So you want to be a zaku? (2 Viewers)

[Severity]

Like the name suggests, this one's got mecha!

Not Gundams, though. These mechs are Armored Core/Muv-luv style hyper-agile air-ground fighters.

Aaaaaanyway...
{Story stuff follows}

Congratulations, recruit! The Combat Aptitude Test results scored you high in all the right categories to become a mech pilot! Following your successful completion of basic physical and flight training, you will report to Fort Warden's Wesselski Airfield for advanced training under Col. Hannemann in the 499th Training Squadron. This training will not be easy, and it will not be safe. Over 30% of recruits fail to complete this stage of training, and with good reason - this will be the most difficult thing you've done in your life. But, as with all things, there is a reward - if you manage to complete advanced combat training, you'll join the most elite group of soldiers ever known, the Imperial Air Corps. This honor is not lightly bestowed, and will earn you the right to fight for your freedom, family, and very way of life on the front lines against the millions of oppressive savages waiting to plunder our glorious nation!

Colonel Alice Hannemann of the Imperial Air Corps. sighed.
"They're really pouring it on thick these days. I suppose they have their reasons, but..."
The raven-haired woman shakes her head.
"I hope this group's better than the last."
she says, and mutters something else under her breath. She folds up the letter, and stows it away in one of her desk's drawers. The 33 year old Colonel is a combat veteran, and an ace with 7 personal kills. She stares at her desk for a moment, and then her tall, aquiline face lifts and she looks into the eyes of the person in front of her. She sees the red eyes of her very Albino adjutant, the amusingly named 2nd Lieutenant Ophelia White.
Ophelia smiles sympathetically, and tries halfheartedly to comfort her friend and superior.
"You saw the test results, this group should be worlds apart from the last. Besides, I've got a good feeling about these ones"
Ophelia knew how stereotypical it was to say she had a good feeling about them, but it was true. Even without seeing them, she had a strange gut feeling that this group would be much better than the last. But she'd been wrong before.
"Well, I wish I could share your optimism. But until I see these nuggets in person, I'm going to be assuming the worst."
"Ma'am, you know that's not fair. You can't expect to go far with such low expectations of everyone. Haven't you heard of self-fulfilling prophecies?"
Hearing Ophelia's words, Alice smirked faintly.
"Got me far enough to get home. Got you home, too."
Ophelia couldn't think of a good response quickly enough, so she smiles and nods.
"I suppose you did, huh..."
Ophelia turns to leave before remembering something and turning again to the Colonel.
"Ah, before I forget, the most recent schedules showed your first recruits arriving at 1100 tomorrow."
She salutes lazily as Alice thanks her, then turns and leaves the room.

At exactly 1241 the next day, the first of the new recruits arrive, ready to train for war as part of the 499th Training Squadron.

Some of the new recruits volunteered, some of them got volunteered, and some are straight-up conscripts. Luckily for those less into uniforms and discipline, nobody at Wesselski Airfield particularly cares about uniform specifics. Just cover your privates and do as you're told, and as long as you don't show up to uniform inspection topless it's all pretty much fine.
Similarly, the only thing the recruits have in common is that they passed basic physical and flight training, so all of them are theoretically, if not actually, capable of basic physical activity and regularly operating their mechs safely.
The Empire consists of most of the continent of Bildt, one of eight continents on the Earth-like world Ferris.
Space travel exists, and is faster than light, but requires such a large amount of resources that only unified, whole-planet governments have a realistic chance of having enough to make an FTL drive, and so more minor non-planetary nations like the Empire fight for dominance and the chance to export their culture to new worlds.
There are only Humans, and aside from the mechs, technology is basically present day.

