CFrederick: I was always a big fan of the Mechwarrior games as a kid and thought I'd give this one a try since it is Bioware, turned out to have a subpar story compared to other Bioware games and also compared to the Mechwarrior games, but the action was still pretty fun.

The thing I liked most about this game however was how ridiculously hard it was. Some missions are more like a puzzle game than an action game. At times it felt as hard as playing Baldurs Gate 2 with 1 solo character--you have to approach every single combat situation with a plan in mind.

General tips:
1-Dont use cannons as your primary weapon, they will always run out. Use lasers and plasma, but don't use heavy laser because it recharges much more slowly than Medium Laser and doesn't do much more damage. It's better to use a combination of Medium Laser and 1 Rapid Laser until you get Plasma/Homing missiles. Obviously always use the best reactors and shield generators. (Better reactors increase your engine speed and recharge rate).
2-Always have your Shield Recharge and Weapon Recharge set to maximum, unless you need to get somewhere fast (like the kill-the-scouts mission). If you need to be fast, set Shield and Wpn recharge at minimum while you're running, then as soon as you see an enemy, crank it back up again. Alternatively, you can increase engine speed by 30%, run until engine temp. gets to 4000, then turn it back down, and wait till temp gets to 2800, then repeat.
3-in any Attacking Mission, especially if you have to destroy buildings, never underestimate the power of sneaking in by crawling along the extreme edge of the map, then climbing over the enemy base's back wall or nuking a hole in it. Remember unlike in Mechwarrior you get no bonus or salvage for killing all the enemies so just avoid them if you can.
4-Use the map (f4) to find out where the next enemy is or the best angle of attack.
5- When dealing with any enemy with more than 2 legs, such as the Aspis mech, the Hammerhead, the Seether, or the Final boss, NEVER SHOOT THE LEGS!! They will drain your ammo and do nothing. Always shoot the head or body (preferably the body). The legs have about the same HP as the body or head but if you destroy 1 of 4 legs it will do absolutely nothing.
6-If you are in a time critical or defending mission, it's fine to destroy an enemy's head and then run off to fight another one, but don't do this too much or all the red dots on your map will distract you from the real enemies.

There were four missions I felt were particularly hard:

1-The mission where you have to attack a base with a big rock wall around it and a deep trench aroudn it, that has somethign like 8 Talons running around inside the center. Every time I got through all the walls and trenches the 8 talons would gang up on me and destroy me instantly with a barrage of fireballs. The way I beat it is, I sat in the trench, and then played peek-a-boo with the enemies until one of them got tempted to come towards me and down the trench. I would quickly trash him, then run to the back of the trench and hide to recharge, then repeat for the next 7 talons.

2-The mission in which you have to defend the base while it's being constructed. In this mission, groups of talons and hammerheads come from the east, while groups of weak air units and dragons come from the south. To win you have to (a) be fast, I think I just had the fastest mech loaded with one set of light plasma and maybe 1 homing missile rack. Use the speed boost tactics above. (b) you have to be a little ahead, but not too far ahead, of your turrets and other defending units. If you see a red dot coming from east, rush up to kill it but never lose sight of the base. If the east is clear, go south and kill anything approaching, but again always have some green dots on your radar so you can see if there is a more important problem. As othe people have said, always destroy the Talons, Hammerheads, Cobras, and Dragons before the weak enemies. Bring a homing missile launcher (IR Miss or RDR Miss, RDR miss is more accurate) but beware if you shoot an IR miss while a friendly unit is in view it will home in on that and make you fail the mission. On this mission, destroy the enemy 'mechs in this priority: (1) Cobra (2) Dragon (3) Talon /Hammerhead (4) everything else. Watch out for the cobras as they are prone to suicide-bomb both you and the buildings.

2.5 - The boss of the first planet. I kept getting killed by him until I realized the obvious. Just give yourself 2 large missile packs or homing missle packs, and save them until you meet the boss. (Only use med.laser on the regular enemies, destroy them very carefully 1 by 1 so they don't surround you). When you meet the boss, just group fire all your missiles as much as possible. If you shoot 14 missiles 2 by 2 (use 7 ammo in each slot) he goes down pretty much instantly.

3-Two attacking missions were hard. There is one where you have to destroy a bunch of silos with enemies patrolling in a continuous circle, and another where you have to approach an enemy base on a hill. But the basic strategy is the same: (1) Go forward until you see a red dot. (2) Fight that enemy and any that attack along with it. (3) Once its dead, Run Away and patiently recharge your shileds/lasers/plasma, then repeat. This tactic, combined with the tactic of crawling along the side of the map, will ensure you never get surrounded because in Shattered Steel in your get surrounded you're not in good shape. In one mission, I was able to find a pattern. Three Javelins, weak air units, were hanging out on top of a hill. Normally I would just shoot them down easily and the get trashed by a big group of Talons and Hammerheads coming at me from behind. But with practice, what I found out is, when one Javelin gets killed, one Talon will run in from the side. Once that Talon is killed, a Hammerhead will come in from the south. If you are watchful, you can find patterns similar to this in many missions.

