Just had my first chance to play Catalyst on a teammate's Xbox, and I loved it! However, it didn't feel exactly like a good simulator to me for a couple of reasons:
- I didn't like the default control scheme - an editable one would be amazing (especially Gregor's suggestion above)
- I think that a lot of the different robot configurations do not reflect what we saw in 2012 (primarily the lack of widebots, and over-the-bumper intakes).
- To better reflect how teams designed robots and mechanisms, perhaps one could pick different mechanisms, then have an objective table with a fixed number of points to assign for effectiveness (for example, increasing the speed of one's drivetrain would be a point for each increment, as well as maneuverability, and shooting speed, weighted as to the difficulty of each design task)
- While the others seem like quite a bit of work, this seems like it would the most. Some sort of AI would be amazing, to allow one or two people to play (and not need a full set of four)
Do you know if there will be a future 2013 version, especially with less restrictive DRM?