There's no character limit for this one, and characters can be incompetent/unlucky, average, or elite/lucky, just like in Kayfabe's. This time, though, since you're all in the army, they'll be assigned to sub-groups called 'Wings' and receive specialized training depending on their assigned role within that Wing. Their specialization can be pre-assigned, or it can be assigned by me. Which Wing they're in is decided by Col. Hannemann, but requests to switch to a different Wing are often accepted. They also get callsigns, but Col. Hannemann has veto power over them, so if anyone tries too hard with their callsign she'll nix it.

If you have any questions, ask away!

 

[Gunsmith12]

Kycilia Minovsky
20, Lucky
Kycilia joined with her older sister, but was the only one of the two to pass training. She's a reasonably skilled pilot, but nothing particularly special. It's likely that she'll end up falling behind as pilots and machines get better. She's very adaptable, though can't figure out more advanced beam weaponry whatsoever. Has a strong dislike for white mechs, though she won't say why.

if i can't put a shitty anime girl in a zaku I'll make a shitty zaku anime girl

Spoiler: Kisekae

 

[Kayfabe]

Paula Ortega (Average, 23/F)

A young soldier from an unremarkable, middle-class background. Paula has spent the last few years working for a private military company, but she's always wanted to work with mechs. Every year since she's been old enough, she's taken the test, but has only now scored high enough to be accepted. She doesn't think that much about politics, but also isn't in it for the money. This is somehow just the life she wants, and she'll follow pretty much any orders that come through legitimate channels (so, unlikely to desert or defect, but this is due more to a lack of independent thought than any particular loyalty to the Empire). Friendly enough, and fairly approachable, but keeps to herself unless approached.

Appearance: Dark and curvy with messy, shoulder-length black hair. Paula works out regularly, but always has trouble making weight. She may or may not be saving up for a high-quality boob job.

Spoiler: Kisekae

 

[Henchgirl 29]

Xan Hulthar (Elite, 21/F)

Spoiler: Xan Kisekae

A minor celebrity, Xan has gained a bit of fame around this side of the galaxy for her back to back wins of the echelon cup two years ago. A notable achievement considering she was the youngest person to win in the last century. She's a skilled mechanic and an ace pilot. She's tomboyish, with tied back messy brown hair. However, her beauty is striking, and any teenage boy should know about the time she posed for Space Boy Magazine. She's pretty much invincible, at least that's how she feels and acts: treating other people as lesser than herself. After being offered an inordinate amount of money, she joined the 499th training squadron.

Fate: kill her off in some stupid humiliating way, (she has it coming to her... sort of)

Spoiler: Space Boy Magazine

Spoiler: Page 24

 

[Severity]

When the ramp of their transport jet is fully lowered, the new arrivals see a number of people waiting. Most of them seem to be various base maintenance personnel, who begun unloading supplies from the aircraft. One person, though, stands out. A medium height woman, wearing a standard issue green dress uniform, without any signs of rank. She's very, very pale, and her hair is white with a hint of gold. She gestures to the new arrivals with one hand, inviting them over to her, while in the other she holds a parasol, shielding her from the sun. She introduces herself as 2nd Lieutenant Ophelia White, and begins to tell them what the immediate future holds.

Ophelia informs the new arrivals that they'll be given the rest of the day to get used to the base, memorize the various locations, etc. She then walks them from the landing strip their transport landed on to the trainee barracks, pointing out the locations of other buildings on the way. They'll also be individually interviewed by Col. Hannemann, and the next morning they'll begin specialized combat training, starting with practice duels against each other, Ophelia, and Col. Hannemann. Before she leaves, she mentions that there were supposed to be more recruits arriving, and wonders aloud if the others' transport craft was downed by long-range interceptors.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this better, or things they'd like to see or be elaborated on, please let me know!

 

[Kayfabe]

You're doing fine! But if you want my advice: chill. If you're doing a narrative with a definite timeline (like you're going to follow the unit from training to ???), either wait for everyone to make characters OR (and this is what I would recommend) fill out the team with anons until you get a snowball of PC zakos going. That way people can jump in according to their schedule. If you treat the whole group like it's there (but keep most of the members anonymous), people can come in with characters later that have either transferred in or have ~always been there~ you know?

