Funny, but I completely disagree with Pulse Mech being a weak mech. I just started playing the game and my first and only win so far has been greatly facilitated by using the Pulse Mech as an unstopabble shield dispenser. I spent my cores on both its shields upgrades and being able to push vek away from building WHILE shielding yourself AND buildings AND allied mechs is priceless, specially if you consider that shields prevent ANY amount of damage. Saves your ass when dealing with hive leaders.
I was going to say the exact same thing. Rusting Hulks is my favorite squad by far, and the Pulse Mech's unlimited utility is the biggest reason why. Right out of the box it's moving enemies or allies all over the map. Value of enemy movement increases as you get more smoke down, too. My best run ever (in the week I've had the game lol) I had the pilot that gets two attacks come out of a pod, and after my first island I bought the swap gun. Upgrading the shield dispensers and this mech became laughably good. Even without all that extra stuff it's by far the best third mech I've played with.
Starting with Silica in the leap mech is absolutely hilarious. I thought it would have very fringe usage but found myself double jumping almost every turn. Its nuts!
TBH at first I thought that skill wouldn't be that great or that using up two cores would be overly limiting but I've moved it around a bit and it's honestly a killer skill on any mech that has a weapon involving movement. With the combat mech you can combine punch and dash (or dash dash); it's incredible with the swap mech... and like you said, get the range upgrade on the jet mech and you're going all the way across the board and dropping 4 smokes. Silica is the best pilot I've played so far and only Henry (skill moves through enemies and gets +1 move with first level up) even comes close. Well, no, starting the battle with a shield is extremely good on any mech and game breaking on ice mech, charge mech and pulse mech. Okay, the point is there are lots of good pilots but Silica is insane.
I used 3 swap mechs for 2 of the custom squads achievements and it worked great. In my opinion the swap mech is honestly one of the best mechs for controlling the placement of vek and that capability allows it to do a surprising amount of damage. Any vek that wasn't flying was such a free kill, as I could just throw them off cliffs or into water / lava, making most alpha vek a joke.
Enjoying this series immensely. As a fan of Subset Games in particular and well thought out indie games in general, I appreciate the effort you put into this analysis. :-)
Omg! Steel Judoka is the squad I'm looking for! Im currently running the first team and I find that any of the puzzles that get me by is simply moving around enemies
@@nathanielpatterson6963 the boosters are a Fantastic alternative, they don’t cost cores, give a great mobility boost, and they aren’t so limited like the vice grip. The other prime mech weapons are crazy good because of the judo mechs base stats(4 move and armour). Now while it’s easy to shit on the vice grip, I find as long as you have a lot of movement and the map you’re on has the buildings grouped on one side, it works hella well
the pulse mech i find so fun to use on long runs just shielding everything. now, you dont kill things so it can get out of hands pretty quicly but its good fun
My go-to for Jet Mech is Bethany Jones for the survivability. Also try grabbing the "Boosters" weapon on that mech if you get the chance.. so much mobility.
@@SkipMcLazy I just did my first proper mission there, and yeah I was aggressive with them. If I had needed to though, I'd have taken the hits on my mechs as they regen. I think I took one stick of damage on the walker by blocking the ground, but other than that I took none. What kind of objectives are best to go for do you think in the early game, please? I had avoided the "Kill X amount" at first, but honestly I think it would be easy to kill 5 at least, maybe more so than babysitting multiple objectives. This wasn't an issue for me at first though. had to protect 2 things and they were fine. I think as long as you plan out your moves as best you can to get the most out of your turns though, things will probably be fine for the most part. It's great that you can try out moves and not commit to them though, otherwise it would be so much harder.