4-Obviously the last mission was very hard. ZamFear's tip in the topic below was helpful, but I just couldn't do it because the boss only appears if you walk up to the portal, and I couldn't do that without falling into my own hole, or coming at it from the side, in which the boss doesn't fall in, and just kills you. So I found a different way to do it.

1. Start out by equipping yourself with heavy plasma and 2 or 3 nukes. Kill all the weak enemies and then position yourself so you are about 25-35 squares (on the F4 map) in front of the portal.
2. Tap the down button lightly twice so you are aiming at the ground far in front of you.
3. Shoot the nuke while walking backwards. FYI, the nuke has a 3 map square radius for making holes and a 5 square radius for damage. So you want it to hit the at least 6 squares in front of the portal. When you have become good at aiming your nukes, restart the mission with 1 nuke and 2 large missile 18-packs and 1 Radar missile pack.
4. Newly equipped, make your hole 6-10 squares in front of the portal. Wait until the fires in your hole die down then go into it. Aim up at the portal, and walk very slowly toward it. The boss will appear. Run until you hug the front wall of your hole.
5. The boss will become confused because he can't see you. He will go into slow motion, walking forward.
6. Shoot him for about 20 seconds DIRECTLY and ONLY at his chest area. Then stop, recharge, and wait for about 20 seconds for him to sloooowly move forward. The point of this is so he doesn't blow up the portal when he explodes (that was my biggest bummer moment in the entire game...). Then unload the rest of your heavy plasma on his chest until he dies.
7. Get out of your hole. If the scientist truck stil hasn't appeared yet, run back towards where you started and replace your empty nuke slot with another large missile pack or homing missile pack. Then go and sit so that you are facing the portal at a 60 degree angle about 10 squares in front of it. This is becase when the enemies come out, they will first run forward for a little while, then attack the science truck to their left. If you are in the right position, you will draw about 2/3 of their fire which is ideal.
8. As they come out, first use your homing missles, 1 by 1, don't group fire the missiles. Attack the enemies furthest out from the portal first. (IE kill the ones actively shooting at the scientists first).
9. When they run out, use the 18pack large rockets to blow up groups of Aspis and Spectre mechs. When the white helicopters are getting thick, just aim up and shoot heavy plasma indiscriminately, you will kill 75% of them easily that way. Then go back to targeting groups of ground units with large missiles (you can kill groups of up to 3 or 4 with one large missile).

Good luck!
Charles

CFrederick: I was always a big fan of the Mechwarrior games as a kid and thought I'd give this one a try since it is Bioware, turned out to have a subpar story compared to other Bioware games and also compared to the Mechwarrior games, but the action was still pretty fun.

The thing I liked most about this game however was how ridiculously hard it was. Some missions are more like a puzzle game than an action game. At times it felt as hard as playing Baldurs Gate 2 with 1 solo character--you have to approach every single combat situation with a plan in mind.

General tips:
1-Dont use cannons as your primary weapon, they will always run out. Use lasers and plasma, but don't use heavy laser because it recharges much more slowly than Medium Laser and doesn't do much more damage. It's better to use a combination of Medium Laser and 1 Rapid Laser until you get Plasma/Homing missiles. Obviously always use the best reactors and shield generators. (Better reactors increase your engine speed and recharge rate).
2-Always have your Shield Recharge and Weapon Recharge set to maximum, unless you need to get somewhere fast (like the kill-the-scouts mission). If you need to be fast, set Shield and Wpn recharge at minimum while you're running, then as soon as you see an enemy, crank it back up again. Alternatively, you can increase engine speed by 30%, run until engine temp. gets to 4000, then turn it back down, and wait till temp gets to 2800, then repeat.
3-in any Attacking Mission, especially if you have to destroy buildings, never underestimate the power of sneaking in by crawling along the extreme edge of the map, then climbing over the enemy base's back wall or nuking a hole in it. Remember unlike in Mechwarrior you get no bonus or salvage for killing all the enemies so just avoid them if you can.
4-Use the map (f4) to find out where the next enemy is or the best angle of attack.
5- When dealing with any enemy with more than 2 legs, such as the Aspis mech, the Hammerhead, the Seether, or the Final boss, NEVER SHOOT THE LEGS!! They will drain your ammo and do nothing. Always shoot the head or body (preferably the body). The legs have about the same HP as the body or head but if you destroy 1 of 4 legs it will do absolutely nothing.
6-If you are in a time critical or defending mission, it's fine to destroy an enemy's head and then run off to fight another one, but don't do this too much or all the red dots on your map will distract you from the real enemies.

There were four missions I felt were particularly hard:

1-The mission where you have to attack a base with a big rock wall around it and a deep trench aroudn it, that has somethign like 8 Talons running around inside the center. Every time I got through all the walls and trenches the 8 talons would gang up on me and destroy me instantly with a barrage of fireballs. The way I beat it is, I sat in the trench, and then played peek-a-boo with the enemies until one of them got tempted to come towards me and down the trench. I would quickly trash him, then run to the back of the trench and hide to recharge, then repeat for the next 7 talons.

