A little known game: Metal Fatigue

[thegayhare]

Hello all, 
This is a RTS from the publisher Zono, and talonsoft back in 2000.

The game is set in the 23 century following three brothers in a distant galaxy caught in a war between three rival corponations.  The three corponations are battling over a newly discovered planets of Hedoth that are covered with increadably valuable and advanced alien artifects. 

the Corponations Are

the brutal and sadistic Mil-Agro who specialise in kenetic technology,  and brutal direct  force.  There units are large blocky and there Milagro colors are blood red.  While the gathering of tech is a plus Mil-Agro just wants to wipe out it's compotition

The moderate Rim-Tech,  Rim tech is an even keeled corponation that wants to put an end to the war.  they figure the best way to do this is seize Hedoth so that the other corponations don't get to powerful.  They have a balanced tech level mixing energy and kinetic weapon, as well as speed and defense.  Corperate color is blue

and then there is the enigmatic Neuropa,  Neuropa is the most advanced of the three corponations.  They are built mostly stealth, and speed with a reliance on energy weapons. Corperate colors are purple

Each nation has the same basic units avalible (these all function the same way) Hover trucks (construction, energy reclimation, healing units, salvage), Tanks, rocket jeeps, artillery, tbms, fighter planes, and bombers.   However the fighting units that draw the distintions between corponations are the ComBots.  Combots are 20 story tall modular fighting robots. (for a size comparison a tank can fit in a combot's foot print)  the coolest part of the combot system is that each one you build can be differnt. 

Each Bot is made up of 4 parts left arm, right arm, torso, and legs.  and each part has differnt uses. 

say your playing Rim-Tech  you can slap rocket torso on a pair of jet legs,  a laser rifle right arm, and a katana in the left.  plus you can modify you bot on the fly.  During combat units can lose limbs and i you want you can disconect your own limb and attach an enemy one.    You could also get a hover truck to sing out and haul those new parts back to base and reaserch the enemy parts (legs, arms, torsos) for your self. (an interesting little detail, when you actualy get around to manufacturing enemy parts it's not a simple recolor of an enemy part it's a redesigned part in your corps style)

Each Corponation's style and weapons are unique. Milagros are massive blocky goraillas, weilding chain guns, massive axes and hammers, ballistic artillery and the like.  Rimtech Combots look something like Gundams mixing sheilds, with lazer sabers, long and short range missles, andthe like.  and Neuropa's Bots are more of an organic shape with energy saws, and a mix of lazer weaponsy as well as optical camoflage.

anouther feature unique to this game is the fact that your battling on 3 fronts at once.  each battle feild is made up of three plans.  Near orbit, ground and subterrainian.  each has it's own rules.  Flying units (combots and planes) can move frealy between ground and orbit.  Orbit is made up of small asteriods and is imortant as a source of solar energy.  Combots can't venture below ground (where you can get the most geo thermal power) so you are fored to rely on conventional weapons for fighting and your TBM's to carve out tunnels to get around. 

If you focus to much on any one front you can easyly be routed on one of the others forcing you into a difficult battle to retake it.

The story starts off with three brothers serving in Rimtech Combots on a dangerous patrol on hedoth prime.  the oldest brother finds a powerful artifact thats transforms the combots arm into an advanced weapon.  A fight breacks out beween two of the brothers.  the oldest saying that they should sell it to Neuropa and become rich and the middle brother saying they should return it to Rimtech as is there duty.  as they fight they are ambushed by Milagro forces and the youngest brother falls.  Older flees off to Neuropa and the middle brother is torn beween protecting his brother, preserving his own life and hunting down his tratorous older brother.  in the end he flees to saftey while Milagro captures the younger.  the game has three campains one following each of the brothers. 

I picked up this game a few years back and have had a blast with it.  I was just wondering how many folks have had a chance to enjoy it.

If your interested here is a site where you can get the demo
Metal Fatigue

[Arcalane]

I always hated subterranean combat, because eventually you needed to mass tanks and rocket buggies in order to evict the AI after you'd defeated them on the surface and destroyed all tunnel entrances.

What I found useful was using the railguns to deploy cross-shapes of recon poles. For some reason the poles can see underground when they're on the surface, and possibly vice-versa too. Really helps to flush out enemy subterra bases. Still, subterra bases can be one of your best assets, as they can be used to maintain part factories and hidden research bases.

The railgun also came in handy using it's Subterranean Bomb weapon.

As for parts, nothing quite beat capturing The Prize on Skirmish Map 28. A fully functional Hedoth Combot, unmanned, guarded by swathes of Alien Laser Tanks. If you can bypass the defenders, the reward is well worth it.

[thegayhare]

Wait what where was that?

I don't remember an unmanned alien combot?  I do remember a manned one though in the middle of a map.  Damn thing was strong  It could take a close combat combot to peices in seconds,  it took masses of bots with artillery suport to take it down and you generaly only got an arm from that.

Must have been on a map  I hadn't fully explored

[Arcalane]

Wait what where was that?