 

[Severity]

Late that night, a badly damaged transport craft makes a rough landing on the airstrip. Immediately fleeing the now-burning craft are about two dozen pilots assigned to the 499th, and Ophelia (a night owl) calms them down, counts them, and leads them to the barracks, telling them the same things she told the first group. After they're shown to their barracks, Ophelia returns to the airstrip to see if there's anything the ground crews want her help with. She ends up being a stretcher-bearer, and carries about a dozen wounded people to the base infirmary, including a few more rookies for the 499th who were wounded during their flight or landing.

 

[dinomoneymaiden]

Miyu Dojima (Average 22/F) is a rich bitch who's late father, Akira Dojima, was a relatively popular mech technician and pilot. She's constantly compared to her father, whom she lacks the skills of, and this frustrates her. She makes up for her lack of natural talent with hard work, but also with acting bitchy and superior to compensate.

Spoiler: Miyu Dojima

I'm not really into the mecha genre, so I'm actually quite unsure how zako fetish based fights would work in said genre, or at least if there would be much variety, but that's most likely just my ignorance speaking, so I'll have faith that it works well, haha.

 

[Zamaron1]

Sophia Secura (age 18/F) Sophia is the first in the military's attempt to create a female clone army to replace recruited soldiers and mech pilots. She is more refined in skill then the later clones will have, many clones are planned to phase out recruits in a couple months time with these clones being decently skilled in use of a pistol and mech piloting, but Sophia is designed as a special case to see how effectively an independently thinking clone would be able to do. do to a personality side effect of the standard nature of the clones being created to try and seduce enemy combatant if captured, Sophia is extremly horny and will try to have sex with anyone. If this one dies another will take her place to continue research.

Appearance: pic down below but the outfit is tight on her massive tits that you see her niples perking up and the shape of her pussy under her thong.
(all the generic recruits at the base are other identical clones, just not as advanced as her. but just as horny. she can easily be identified by the red band tieing her ponytail, the others have blue.)
Skill: advanced.

Death: kill her in an extremely sexy way.

Spoiler: Sophia

 

[Severity]

(all the generic recruits at the base are other identical clones, just not as advanced as her.

Gonna have to say no to that one, but everything else is fine.

The training begins with each rookie being shown to their mech, and being informed over loudspeaker that this will be the mech they go to war in. This is followed by basic target shooting with their mech's rifles, SMGs, and pistols. Once most of the recruits manage to hit their targets more often than not, they lift off in groups of 3 to begin air combat training. They're using training weapons, of course, but are instructed to do their best, as if they fail to perform well enough they'll be sent off to be transport pilots. This isn't true, but they don't have to know that. Once in the air, they are divided into two teams - green team and gold team.
Ophelia, training them in the air while Col. Hannemann observes from the ground, appoints Xan as green team captain and resignedly appoints Kycilia as gold team captain, since nobody seems to want it. The ensuing mock-combat is chaotic, disorderly, and provides Col. Hannemann and Ophelia with so much to correct that they stop it before either team has definitively won and call the rookies in to land. Despite several near-collisions during the mock battle and near-crashes during landing, everyone manages to return with their mechs intact.
Some of them might wish they'd crashed, though, because what follows is every recruit being sat down in a classroom and being viciously criticized for their mistakes by Col. Hannemann. After she's finished telling the rookies their mistakes (which takes a while) she begins telling them what they did right. This doesn't take nearly as long, and so soon she begins giving them lessons in air combat tactics, maneuvers, and the best ways to counter them.
Their teaching continues for the rest of the day, and right before they're sent to their barracks Col. Hannemann tells them that the next morning, they'll be assigned to smaller units within the 499th.


I promise there'll be action soon!