If you talk to 5 people you'll probably hear 5 different favorites. I'm a huge fan of the rusting hulks too! Super fun, especially once up upgrade the jet mech a bit
What's a typical success rate on Hard difficulty? I have roughly a 1/3 win rate on Hard, and I'm having a tough time deciding if the frustration of so many losses is enough for me to back off to Normal. I'd like to think that with experience and very clean play I could bring that number up, but I'm too new to the game to know whether that's possible. I'm also still limited in my number of pilots and squads, so perhaps the player gains an edge as more assets are acquired?
Hard still gives you scenarios that are difficult to recover from. With time and practice if seeing patterns you could get the win rate up to 2/3 or maybe even higher. More squads unlocked won't change the available equipment pool, but more pilots do give you more options to try with existing squads
@@SkipMcLazy I've won 6 of my last 7. I've started paying more attention to which enemies will be found at each island, and I'm opting for those that my squad will be better able to handle. I'm being more selective with the missions I choose, and on occasion I'll pick a mission that has only a single objective because I want to make sure I receive the perfect island rewards. For that same reason, I've been more willing to take grid damage if it means accomplishing the objectives. Finally, I've been spending reputation a bit more on utility-type weapons and abilities as opposed to reactor cores and health/speed/attack upgrades. I've found that creating more versatility in my tactical options is more important than simply making the basic options more robust.
Is Pulse Mech really considered one of the worst? I was loving that Mech on my Rustin Hulks win the other day. I had Archimedes + the shield upgrades. This allowed me to use his push\shield for repositioning VEK (or outright shielding a building), then moving across map to body block another attack.
Pulse doesn't scale though when you go to hard difficulty as while you can push around eventually you get swarmed if you don't have a way to kill mechs. But yes, pulse still can be useful, just not as much IMO. But you're not wrong, they can still be useful.
@@SkipMcLazy I have only played on Hard thus far. I think Pulse Mech gets more kills than the others haha. Bashing Vek into smoke storm, mountains, infront of each other, into pools, etc.
The rift walkers are the annoying old person at the bus stop who just so happens to be smoking on the side the winds blowing so everyone gets his second hand fumes😒
ITB has Subset Games DNA, by which I mean that, as in FTL, on the whole it's a game universe in which high damage output dominates other effects; big guns will most reliably save you against the enemy, over all other abilities and virtues. (A troublemaker might be able to draw an implied political message from that.) In this case, it's not even so much guns per se, as the prime mech attacks that deal both damage and movement at once: the FISTS win the day.
00:40 - Rift Walker
02:15 - Rusting Hulks
03:52 - Zenith Guard
06:05 - Blitzkrieg
08:48 - Steel Judoka
11:49 - Flame Behemoth
14:53 - Frozen Titans
20:16 - Hazardous Mechs
Funny, but I completely disagree with Pulse Mech being a weak mech. I just started playing the game and my first and only win so far has been greatly facilitated by using the Pulse Mech as an unstopabble shield dispenser. I spent my cores on both its shields upgrades and being able to push vek away from building WHILE shielding yourself AND buildings AND allied mechs is priceless, specially if you consider that shields prevent ANY amount of damage. Saves your ass when dealing with hive leaders.
That's fair. Depends on if you are looking for an offensive or defensive build.
with the rest of the squad, you have the offensive necessary
Try Archimedes in the Pule Mech, all that utility and then you can also body block an attack almost anywhere on the map for no damage.
I was going to say the exact same thing. Rusting Hulks is my favorite squad by far, and the Pulse Mech's unlimited utility is the biggest reason why. Right out of the box it's moving enemies or allies all over the map. Value of enemy movement increases as you get more smoke down, too. My best run ever (in the week I've had the game lol) I had the pilot that gets two attacks come out of a pod, and after my first island I bought the swap gun. Upgrading the shield dispensers and this mech became laughably good. Even without all that extra stuff it's by far the best third mech I've played with.
@@therealMolochko yeah, exactly. I think the Rusting Hulks are the most powerful squad in the game. Also, the most fun squad to play!
Starting with Silica in the leap mech is absolutely hilarious. I thought it would have very fringe usage but found myself double jumping almost every turn. Its nuts!