I don't remember an unmanned alien combot?  I do remember a manned one though in the middle of a map.  Damn thing was strong  It could take a close combat combot to peices in seconds,  it took masses of bots with artillery suport to take it down and you generaly only got an arm from that.

Must have been on a map  I hadn't fully explored

Skirmish Map #28 - "The Prize". It's slap bang in the middle in a raised area, surrounded by Hedoth Spider Tanks. It's unmanned, but those Spider Tanks will take Combots apart very quickly. It usually took me about 20~ or so Combots at basic-tech to liberate the Hedoth-bot.

Great thing is, since it's unmanned, you can sneak it back to base and analyse all of it. The melee claw, plasma cannon, torso w/ blaster & legs. The best thing is that either the legs or torso also pack a very powerful version of Neuropa's Self-Repair technology. Once you've researched all the bits, start making copies. Two or three can destroy pretty much anything, especially if you give them R5 or R4 pilots.

Hell, they're deadly with R1 pilots. (R1 = basic rookie pilots. Greater pilot ranks bestow defense, HP and attack benefits on the unit they're in, above and beyond it's base specifications. Rank 5, or R5, are THE BEST pilots you can get. If they're enabled you can only ever have one at a time, but they and Rank 4 units are noticeable by a banner as MilAgro, shoulder pads as Rimtech and head-fin things as Neuropa. Suffice to say, the benefits from an R5 are pretty impressive. I believe the brothers through the campaign series are all R5's, with other story-important characters being R4. You're limited to 2-3 R4's.)

[thegayhare]

So Sheridan, whats your favorite nation?  and do you have any combot teams you particularly like?

I'm a Rimtech guy myself.  I like to use 6 bot squads, three tricked out for melee, and three for weapons support.  Weapons Support units each having two Long range missle arms, rocket torso, and jump jet legs.  Melee bots generaly have one with dual weapons (a Katana, and lazer sword)  the other two have one weapon and a sheild (or if I have Milagro Axes I'll slap those puppies on) force feild torso's and blast legs.  The melee bot charge the enemy while the Suport ones pummel the target from a distance.

You know While I was working today I got to thinking of how I'd run the sequal or a mod of MF and I thought of a cool Idea. 

the story would take place just after the war,  a Neropa has a secret reaserch station on Hedoth prime.  Deep below the station  there TBM is burrowing into a hedot structure that no one has seen before.  the techs are greedy for the treasures inside.   Just then Milagro and Rimtech launch assualts, determined to stop nearopa, and the other from gaining what ever trasures ar below.  As the battle rages the TBM finaly peirces the structure, and then all hell breaks loose.  Long dorment defenses obliterate the TBM in an instant and an earthquake ends the battle above.  As the ground moves ancent hatches push threw the soil spilling out hordes of Hedoth tanks and combots.  All over the planets the hedoth machines awaken and the ancent armies take back there world.

the three nations are pushed back to orbit,  forced to shelter in there massive fleets.  How ever the threat is wose then they know.  The Hedoth war machines have studied the abandoned human technology and and have located the planet of origin.  Even as the Corponations lick there wounds in space, on Hedoth a small group of massive warcruisers are preparing to lift off.  Being loaded with scores of combat grade Hedoth combots, still in cold storage, as well as tanks.  Once loaded the ship will fly to the invaders home planet and wipe them out.

So with the corponations stuck between a rock and a hard place they have decided to  relax military regulations.  They are allowing the use of restricted and experimental weapons in the efforts to retake the planet and stop the launch.

One of the Ideas for new combot parts was one shot superweapons.  similer to the rail guns but mouned on a combot arm.  After the weapon is used the arm is destroyed and the bot takes a nasty hit to it's hit points (its restricted for a reason).  To fire  the combot selects a targit hits the special fire button,, and has to remain stationary till launch (10-15 seconds sound right?)

Milagro super weapon Tactical Nuke,  Basicly a missle silmounted on a shoulder joint.  The milagro weapon is clasicly brutal.   a straight line of site shot to the target yeilds a massive detonation that'll damage everything in it's AOE (including freindlies)

RimTech super weapon Partical beam cannon, It looks like a massive double barreled rectangular  gun. The PBC fires a stream of energy as wide as a combot in a straight line destrying everything in it's path

Nearopa's super weapon is a Gravi bomb.   Its a drum shaped weapon that'll fire a massive warhead in a balistic arc.  Once it hits it generates a massive gravity feild, quadrupaling the gravity in the effected area crushing any vehicals like a tin can ,and slowing any combots down to a crawl, as well as causing mounting damage unti destroyed of gravity returns to normal

sorry to ramble.. the bun is tired

[Arcalane]

I usually went with melee hordes in Skirmishes - mass produce basic components and basic pilots and use superior numbers of combots, throwing a few long-range heavy gunners in behind to offer firesupport.

One of my favourite models, however, was the "Brawler". Combine the Armour Legs with the Armour Torso and two Armour Fists. The Brawler was big, bad, and smashed pretty much anything in it's way. You could, I suppose, use the H2H Legs to boost it's melee skills, but it's a matter of taste really.