 

[Severity]

When the recruits wake, they find a large poster labeled 'Squadron Sub-Units' on the wall.
Paula is surprised to find herself assigned as the leader of a five-person Wing, given the callsign Zephyr One. She's surprised at this, since she never expected to be assigned as a wing leader, especially during training.
Kycilia, too, is assigned to Zephyr, as Zephyr Two. She seems fairly content with her assignment.
Xan is fairly upset about her assignment as Zephyr Three, rather than a command role, and demands to be taken to Col. Hannemann to be assigned a command role. The recruits can hear the shouting match from their barracks, and at one point Ophelia even has her hand on her pistol. Eventually, Xan returns, red in the face and fuming, determined to gain a command role.
Miyu is Zephyr Four, who despite mild complaining is secretly glad she's not in command. After all, the best way to start on your own is from the bottom.
Sophia is Zephyr Five, but barely seems to notice since she's too busy making passes that border on sexual harassment towards everybody in the 499th.
At the moment, though, it all seems pretty irrelevant, since they've been informed that their next several weeks of training will be classroom lessons by Col. Hannemann rather than actual flying.

Until a siren sounds, and the base becomes a hive of activity. Most of it around the airstrip is related to the mechs and their pilots, who are rushed from the classroom to the briefing room. In the rushed briefing given by Ophelia, they're told that enemy glide bombers and fighter escorts, including mechs and dedicated aero-fighters, are flying towards vital facilities in a large formation, and that this is not a drill or training exercise.
The pilots then rush to their mechs and hurriedly take off, with Col. Hannemann flying lead for the formation on its' interception path.

Upon sighting the enemy formation, dead ahead and level with them, Col. Hannemann instructs them to stick together, cover each other, and remember that level flying is death for fighters. She wishes them luck, and then orders them to break formation and engage as they close in on the glide bombers and their escorts.
As the pilots make their first attacks, a number of enemies go down. As do several of their own, felled by the glide bombers' defensive gunners. Soon the escort fighters join in, and the whole formation becomes a wild ball of aircraft blasting away at each other.

After several furious minutes, the 499th is ordered to return to base by Col. Hannemann. A little over half of them rejoin formation on the way back to base, where they're put in a holding pattern until the runway is clear. Then, the pilots go in one at a time to land.

Personal Stories Below---------------
Arrogant and eager to prove herself, Xan flies directly at a bomber, firing at it as much as she can. She scores many hits, and manages to tear off the tip of one of the bomber's wings as well as its' flaps on that side. Aiming a bit more precisely as she gets closer, she puts shots directly through its' starboard engine, causing the engine to fireball and disintegrate. Unfortunately for her, immediately after that one of the bombers' defensive gunners finds their mark, and rakes Xan's mech with several bursts of fire before she falls away, her mech limp and smoking.
As she falls, she regains her bearings. After briefly trying to maneuver her mech, she realizes it's beyond saving. Disappointed and ashamed, she ejects, and lands safely a dozen miles from the nearest ground forces. She has quite a walk.

Kycilia cautiously follows her comrades in, but refrains from going after a specific target, choosing instead to cover anyone who needs it. Her comrades begin dropping down, either because they're returning to base or because they've been shot down. Her efforts make the latter less in number than they would have been, getting behind and firing at any enemies chasing a comrade she can. After a bit, though, she's targeted herself, and doesn't manage to shake the pilot before they put several shots into her mech, causing enough damage she's forced to dive from the combat and head back to base.
It's very, very difficult, but she manages to limp her stricken mech back to her home airstrip. Although it requires careful handling, and she's forced to abort several approaches, eventually she manages to land her craft safely. It might not fly again, but she will.

Sophia is one of the first to fire at an enemy craft, and after pouring enough into one bomber it begins losing altitude. She assumes that she's killed it, and immediately turns her attention to the enemy mech that just zipped in front of her. She pursues it relentlessly, but fails to notice the pilot's wingman as they get behind her and line up a shot, which blows her mech in half, narrowly missing her body. As her mech falls from the sky, she realizes the damage jammed her escape hatch. Checking around, she also finds that her left leg is stuck in her mech, and her right leg seems to be missing below the calf. She can't feel it, anyway. Fighting an urge to cry, she decides to try to make her last moments enjoyable, and begins pleasuring herself.

