Games Thursday : Titans of Steel - Warring Suns (Freeware Mecha Wargame)
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Titans of Steel : Warring Suns, the commercial sequel to the previously freeware Titans of Steel by the same developer Vicious Bytes has been released as freeware by its publisher Matrix Games since February 2008.
Being a fan of the original game, I must say Titans of Steel : Warring Suns’ definitely a much improved game although the notoriously unintuitive management interface has been carried over from its precedessor - newcomers will surely be confused by the usage of the next and back arrows to navigate through the management portion of the game 
Beneath that interface lies a relatively deep and complex turn-based mecha (“Titans”) wargame where you can nurture a team of rookie pilots (“Jocks”) as they are sent into missions or campaigns against AI opponents.
Skill points can be distributed between the piloting, combat and miscellaneous skills (333 points each) and attributes can be improved by using the same number of skill points from all three categories per point. While improving attributes help increase base skill levels and maximum skill levels, a jock with high attributes but low skill levels is not likely to be of any assistance to his comrades on the battlefield.
Your jocks can only improve with combat experience by participating in any of the included campaigns and missions via Solitary Game > Start New Game > Load Team from File > Select Map > Load Mission / Load Campaign. I recommend the first campaign as a good introduction and target practice for your inexperienced jocks. Press F10 for mission objectives and optionally E for exit zone.
After a few missions, you can assign them to battle AI opponents in random maps to further boost their experience, attributes and skills. Credits earned after completion of each missions can be used for purchasing, repairing or customizing your titans with a selection of weapon, armour and equipment upgrades as well as for recruiting additional jocks to your team to a maximum of 8.
The in-game tutorial is very much recommended to grasp the finer points of titan piloting and combat before you even start creating your own team of jocks. Reading the included PDF manual is also a must if you intend to fully understand the significance of each stat and skill for your jocks as well the critical differences between the myriad of weapon and armour choices when buying or upgrading your titans. It’s only 48 pages long so it won’t take too long to read or at least glance through the contents.
A word of advice though, the rookie jocks and recon titans that you can recruit while assembling your team are at most one third as skilled as Tiger I and his Cobra light titan that you control the tutorial so be prepared to adjust your expectations or you might be severely discouraged when you see the dismal hit percentages when the actual slugfest begins
Thankfully the combat module of Titans of Steel : Warring Suns is a blast to play with the difficulty much toned down from the previous game - I still remember my team of jocks who would consistently fail at least one third of the movement skill checks and bruising their titans before even entering firing range of the enemy. The helpful auto-move feature also alleviates the tedious micro-management of the previous game while you’re advancing under relative safety (Alt + Right Click).
The event-based turns get a bit confusing at first as turns are assigned to jocks when certain events occur, e.g when any weapon on his titan are recharged and ready to fire (press x) or when his movement order is complete or even when encountering a new enemy titan (press (w,u,e), etc. After playing a while, it really becomes a very efficient and powerful way to manage the titans in your team. Pressing F3 can interrupt the jock’s current order for reassignment of new orders but may require a skill check while aborting the current order.
The clean functional graphics and sounds are nothing much to crow about since the main draw of this game is the RPG aspects of progressively upgrading your team of jocks and titans. The ungainly interface and relatively long battles (at the beginning when you have a team of rookies with equally crappy titans) mean that it’s not for everyone but for those with more than a passing interest in turn-based mecha combat, Titans of Steel : Warring Suns is a definite must-try.
Download Titans of Steel : Warring Suns 1.2.1 from Matrix Games.
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