Generally tis the chicken walkers or high mounted humanoid mechs are the preferred.
Private lobbies are available but you would need people available before launching.
It was either picking maps/missions or random maps/missions. I prefer the ability to pick, or attempt to pick opposite of what I THINK the others will select. Much tougher now that the previous version, allowed you to pick/unpick while seeing the percentage for both maps/missions, the minigame.
As for "lore" the TT was setup as a simulation that lasted 10secs a round. Then there was Battleforce which was 60secs/round and Solaris VII at 2.5secs/round, which also had TICS (weapon grouping), weapon delays (cooldowns), etc.
Edited by Tarl Cabot, 22 June 2018 - 03:18 AM.