When that new mod is posted, with its pretty gifs, and the promise of fun. You hit the download link and drop it in your CC folder. You start up Cortex Command and then...

What do you do?

Me: I go to the tutorial mission and use each and every device and actor(reseting if all the dummies are dead). After that I do a skirmish.

So, how about you?

I do the exactly same thing you do. And also i test it in 'real' combat. Astro MP3 Remake.

Run it through standard Astro, then do whatever I can to see if I can make it do something apart from exactly what it's meant to do. This includes poking around mod files.

(when the mod deserve it) Test it in various level of difficulty:

1. Tutorial
2. Dummy Assault/Astro
3. Dead Skimirsh

^this. Then I bring back stuff from other mods and unleash hell with the new stuff backed up by the oldies until I get bored.

For me,

Step 1: Go through the Tutorial mission again and again with all actors and devices

Step 2: Go through Dummy Assault and Astro with the items I'm interested

Step 3: Set up a base solely using the mod's units in skirmish and have fun

Step 4: Try harder missions with the mod

I only go to step 3-4 when I'm really interested in the mod.

I go into the tutorial mission and check out all the actors and a few guns, then after I get the hand of it I go into a death difficulty skirmish with them.

I play a few minutes with mod, then if I like it, I keep it for a while. If it has useful stuff (code, Lua-ish things, etc.) then I'll move it to different folder when I'm done playing with it. Otherwise, I move it to the recycle bin.

I do a bit of what people have said above, but spend most of my time tearing through their inis cannibalizing script for my own mods.

Oh, you card.

I usually don't download mods anymore. If I do, it's because they have something in them that looks interesting, like a pretty effect, that I then bump up 10x or so and unleash upon unsuspecting enemies. It's great fun. Especially when the enemies are like the old DSTech, relentless and pretty much indestructible. I have to try that with the Zaku sometime...

Oh, yeah, and after I finish playing with a mod, if I like it, I'll beef it up. A lot. Then I use it to cheat on missions.
Case in point: ISME Bindweed.

I think that lately there hasn't really been that many good mods, I only have 18 mods* that I use, basically I test everything on tutorial and maybe other missions, I don't really play skirmish any more... or the game that much... I need something to peak my interest again.

* well, one of which is a compilation pack I created of mini-releases like one actor/weapon releases such as grifs plane, the vandar (that laser thing from way back), sober crab and some stuff in it I butchered from a pack of mods like the Hydrogen Flourine bomb and Thorium bomb. though they are heavily edited and kept up-to-date.

Test them intensely.

Then i make fun of them.

♥♥♥♥ about with them in Flat Zone and then I bomb them to test strength.


Then I make a huge base and defend the living ♥♥♥♥ out of it.

Mess around on Tutorial, Dummy Assault, Astro, etc.