My intention is for everyone to be a pilot, yes - support staff on the base or carrier they fly from wouldn't be impossible, but would only really have much to do around the middle of the game when salvage and jury rigging become critical.
The number of mecha types are limited, because ESPers with strong enough talents to be pilots are rare (almost entirely half-aliens or full blood Blues) and ones who can subvert physics enough to move a mecha with the at or above human-relative-to-size reaction times needed for a flying mecha are rarer still. Germany, for example, with an 85-90% success rate in finding and training their espers, has just a couple thousand not counting the ones snapped up by the SS and Propaganda ministry, some barely old enough to reach the controls. The rest of the military machine has to make do with conventional weapons, despite that fact that they can barely scratch a mecha pilot and give about as much resistance as tinfoil to mecha weapons, thanks to the heterodyne-boosted bullshit space magic that makes mecha viable in the first place. I'd be starting the group off from the beginning as American pilots who fly the initial issue of dumbass varient-specced P-38s the Brits turned down, responding to a mysterious UFO over LA on Feb 25 1942,
Edit: Link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles
before being sent to Britain as training cadre for their new squadrons. Pretty much follow the loose outline above, in other words, though with 4-6 players instead of a solo PC. For the Operation Walküre segment, I suppose you'd need to draw straws for who gets to be Carmen and who has to be her wing (or the other way around, since the generics could easily be their regular characters with a name change) since having one player solo an important battle is if anything worse than a long "cut scene" interlude covering one. Or, I suppose, it could be left off screen, but Carmen vs. Eva is the one boss fight I actually have a clear idea of, so I'd hate to cut it. For more flexibility, I'd probably allow similar "minor changes and a different name" pilot substitutions at the theater changes or any time-skip if someone wants to play as a member of a different allied nation, and salvaged or captured enemy craft are pretty much a requirement once things really go off the rails when the invasion fleet swings in.
Edit2: Might start with the Bombardment of Elwood on the 23rd if anyone wanted to play a Japanese-American, so they could have combat time against the IJN in their favor and avoid being hustled off to the internment camps.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
The number of mecha types are limited, because ESPers with strong enough talents to be pilots are rare (almost entirely half-aliens or full blood Blues) and ones who can subvert physics enough to move a mecha with the at or above human-relative-to-size reaction times needed for a flying mecha are rarer still. Germany, for example, with an 85-90% success rate in finding and training their espers, has just a couple thousand not counting the ones snapped up by the SS and Propaganda ministry, some barely old enough to reach the controls. The rest of the military machine has to make do with conventional weapons, despite that fact that they can barely scratch a mecha pilot and give about as much resistance as tinfoil to mecha weapons, thanks to the heterodyne-boosted bullshit space magic that makes mecha viable in the first place. I'd be starting the group off from the beginning as American pilots who fly the initial issue of dumbass varient-specced P-38s the Brits turned down, responding to a mysterious UFO over LA on Feb 25 1942,
Edit: Link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles
before being sent to Britain as training cadre for their new squadrons. Pretty much follow the loose outline above, in other words, though with 4-6 players instead of a solo PC. For the Operation Walküre segment, I suppose you'd need to draw straws for who gets to be Carmen and who has to be her wing (or the other way around, since the generics could easily be their regular characters with a name change) since having one player solo an important battle is if anything worse than a long "cut scene" interlude covering one. Or, I suppose, it could be left off screen, but Carmen vs. Eva is the one boss fight I actually have a clear idea of, so I'd hate to cut it. For more flexibility, I'd probably allow similar "minor changes and a different name" pilot substitutions at the theater changes or any time-skip if someone wants to play as a member of a different allied nation, and salvaged or captured enemy craft are pretty much a requirement once things really go off the rails when the invasion fleet swings in.
Edit2: Might start with the Bombardment of Elwood on the 23rd if anyone wanted to play a Japanese-American, so they could have combat time against the IJN in their favor and avoid being hustled off to the internment camps.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows