Hi; Just recently picked up the Indie-bundle; mainly because Cortex Command looked pretty damn fun but there are.. quite.. a few things that are sort of throwing me. I appericate that its a beta (but being developed for 10 years? )

First thing I did was fire up the game and set my display settings; but on a 1080P display the sprites, artwork, text is *tiny* beyond unreadable! Im basiclly stuck in 640x480 mode if I want to be able to read the screen. I.. dont quite understand the point of these higher resolutions unless there is something wrong with my game.

So; back to 640x480 mode I fired up the tutorial and.. I still have no idea how to play the game? Perhaps this stuff is obvious and Im just not getting it but..

1. How do you actually pick up weapons? I've tried crouching over them and sometimes they do pick up but.. I really dont get it
2. The controls seem really.. clunky with a keyboard and mouse; its hard to control where you go with the jetpack and tutorial doesnt really give you any hints about how to play beyond "Destroy the enemy" but what seems to happen is my little robots get gunned to peices in moments; they march in and blow up my brain. / I sort of figured how the shopping menu to call down robots but even at 640x480 the fonts are VERY small and its nearly impossible to see what the heck Im ordering or.. what anything actually does?
3. I take it the game does not have any sort of LAN/Online play? just.. split-screen?
4. .. is there a manual Im just not seeing?

Im hoping some kind soul will be able to point me in the right direction to get the game working at a decent resolution without needing a microscope and figure out how to actually play

1. When you're near an item, open the ring menu and hit the option at the top, which if you're close enough will be pick up the item.

2. Yeah you're pretty much stuck with 640x480 if you can't see things at 800x600. Nothing scales with resolution.

3. Splitscreen only, maybe online play when/if someone ports over the internet play mod (that was admittedly just a 2d deathmatch version of Cortex, simplified weapons, etc)

4. Nope, trial and error really.

In options there is a 2x window option. This should make the game easier to see.

1. Hold right click or designated pie menu button to open the pie menu. When standing in appropriate proximity to a weapon, the top option willl change from reload to pick up weapon. Move your mouse or aiming control upwards until the arrow points at the pick up weapon option. Release the right click or pie menu button to pick up the weapon.
2. As above, 2x window should remedy this.
3. There are ways to play via lan and online, but these are somewhat temperamental and none are first party. The current techniques are: LAN via remote desktop, online via remote desktop, online via hamachi via remote desktop and online via zalo's online deathmatch. The final option is somewhat cut down to facilitate its possibility.
4. When you open scenarios mode, the default mode should be tutorial. Try the tutorial mission, though many consider it as incomplete and somewhat uninformative, there should be information useful to you there.

Not only am I not a kind soul, but I have no soul. Regardless, I'll give you some advice.

First off, it's all very small. If you have trouble reading it, either get a better monitor or glasses, because this is as good as it's gonna get.
Secondly, you have to hold the secondary click on your mouse (alternately known as right click) to open what's called the pie menu, which gives you options, including pick up weapons, drop, buy, reload, etc. You're not supposed to crouch, you're supposed to use the pie menu.
Thirdly, the controls and difficulty are pretty unforgiving. The jetpack is newly useless in this build; if you want a nice jetpack that actually works, either use B23 or some mods. As for your bodies getting gunned down, yeah, that happens a lot; the idea is that you use a whole bunch of bodies approximately simultaneously and win. The other option is to figure out the triggers for certain events and use lots of long-range weapons.
As for the buy menu, yes, tiny font, you either get used to it or get used to it. The words really aren't terribly important anyway; you eventually just recognize things by the pictures, for the most part. As for what you recognize, there's a metric ♥♥♥♥ of trial and error. It's part of the fun.

So.... there's the manual you weren't seeing. If it was too long and you didn't read, then it's easily paraphrased as "SUCK IT UP AND THE PLAY THE GOOD GAME. IT IS A GOOD GAME. YOU WILL ENJOY IT."

Have fun!

EDIT: Dammit, Allstone, I wanted to be a jerk to the newbie, and you had to go and be all nice and polite. Oh, yeah, and I guess I forgot about the 2x window and the fullscreen. I personally don't use them because it makes it all fuzzy and hurts my eyes, but I guess if it works, then I suppose I lose the argument.

hehe; Thank you everyone for the quick replies!

Its a shame about the screen resolution; even at 640 I have trouble easliy reading the words (Also that 2x zoom thing doesnt seem to work; I get "Go to 1x zoom" then the button shows "Go 2x Zoom" but clicking it makes my screen flash purple/pink but the window is the same size; weird!

Figured out how to pick-up weapons now as well as the tabs on the shop to order new weapons and body-types.. tinkered with differnt builds and managed to beat the AI tutorial mission without too much trouble (Mini-guns and grenade launchers help a lot!)

But I shall continue to try it out; was rather fun gunning down the helpless enemy AI!

What's the resolution of your monitor? If it doesn't fit the double-size window, it won't let you. Try running at 400x600 and going 2xwindowed

Right!

Got the 2x zoom thing.. MUCH better! can read the text now haha..

Tried a few of the side games.. a lot of fun is *very* hard; big weapons seem to be totally worthless as they disable the jetpack so you get stuck at ground level; shotgun seems pretty badassery though

Thanks for all the tips to get me started playing at least Thank you all