2-The mission in which you have to defend the base while it's being constructed. In this mission, groups of talons and hammerheads come from the east, while groups of weak air units and dragons come from the south. To win you have to (a) be fast, I think I just had the fastest mech loaded with one set of light plasma and maybe 1 homing missile rack. Use the speed boost tactics above. (b) you have to be a little ahead, but not too far ahead, of your turrets and other defending units. If you see a red dot coming from east, rush up to kill it but never lose sight of the base. If the east is clear, go south and kill anything approaching, but again always have some green dots on your radar so you can see if there is a more important problem. As othe people have said, always destroy the Talons, Hammerheads, Cobras, and Dragons before the weak enemies. Bring a homing missile launcher (IR Miss or RDR Miss, RDR miss is more accurate) but beware if you shoot an IR miss while a friendly unit is in view it will home in on that and make you fail the mission. On this mission, destroy the enemy 'mechs in this priority: (1) Cobra (2) Dragon (3) Talon /Hammerhead (4) everything else. Watch out for the cobras as they are prone to suicide-bomb both you and the buildings.

2.5 - The boss of the first planet. I kept getting killed by him until I realized the obvious. Just give yourself 2 large missile packs or homing missle packs, and save them until you meet the boss. (Only use med.laser on the regular enemies, destroy them very carefully 1 by 1 so they don't surround you). When you meet the boss, just group fire all your missiles as much as possible. If you shoot 14 missiles 2 by 2 (use 7 ammo in each slot) he goes down pretty much instantly.

3-Two attacking missions were hard. There is one where you have to destroy a bunch of silos with enemies patrolling in a continuous circle, and another where you have to approach an enemy base on a hill. But the basic strategy is the same: (1) Go forward until you see a red dot. (2) Fight that enemy and any that attack along with it. (3) Once its dead, Run Away and patiently recharge your shileds/lasers/plasma, then repeat. This tactic, combined with the tactic of crawling along the side of the map, will ensure you never get surrounded because in Shattered Steel in your get surrounded you're not in good shape. In one mission, I was able to find a pattern. Three Javelins, weak air units, were hanging out on top of a hill. Normally I would just shoot them down easily and the get trashed by a big group of Talons and Hammerheads coming at me from behind. But with practice, what I found out is, when one Javelin gets killed, one Talon will run in from the side. Once that Talon is killed, a Hammerhead will come in from the south. If you are watchful, you can find patterns similar to this in many missions.

4-Obviously the last mission was very hard. ZamFear's tip in the topic below was helpful, but I just couldn't do it because the boss only appears if you walk up to the portal, and I couldn't do that without falling into my own hole, or coming at it from the side, in which the boss doesn't fall in, and just kills you. So I found a different way to do it.

1. Start out by equipping yourself with heavy plasma and 2 or 3 nukes. Kill all the weak enemies and then position yourself so you are about 25-35 squares (on the F4 map) in front of the portal.
2. Tap the down button lightly twice so you are aiming at the ground far in front of you.
3. Shoot the nuke while walking backwards. FYI, the nuke has a 3 map square radius for making holes and a 5 square radius for damage. So you want it to hit the at least 6 squares in front of the portal. When you have become good at aiming your nukes, restart the mission with 1 nuke and 2 large missile 18-packs and 1 Radar missile pack.
4. Newly equipped, make your hole 6-10 squares in front of the portal. Wait until the fires in your hole die down then go into it. Aim up at the portal, and walk very slowly toward it. The boss will appear. Run until you hug the front wall of your hole.
5. The boss will become confused because he can't see you. He will go into slow motion, walking forward.
6. Shoot him for about 20 seconds DIRECTLY and ONLY at his chest area. Then stop, recharge, and wait for about 20 seconds for him to sloooowly move forward. The point of this is so he doesn't blow up the portal when he explodes (that was my biggest bummer moment in the entire game...). Then unload the rest of your heavy plasma on his chest until he dies.
7. Get out of your hole. If the scientist truck stil hasn't appeared yet, run back towards where you started and replace your empty nuke slot with another large missile pack or homing missile pack. Then go and sit so that you are facing the portal at a 60 degree angle about 10 squares in front of it. This is becase when the enemies come out, they will first run forward for a little while, then attack the science truck to their left. If you are in the right position, you will draw about 2/3 of their fire which is ideal.
8. As they come out, first use your homing missles, 1 by 1, don't group fire the missiles. Attack the enemies furthest out from the portal first. (IE kill the ones actively shooting at the scientists first).
9. When they run out, use the 18pack large rockets to blow up groups of Aspis and Spectre mechs. When the white helicopters are getting thick, just aim up and shoot heavy plasma indiscriminately, you will kill 75% of them easily that way. Then go back to targeting groups of ground units with large missiles (you can kill groups of up to 3 or 4 with one large missile).

Good luck!
Charles