So beta is out.
The actual core engine/gameplay is solid - no issues at all. Controls are decent, though the UI is very nonspecific. For instance, you have a heat bar (of course) but the weapons show the hit %, damage.... but it's anyone's guess as to what total heat sink capacity is and how much each weapon adds if you fire it? OK, kind of critical.
There also seems to be literally only one tactic that works right now which is drive behind a mech and shoot it right in the ass. Everything else is futile. Long range weapons tickle and do nothing. Even an Atlas can do literally nothing unless up someones tailpipe and even then, in a hilarious display of puzzling gameplay decisions, nearly all your weapons will still miss A HEAVY MECH despite being literally next to it. I mean look, I get it's 'tacticool combat' and all that but still, that's kind of silly.
I also haven't quite figured out if PPCs even do anything yet, they just seem to always miss. Besides that, sometimes you randomly 'proc' placed shots and/or if they fall down - not really sure why or how, but other than that there appears to be no targetting of specific components (at any range), things just tend to hit the stuff you are closest to.
The balance and mechanics of the weapons and armor are very odd still, though because mech designer is not in and there's no way to tell what the relative skill of the crews are (only fixed mechs and crew available right now), it's kind of difficult to say beyond first impressions if there's just unfinished balance work to be done or if maybe the default shit is just terrible and not optimized.
I also don't like the randomized voiceovers, kind of because the UI is illustrative, but not actually informative. The mech pilots will say something like "I'm injured" to literally everything from two points of damage to 'left torso exploded, mech fell over and I'm about to get executed by a Catapult'. Similarly they say things like "severe armor damage" but it doesn't seem to correlate to anything specific damage points or part damage on the UI, but who knows.
So it needs work, at the least the engine and combat system FUNCTIONS fine. If they add real numbers in to all the UI components, fix the balance issues (why does an atlas not instantly vaporize a light mech if it hits with ac+4 med lasers +SRMs???) then I think it will be a fun game.