Space Rangers 2 is...different

This is the sort of game that drives genre purists nuts. I was just finishing the tutorial, and so far I'd played a space trading game with some wonky turn based combat. Fly around the galaxy, buy and sell, get better guns to defend your stuff with, then get better ships to hold more better guns on, we've all been there. Here's where the weird sets in.

Most space games give you a static map, but in Space Rangers 2 everything moves according to some version of Newton's laws, albeit with some rather extreme velocities. This means that planets actually revolve, and it's not particularly uncommon to fly across a solar system only to end up several days behind the world you were aiming for.

This might be the first game I've ever played where I have to lead a target just to travel.

The same thing is true of combat, you have to figure out where your enemy is going to fly to, so you can fly there as well and then beat on their hull with your nasty space guns. Of course while this happens planets are zipping around, you might accidentally be struck by a passing asteroid, and if you fly too close to the sun you explode. So at this point we've got turn based tactics and economic simulation combined with astrophysics on crack all in one game.

So anyways, I was finishing the tutorial, running a couple simple trading missions introducing me to the concepts of buy low sell high, when I was prompted to go through a planetary invasion mission. I clicked yes, and the next thing I knew I was staring at an honest to gods RTS. No joke.

I was given command of a factory to churn out robots, my enemy on the other side of the map had a factory to produce robots of their own, and there were some resource buildings in the middle. OK, I'm playing an RTS inside the turn based tactical economic/hyper astrophysics sim. That's perfectly normal, right?

Heeding the old saying "When in RTS land, tank rush" I immediately clicked on the 'build robot' button. That took me to the unit creation screen.

Now I was building robots inside the RTS inside the space sim with wonky physics and clever tactical combat. Actually the system was pretty cool, there were different chassis, a variety of legs/treads, and a nice variety of weapons, ranging from Gatling guns to nuclear warhead that destroy whatever robot carries them. One module jams enemy radar and at the same time protects from nuclear weapons. Not only can't they find you, they can't nuke you either- pick one up for the paranoid survivalist on your Christmas list today!

So I assembled my robots, and rolled out to blow stuff up. On my way I noticed a button that say Direct Control. Naturally I pressed that one. Amazingly enough, that allowed me to directly control the selected robot with mouse and WASD keys. It wasn't particularly deep, but on the other hand I was still circlestrafing other robots with lasers, and that's a win in my book.

Now I was playing a mech sim inside an RTS with unit customization inside a space trader with quasi-real physics and tactical combat.

Amazingly, I am making none of this up.