Voted yes this is a good way to test new strategies and make more unique tactics adding to the enjoyment of battle variation

Yes, at least some people see the good in this idea.

My testing grounds idea:
Build a mech out of every item in the game, and build a computer controlled opponent also out of every item in the game. 3 gameplay types: manuevering, agressive and defensive.

agressive: will never shutdown unless forced, if out of range or energy for guns, will walk, jump or charge.

defensive: when heat critical shows up, opponent will shut down. if heat shield is on and heat reaches over 50% of max heat, will shut down.

Manuevering: will use grappling hook and knockback swords, will use legs to escape range of high level weapons opponent uses, or will teleport away.

CONDITIONS:
- test grounds will not effect wins/losses
- there is no rewards or xp for using test grounds
- you can only use test grounds for a certain time (30 or 60 minutes) a day.

what he just said.
Voted yes.
Obviously...

Yes, they can get a "push up" from my Artillery


God forbid anyone actually does any reading in the shop - and those who don't understand that the shop is the most important aspect of the game, those who think it's some shallow flash robot thing, those who don't go on the forums - they are the ones who bought my 6 builds and counting

The "Paypal warriors" keep this game up and running, and deserve respect..

kids these days don't read. I see "Murderface1999" and he's obviously really a 14 yr old kid, and plays as such. Super Mechs demand an organised mind and forethought, a bit of reading and whatever time you have. There is the option to pay and advance more quickly, however SM is (currently) balanced fairly, unlike say Combat Arms, where you buy virtual uzis for 20 euro and spray that screen blindly for serial Unbelievable kills... bit off topic but that's my 2c

i voted tweak i think it would be a good idea to have a small fee of like 100 credits a round so that you aren't just testing out weapons all day instead of playing achuale matches

I guess 100 credits would not be bad that. If someone really wanted to get more credits they could just go fight a human player or 2 and/or the computers.

But I don't think having it free would be to much of an issues. Of course, if this dose happen, I would not be surprised if players spend a few hours in the shop on the first day. It would be kind of like going to the toy store for the first time, you want to stay there for a few hours and play with all the "new" toys... But instead of toys, it's laser cannons and swords.

I like the idea that you have to pay to use the testgrounds, as this means you still have to put effort in (and each time you use it the price is doubled with a cooldown of a day, or something like that).

I dunno people are saying this is a lot like Battledawn simulator, but it's really not. The battledawn simulator helps you yes, but that isn't everything about the game. There is still a lot of strategy that doesn't involve the simulator.

I dunno this reminds me of two games.
1) League of Legends: When it comes to ranked team matches it's good to select champions that work well together (like weapons in this game). However you still have to work to afford these champions in the first place.

~I like that you can't just try every champion out, because it allows you to make mistakes. A game where all the answers are given to you is boring. A game where you have to work to figure out what works and what doesn't (with mistakes) is a challenging game and makes it a lot more appealing. Just like BattleMechs now.

2) Roller Coaster tycoon (and similar games). I've played this game a few times and I ALWAYS found the campaign a lot of fun. However as soon as I jumped on to the sandbox mode where everything was free, I lost appeal to the game. There was no challenge to it and I soon became bored of the game.

~With sandbox mode you can try anything and everything. It's cool to begin with, but once you've found the coolest thing to do there's nothing more to do after that :/ hence the loss in appeal. Here players are given the opportunity to go wild and try all sorts of things out. It's to easy and people will lose interest in the game because once they've found the coolest build (for free) the game will just get repetitive for them.

That's just my thoughts anyway. I see a lot of people voting yes for this, so maybe I am in the wrong ^_^

(If mods or admins have problems with me referencing other games, say and I'll try word it differently so the games aren't involved)

pay a small amount or not, that's will leave to the dev to decide.

and a "custom-made" opponent bot can be leave for later when the testground with a random opponent is bug-free. We'll go steps to steps :3