Ophelia's doing what she does best, acting as Col. Hannemann's wingman and keeping enemies off her. Unfortunately for her, she's a little out of practice from the training, and so when an enemy gets on her tail she fails to outmaneuver them and is hit several times, with her mech losing its' right arm. She immediately tries to climb, then when she realizes and instant later her mech can't continue to fight she dives away, returning to base. It's tough flying with as much damage as her mech took, but she's been hit worse, and her she makes a rough landing on the runway. She's a bit shaken, but will fly again.

Paula goes in firing, but unlike most of her allies goes after other mechs rather than bombers. She manages to get behind one for long enough to put a few bursts into it, and it falls away billowing deep, black smoke. Encouraged by her success, she pursues another enemy mech. This one has a wingman, though, and she's soon forced off the pilot's tail. For the rest of the fight, she flits from target to target, giving them barely enough time to realize she's on them before switching targets. She's out of ammo before the disengage order comes, and so makes attack runs on the bombers, hoping to spook them. She is, somehow, not significantly damaged, and makes a safe landing once her turn comes.

Miyu is eager and nervous as she follows her comrades in. She knows a bit more about her mech and the enemy's craft than most of her comrades, and her hard work pays off as she swoops in on one of the bombers and, aiming for the wing's root, shoots it clean off. She pulls up, firing at other bombers as she passes them, but fails to make any major hits on them. She dogfights with the enemy mechs for the rest of the battle, managing to send one mech smoking downwards and getting a few hits on another before she's put on the defensive via a mech on her tail. Her mech is damaged, but not too badly, and she makes a safe landing on the runway.

Unfortunately, many others aren't as skilled, or maybe just not as lucky, and either crash from damage on their way back or mess up their landings and pay for it. Two damaged craft aside from Kycilia and Ophelia's land safely enough for the pilot to survive, and the firefighters and medical teams have plenty of work with the other three, who botch their landings. Two of the pilots are killed in their crashes or die soon afterwards, and the third is in critical condition with severe burns and broken bones.

In total, the squadron took 13 mechs destroyed or too damaged to fly again. They also lost 10 pilots, later revised to 8 after two pilots who were shot down in the battle but bailed out successfully are returned to the base. Xan and Millie, the two downed pilots, return together.
This is in exchange for an initially claimed 22 kills and 39 damaged. This is revised to 9 kills and 16 damaged after their debrief.

Xan is credited with one half-kill, since the bomber she damaged was shot down by another squadron member.
Kycilia gets one half-kill as well, plus a commendation from Ophelia and a nod from Col. Hannemann for her excellent conduct in battle, supporting her comrades rather than chasing for kills.
Sophia is posthumously given 1 kill
Paula gets 1 kill and one half-kill, as well as a congratulations from Ophelia for her bravery in remaining after she ran out of ammo.
Miyu receives 2 kills and a half-kill, the highest scoring rookie in the squadron and halfway to Ace.

I hope this works for everyone! If anyone wants me to do something differently, please let me know!

 

[Henchgirl 29]

Xan is equal parts furious and humiliated. A lengthy argument with the colonel, lead to her being downed in battle, but whose fault was that?!

After a long hike back to base, in which she yelled the other downed recruit, Millie's ear off about her truly awful day. She returned back to base bug bitten sore and muddy.

Did she receive fanfare? No. No one seemed to care that she was okay, and not only that no one cared what a spectacular job she had done in battle!!

She wanted to scream, but it seems she lost her voice from all the previous screaming she had done. Where was that recruit she was complaining to earlier, Minnie? Milo? Oh well, she couldn't have wandered that far off.