TBH at first I thought that skill wouldn't be that great or that using up two cores would be overly limiting but I've moved it around a bit and it's honestly a killer skill on any mech that has a weapon involving movement. With the combat mech you can combine punch and dash (or dash dash); it's incredible with the swap mech... and like you said, get the range upgrade on the jet mech and you're going all the way across the board and dropping 4 smokes. Silica is the best pilot I've played so far and only Henry (skill moves through enemies and gets +1 move with first level up) even comes close. Well, no, starting the battle with a shield is extremely good on any mech and game breaking on ice mech, charge mech and pulse mech. Okay, the point is there are lots of good pilots but Silica is insane.
"I don't need to show you spoilers, but hey, here's a spoiler."
Fr I thought that shi was hilarious
Swap mech might just be my favorite. I managed to beat the game using three swap mechs--it was crazy!
That's a crazy squad. I havent tried that one. Will have to attempt it
I don't know what that is, but it sounds fun.
I used 3 swap mechs for 2 of the custom squads achievements and it worked great. In my opinion the swap mech is honestly one of the best mechs for controlling the placement of vek and that capability allows it to do a surprising amount of damage. Any vek that wasn't flying was such a free kill, as I could just throw them off cliffs or into water / lava, making most alpha vek a joke.
Now we need the squads from the Advanced edition!
Never tried that bethany frost mech, it almost seems like a dev oversight that the self freeze doesnt break the shield. Good find!
Enjoying this series immensely. As a fan of Subset Games in particular and well thought out indie games in general, I appreciate the effort you put into this analysis. :-)
Omg! Steel Judoka is the squad I'm looking for! Im currently running the first team and I find that any of the puzzles that get me by is simply moving around enemies
Steel Judoka is my favourite squad, too. Really enjoyable playstyle
Any recommended secondary weapons for that sumo prime mech?
@@nathanielpatterson6963 the boosters are a Fantastic alternative, they don’t cost cores, give a great mobility boost, and they aren’t so limited like the vice grip. The other prime mech weapons are crazy good because of the judo mechs base stats(4 move and armour).
Now while it’s easy to shit on the vice grip, I find as long as you have a lot of movement and the map you’re on has the buildings grouped on one side, it works hella well
the pulse mech i find so fun to use on long runs just shielding everything. now, you dont kill things so it can get out of hands pretty quicly but its good fun
Based on your commentary I unlocked Flame Behemoths today. You were right - very fun!
Thank you. Your format is good and the information is clear.
Play rusting hulks with Camila on the jet. That's how you don't suck.
yep, she's invincible in that way!
My go-to for Jet Mech is Bethany Jones for the survivability. Also try grabbing the "Boosters" weapon on that mech if you get the chance.. so much mobility.
buildings immune is more important than damage upgrade on the artillery would you say? this was the first upgrade I was going to grab TBH.
Depends on playstyle. Personally I prefer the offense early game. Both good choices though.
@@SkipMcLazy I just did my first proper mission there, and yeah I was aggressive with them. If I had needed to though, I'd have taken the hits on my mechs as they regen.
I think I took one stick of damage on the walker by blocking the ground, but other than that I took none.
What kind of objectives are best to go for do you think in the early game, please?
I had avoided the "Kill X amount" at first, but honestly I think it would be easy to kill 5 at least, maybe more so than babysitting multiple objectives. This wasn't an issue for me at first though. had to protect 2 things and they were fine.
I think as long as you plan out your moves as best you can to get the most out of your turns though, things will probably be fine for the most part.
It's great that you can try out moves and not commit to them though, otherwise it would be so much harder.
for some reason, the Rusting Hulks are the ones that are comfier to use, I don't know, I simply like that mech squad
If you talk to 5 people you'll probably hear 5 different favorites. I'm a huge fan of the rusting hulks too! Super fun, especially once up upgrade the jet mech a bit
@@SkipMcLazy use Camila for the jet, that combo is powerful
@@apollyon6855 You're not wrong! Camila is my go to for jet mech if I'm not using Kazaak in the pulse mech because ... 2 melee? Can't go wrong.
