (or not) their Energy Shields, add a Melee Drill to the models that accept it, all while taking into account in which environment they'll be used (Ice, Lava, something in between, or underwater) and then you send them to the Hangar.
In the Hangar you'll choose what Pilot will drive each mech. Pilots can grow up to level 10, acquiring a maximum of 3 Perks each, out of 10 or so available.
Once your Mechs are ready and manned, you get to pick what node on the world map you'll send them to. After choosing a node/mission, you can then select what type of enemy each mech will prioritize killing. Once this is done, you can dispatch them and the actual mission will begin.
During the mission itself, a double left-click will order your selected Mechs to "auto-complete the objective," causing them to move on their own towards completing the mission. Otherwise, you can right-click to order the selected Mechs to move to a certain position and stay there, or middle-click to order them to attack a specific target. In any case, your Mechs fire at enemies on their own, automatically, reloading when they run out of ammo and shutting down for several seconds if/when they overheat (something you'll seek to prevent from ever happening when building your Mechs).
Basically, that's it: you configure your mechs, man them, and send them into the actual missions. If you win, you'll get some resources as a reward. But there's more to the game.
In the Engineering tab, where you build your mechs, you can (and must) also configure Weapons and Reactors. Each type of Reactor works differently, so I won't get into details about them. Weapons, meanwhile, can have one particular mod out of 8 or so that changes how they work (more penetration; faster bullets; spread-shot; etc.) and you can freely distribute some 20 points among their attributes: Rate of Fire, Weight, Energy [consumption], Accuracy and Damage/Penetration.
There's also a Production tab, where you'll order new Mech frames, components and more to be crafted. Anything you craft has a cost in materials and also in Engineers, with these being the real bottleneck of how much stuff you can craft.
Engineers are kept busy, and thus unusable, while they are already assigned to craft an item. They'll only become available again once that item is finished. And they are also needed to [i]send[/i] Mechs from the Engineering tab -- the ones you fully configured -- to the Hangar. So they are quite important.
Besides Engineers you also have Research Teams, which are used in the Research tab. This one is rather typical, containing a medium-sized tree of new techs available for you to unlock.
The Hangar tab is divided into 3 sub-tabs: Calendar, Pilots and Mission. In "Pilots" you assign pilots to your Mechs; in "Mission" you see the world map and send your Mechs into combat; and the Calendar tab itself is divided into 3 other sub-tabs: one that shows the calendar itself, and what will happen on each following day; one that shows the results of the [i]previous[/i] day; and one that shows [i]your city[/i].
In the City sub-sub-tab (yeah, they didn't make this very easy for players to find), you can spend resources and Components (something else you can craft in Production) to upgrade some 70 different sectors of your City (your base, which, BTW, can and must move over the world map). Each such sector improves some aspects of your city, such as Energy, Food Supply, or Wounded People. You can hover over each one of these to get a pop-up telling you what they do, so you can choose what to spend your resources on. Also, some city sectors give important bonuses when upgraded, such as "reducing the time it takes to craft items on Production." (Don't overlook these; they are essential.)
And... oof! I think that covers most of it.
Oh! As time passes, boss-monsters will spawn all over the world map and start chasing your city, rather quickly leading to a point where, if you are not strong enough, you [i]will[/i] be overwhelmed and defeated. I lost the game once like this, having no old-enough saved-game available left to fix the situation I got myself in. On my second, winning playthrough, I was [i]very[/i] close to being overwhelmed and defeated again when, doing everything I possibly could, I finally managed to complete the main objective.
I was very skeptical when I considered buying Mech Engineer. I had it on my Wishlist for quite a while, let some good sales pass because I couldn't move myself to get it, given how puzzling the game's screenshots are and how many reviewers there are saying the game is too "user-unfriendly," but damn! am I glad I finally bought it.
This game is actually [i]brilliant[/i], and it's [i]really fun[/i]. I absolutely loved it. If you can be a little patient, and endure some 2 hours of being completely lost before you finally start figuring out how everything works, and you like tuning up stuff, finding out the most efficient solutions to problems -- the most efficient configurations for your Mechs -- you'll have a blast with this.
I'd even say those "3 issues" I mentioned at first only [i]add[/i] to the charm of Mech Engineer.
100% recommended to people who like both a challenge and using their brains.
(P.S.: There's a concise Manual and a Bestiary available in the game's UI. You [i]can[/i] make do without the first, but should probably consult it about certain details. And you'll [i]need[/i] some information from the second.)