Amidst the buzz of their newly found victory, she looked around the base, masses of people were milling about, mechanics, guards, and plenty of skimpily dressed pilots. The guard at the gate had told her to head to the infirmary first thing, however, something caught her eye, a kill sheet.

Making a mad dash to the piece of paper, Xan was positive no one could have performed better... What was this, only half a kill?! something must have been typed wrong.... and who was this with two and a half kills... wait a second.. she recognized that last name.... it couldn't be... Miyu Dojima, the daughter of the now dead Akira Dojima... she had always hated that bastard, and now he had a stupid slutty daughter...

she growled under her breath and spit on the ground in disgust.

As she limped to the infirmary Xan was happy about one thing, she knew who she was taking her anger out on if she was given a chance...

Spoiler: The long walk back to base (kisekae)

Millie made a mental note to stay as far as possible from Xan when she got back to base, this bitch was crazy...

 

[Gunsmith12]

Kycilia keeps true to form once on the ground: She's the first to greet the downed pilots, and tries to chart where any wrecks went down from the combat reports. From what she's heard, Sophia failed to eject, and has made a general crash location for possible recovery. While unlikely, it's possible the clone soldier is still alive. She also charts areas where enemy troops likely went down, and suggests a search and rescue mission. Her mech served her well, but sadly will not be recoverable. Unless there's another one ready for her, she'll have to be benched for a little while.

Spoiler: possible game mechanic

What if mechs/pilots are specialized for certain tasks? like fighter/bomber and wingman/pointman?

 

[Henchgirl 29]

Millie Adams (Incompetent, 19/F)

Spoiler: Millie Kisekae

Dimwitted, scrawny and incredibly unlucky, Millie's greatest accomplishment in life is.... well... nothing. After flunking out of college, Millie was forced to join the military. She thinks mechs are pretty cool, the only problem is she doesn't know what any of the buttons do! After accidentally pressing 'eject' during the first battle (she was reading the manual while trying to simultaneously fly the ship) Millie miraculously survived. Taking this as a sign of good fortune Millie hopes that things will start to go her way. After all she is genuinely trying her best.

Fate: Death

 

[Zamaron1]

the military recovers Sophia's body and transplants her memories into another clone. as part of the project this new clone is basically the same, but each time she dies her mind will be remotly ransfered to another and another, hoping the multiple deaths will create a mind with enough combat experiance to be duplicated to the mass produced clones. And they modify her personality to now focus when on duty and in combat and only gets sexual in personal time off duty. basically when evryone is just relaxing.

(basically she dies, her memories get transplanted to another clone and so she will end up experiancing death over and over. so feel fre to killl her in every engagement. it will also be funny for the other recruits to wonder why she keeps returning perfectly fine after every battle.)



and maybe the mechs could look like this.

 

[Gunsmith12]

I'm against that mech design as a standard. Maybe we should start posting robot pictures too for whatever mechs we would like?

Also, idea on how the wingman/pointman idea might work: wingmen attach to pointman units and give them an advantage on rolls. So when a pointman launches an attack with an attached wingman, you roll two die and take the higher result. When a pointman is attacked, the wingman automatically attacks the aggressor, but otherwise will not launch attacks on their own. When alone, wingman units will have a disadvantage (if the unit is lucky, this is cancelled out). Otherwise they behave as normal.
Additionally, lucky wingman units will get their advantage as normal when defending pointmen.

How's that sound? I figure it might make a good replacement for the previous class system with some more refinment. Pointmen still need an ability, and there should probably be other classes like radar operator or bombardier.

 

[Severity]

This is the army, you don't get to choose. You get what they give you... or what you can find. But you'd better have some spare parts.

Seriously though, Kendall, that mech doesn't really look like it could fly, and while obviously no mech could fly in real life I've sorta been using a Muv-Luv design as reference/general idea of what they look like.

Spoiler: Mech

I'm willing to change if people want, but there'll be an in-universe reason if that happens.