@@SkipMcLazy for a mech capable of auto shielding an offense option is a good idea
Thanks for these videos man! Really helpful content, subscribed
Glad you enjoy them!
What's a typical success rate on Hard difficulty? I have roughly a 1/3 win rate on Hard, and I'm having a tough time deciding if the frustration of so many losses is enough for me to back off to Normal. I'd like to think that with experience and very clean play I could bring that number up, but I'm too new to the game to know whether that's possible. I'm also still limited in my number of pilots and squads, so perhaps the player gains an edge as more assets are acquired?
Hard still gives you scenarios that are difficult to recover from. With time and practice if seeing patterns you could get the win rate up to 2/3 or maybe even higher.
More squads unlocked won't change the available equipment pool, but more pilots do give you more options to try with existing squads
@@SkipMcLazy Then I'll keep practicing! Thanks.
@@SkipMcLazy I've won 6 of my last 7. I've started paying more attention to which enemies will be found at each island, and I'm opting for those that my squad will be better able to handle. I'm being more selective with the missions I choose, and on occasion I'll pick a mission that has only a single objective because I want to make sure I receive the perfect island rewards. For that same reason, I've been more willing to take grid damage if it means accomplishing the objectives. Finally, I've been spending reputation a bit more on utility-type weapons and abilities as opposed to reactor cores and health/speed/attack upgrades. I've found that creating more versatility in my tactical options is more important than simply making the basic options more robust.
@@MarkLefebvre1 I find that I do better when I study the enemies potential starting moves. That allows me to have better starting placement myself.
Isn't the Charge mech just a worse version of the Taurus Cannon?
not gonna spoil the secret squad but you made them all visible in the custom squad list.
great video thanks !
Is Pulse Mech really considered one of the worst? I was loving that Mech on my Rustin Hulks win the other day. I had Archimedes + the shield upgrades. This allowed me to use his push\shield for repositioning VEK (or outright shielding a building), then moving across map to body block another attack.
Also "Boosters" on the Jet, wow. If you can pick that up go for it.
Pulse doesn't scale though when you go to hard difficulty as while you can push around eventually you get swarmed if you don't have a way to kill mechs. But yes, pulse still can be useful, just not as much IMO.
But you're not wrong, they can still be useful.
@@SkipMcLazy I have only played on Hard thus far. I think Pulse Mech gets more kills than the others haha. Bashing Vek into smoke storm, mountains, infront of each other, into pools, etc.
@@SkipMcLazy Do you have a favorite custom team?
@@nathanielpatterson6963 Not really favorites, but usually I go custom when I wanna challenge myself. But Lazer, Lazer, Frost is a fun fast time.
Thank you!
For now I am playing with standard mech and cannon and with rock throwing artilery
The rift walkers are the annoying old person at the bus stop who just so happens to be smoking on the side the winds blowing so everyone gets his second hand fumes😒
Thanks relay helped
ITB has Subset Games DNA, by which I mean that, as in FTL, on the whole it's a game universe in which high damage output dominates other effects; big guns will most reliably save you against the enemy, over all other abilities and virtues. (A troublemaker might be able to draw an implied political message from that.) In this case, it's not even so much guns per se, as the prime mech attacks that deal both damage and movement at once: the FISTS win the day.
I don’t like Steel Judika and Flame Behemoth they suck.
This game is pirmed for phone and handheld game devices, missed opportunity
100% agreed
...it's on Switch
I dont get why it isnt on phone. You can use touchscreen on switch so it should be playable on phone
@@ringomarkkanen4257
So about that.
i got frustrated and just edited the game files so most of the bots do 10 damage and the bugs do 0.
these are some pretty bad takes NGL.