This is not a mini-review. It was an answer to some questions I got about it on Discord. Kind of works like a Review
Good game. Simple to teach and run. Great worldbuiding that doesn't fill in all the blanks.
It's based on the Quest system, which I haven't looked at, but d20 only. All tables have the exact same ranges. 1 crit fail, 2-5 failure and setback, 6-10 success with consequence or failure without, 11-19 success, 20 crit success. There are no modifiers. All pilots are assumed to be experienced and competent so environmental and luck based fails are encouraged in the narrative - no "you dropped your sword."
Even the encounter tables follow that structure.
Action economy is very similar in and out of mech. The main difference is that pilots do not have an equivalent of heat. In the QuickStart they have heat, but it was removed from the game. The QS is really out of date and they need to do something about it.
This game is not like Lancer. It is an exploration and salvaging game with incidental combat. Not tactical, at all. TOTM with ranges. How to track "2 entities far from you are not necessarily close range to each other" is left up to the GM.
Pilot abilities are important and come up in regular play, not just downtime. They can and do affect in-mech actions.
And every player will forget to equip their starting mech with a locomotion system, even when you remind them multiple times (probably a different experience at the table than PBP)
Equipping your mech is similar to Lancer. Lots of choices. Less restrictive because everything is assumed to be cobbled together. But you have similar heat and module/system slot constraints.
It's a good game. But it's very narrative. It's impossible not to compare it to Lancer. If Lancer is Chainmail or 5PH, SU is Cairn (not quite, but I'm not coming up a better comparison). They just happen to both use mechs.