Edit - Just saw your edit, Gunsmith, and while it would be cool to do that, for the time being this is a single-crew fighter/interceptor unit, so for now everybody uses the same equipment and, setting aside the pointman-wingman things, has the same goal. If they later become a composite unit, that might end up happening, but for now they're all frontline fighter pilots.

Col. Hannemann debriefs the squadron that evening. She's not too critical, for a change, focusing mostly on what they did right. Special praise goes to Kycilia, for voluntarily assuming a support role, Paula for giving the enemy another target even though she couldn't shoot back, and Miyu for scoring the most kills. She says that the mechs that were assigned to the pilots wounded during their transport's interception on the way to the base will be assigned to the better performing pilots who lost their mechs, eyeing Millie as she says this. After she's done, she congratulates all of them on surviving their first battle, but warns them that their next probably won't be as easy. The pilots are allowed to do as they wish for the rest of the day, and informed that since they're now a combat unit, Col. Hannemann's lessons are voluntary attendance, rather than mandatory, but advised that if they want to survive more missions they'd best attend the lessons.
She gives the room a crisp salute before walking out.

As the pilots slowly filter out of the briefing room, Ophelia approaches individuals and informs them of their mech's estimated repair time, which mech they've been assigned to if they lost theirs, and informs several that they'll be temporarily acting as assistants to the mechanics until the unit, renamed the 499th Air Defense Squadron, gets more mechs. This is expected to be a few days at most, but some pilots may have to leave on transports to fly the mechs back to the base. In the meantime, she says, Col. Hannemann will be disbanding some Wings and using them to fill the gaps in others.

Millie is told that she's one of those that will be helping the mechanics, but in an attempt to soften the blow Ophelia offers to personally tutor her regarding mech flying, controls, etc. so that by the time the squadron's been resupplied she'll hopefully be at least capable enough to not repeat her mistake.

Returning several hours later than the other two pilots is Sophia. Everybody is told that she managed to eject before her mech hit the ground, and only Col. Hannemann both saw her go down and knows enough to be pretty sure that she shouldn't have survived. She keeps it to herself, of course, but begins quietly digging a bit to find details on Sophia.

Earlier, taking inventory with the maintenance chief, Ophelia notes that they have 29 airworthy mechs, once repairs are completed, and 25 pilots. When she tells Col. Hannemann, the Colonel decides to keep some in reserve, especially since some of the pilot's skills are severely lacking. This is why some pilots are assigned to maintenance assistance, even though there are enough mechs for everybody.

 

[Gunsmith12]

Hey, that image is broken for me

 

[Gunsmith12]

Also, my idea was more that different pilots would have different priorities: The radar operator would be paying more attention to their own radar and maybe warning others about certain units, the bombardier would be focused on ground targets, the pointman would be going for glory while the wingman would be trying to help. Maybe make it so the wingman can attach to any unit rather than just pointmen.
You are the GM though, you are the god of our shitty anime girls in this world made to torture them.

Also, sorry about the edit, I don't want to spam these with new posts for every idea I get.

 

[Severity]

Hey, that image is broken for me

It's a Type 94 Shiranui, sorry if it doesn't work for anyone else

Regarding the edit, it's fine! Just try not to do it unless it's on your most recent post, because I may not catch it if you don't.

Regarding the ability ideas, if I ever go into more depth that'd work, but right now I'm just using an RNG to determine how many pilots are damaged, then how many are downed, then if they live. It's 3+ for Elites, 4+ for Averages, and 5+ for Incompetents to not be damaged/downed, then a 1/3 chance they survive being shot down. Damaged mechs also have to make a save to not crash and die, but they have a 2/3 chance to live. Sometimes I fudge the numbers a little regarding the nameless pilots, and the kill stuff is entirely arbitrary, so right now the system's pretty simple, which I like since that makes it fairly easy to have big battles without taking too much time on rolling dice.

I can do the specialization things via fluff though, so if you'd like your character to have a specialization go ahead!