It's tedious, and tactically very simple. Most battles end up boiling down to mechs just trading blows until one side falls down. It's not *entirely* mindless, since you want to set situations where all 4 of your mechs can fire, and only one or two of theirs can fire back. This often isn't difficult since the AI tends to send lighter, faster mechs in unsupported.

The problem is the smart way to play is to only choose missions where you've got a large force advantage. A challenging battle means you'll lose mechs, or at least lose mech parts, and the repair costs will completely negate the pay you're receiving for the mission. So you choose missions where you won't take serious damage, and it's boring.

There's a little bit of strategy in equipping your mechs, but mostly you fight battle after battle with the same force, gradually accumulating enough money to buy stronger mechs. This takes a *long* time, since mech pieces are expensive, and you'll usually only see 1 of the 3 pieces you need in a store. Even if you can afford a mech, you have to travel from system to system, hoping you'll find enough pieces to make a whole mech.

After 23 hours, I realized the battles just weren't forcing me to think at all, and the gradual improvement of my forces was too slow to be interesting.

It lets you play 3 battles in 6 hours, amazing!

fun