Researcher’s child, obviously. Everyone knows they’re far better pilots than the guys with a dozen years’ worth of experience. 
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Yep they just throw an emotional tantrum and bam mech goes into super mode!!
Was I the only fan of Zechs, and Char in the Gundam series?
Cuz the majority of characters in mech games seem to follow the child route ( sales purposes I imagine Cuz kids show…)
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Hi first comment I ever commented on but I would anything that dealt with a mecha storyline to it so I think Kurogane no Linebarrel would also be a good anime and manga to read for reference…I believe
Maybe we could make a difference here. Between personal stats (skill, ability with tech, personal charisma) and the stats of your machine. And then characters could exchange money (the stat) into more skills for the mecha.
Like, the MC could pay for more powerful armor or better thrusters in small interludes in the game. These are… all ideas I had in mind for a potential mecha game which has been playing in my head for the last few months.
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I’m thinking about doing both the 17 year old and the vet but make it harder for the kid. now for the stats for the mech would be firepower, melee, armor, and thrusters, and at the beginning allow you to customize different weapon systems armor and thrusters to a degree, and if some of your personal stats are high enough you can personally upgrade it instead of waitting for your tech guys to do it. I was planning to add AI to the story to add a little stat boost to your mech and help out in some situations.
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Easier said than done. The problem with writing multiple paths is that you’re writing multiple characters with multiple headspaces. You might as well be doing entirely separate stories.
Interestingly enough, Mecha Ace originally had three paths planned (Asadi and Watanabe were originally supposed to be customisable and playable), but we realised that writing three coherent character arcs within the same plot meant a more complex work than I could realistically tackle.
Commandant Hawkins says “hello”.
Personally, I’d have to first ask how realistic you want your story to be. While you’re never going to get full-on “this is what it’s like” verisimilitude in a mecha story, you probably should set the level of grittiness and (for lack of a better term) “grounded-ness” of your story. Are you thinking a visceral war story which cleaves as much to real armed conflict as possible? In that case, it’d make more sense for your side’s prototype superweapon to be piloted by someone with proven loyalty, combat experience, and known piloting chops. Are you thinking something more like a handful of teenagers fighting against an evil empire as allies of justice? That’s probably going to be the sort of coming-of-age story best fit by a rawer, younger, maybe more innocent protagonist.
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Or you could stick the innocent protagonist in the gritty story. That’s always fun… 
I like the idea of playing a child (there’s not enough games that let you do that in my opinion), but I think that if you decide to write that the player should have the choice of what profession their parents work as, wether that be a researcher, a veteran of war or something else entirely.
It doesn’t need to effect the story hugely, many just a few dialogs and some stats at the beginning of the game.
I terms of stats for the mech I was thinking you could have:
Resistance - How much damage it takes, how much force it can take before being damaged.
Strength - How much you can lift while in suit and how much damage you deal.
Manoeuvrability - How easily you can control your mech, fit it into places, etc.
Damage - Damage for the mech should (in my opinion) be to individual parts. If parts are too damaged some tasks will fail (e.g. *choice, #use jetpack, *if torso_dmg > 20 Your jetpack explodes, *else You fly away.)
-Head
-L arm
-R arm
-Torso
-L leg
-R leg
Power - How much battery life you have left (personally I don’t think you should ever be forced out of the mech due to lack of power but it might restrict certain choices)
Tech - Pieces of technology attached to your mech that give you special choices or stat boosts
Appearance - Colour, shape, etc.
I don’t think you need to worry too much about being too similar to Gundam. It pretty much codified its own sub-genre so it’s kinda like the event horizon to which subsequent works gravitate. Even if that weren’t the case there are people who would make the comparison anyway so you could do much worse than just embracing your game’s heritage.
As for possible PCs (I’m glossing over the stats portion of this query because I’m REALLY bad at stats) you could just go ahead and have the best of both worlds with a young-ish protagonist maybe 17-18, perhaps promoted to Warrant Officer or Ensign for unspecified heroism (the best kind) which in itself could be an early stat buffing choice. They could be assigned to the inevitable supermecha project without really knowing what it is before having to steal it out from under an enemy raid’s fingertips. I guess that’d be a good juncture to introduce the rival as well.
And y’know at first they’re probably still starry eyed and shot up with the patriotic ideal of war, defending the homeland and all that, but as they go on seeing what war really is maybe they start to question that. And considering they’re probably still piloting the prototype superweapon that could prove the fulcrum on which the conflict turns that feels like a really interesting character conflict to take forward.
Couldn’t we actually play through the heroism? It would probably make it (a little) more realistic if we actually get to see (or rather, play through) the action that gets the MC noticed. Maybe they’re a mech school cadet, or something, but end up in a combat situation, and end up becoming a “hero”. Obviously, this is quite cliched, so it would make sense to look into how they’re treated (I imagine that “real” mech pilots will be quite jealous of this “lucky kid”, and so on).
Just remember that while prototypes are generally supposed to be better than the average, they’re still experimental, and may be at risk of explosions. 
If you’re looking for mech designs, I would recommend Macross. I think Macross has a good mix of Japanese and Western mech designs, they have the humanoid looking mech alongside some Battletech looking mech.
If we’re still making ideas up, while it might be like the earlier UC Gundam, there are plently of mecha shows that shy away from the more political elements, one good example being Gurren Lagann.
They’ll probably treat the MC as an upstart, and that might actually be interesting. A character who gets a chance to jump into the cockpit, but then has to deal with a terrible reputation among the rest of the military.
I think that’d end up making the game too complex, and maybe readers would focus too much on the technical aspect of the mecha, rather than the stats (unless that’s the objective). I think just having a damage point stat, and if dmg>3 you can’t do a lot of stuff in certain situations.
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I’m suprised no ones talking about the use of AI. Also I’m thinking of having three factions and some neutral groups too. The world’s a smaller place now. If I do the two paths the kid would be 17 or 19 fresh from the officer academy visiting their parents, and the vet would be about 23 fresh from the frontlines on light duty until their called apon again. I will be going for a realistic approach people can and will die by your choice. They mayby allies or perheps foes that you fall for. There will be no power friendship saving your butt. Last note you may have to fight on foot if you know what I mean.
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I figured it might be a bit much, I have a bad habit of making things far more complex than they need to be.
I’m not sure how the AI would work in a mech environment, as far as I know mechs are pilotable robots so so if its an AI in control they’d no longer be mechs.
Unless their are both mechs and robots.
Armored Core, is an excellent mech game and reference due to the sheer volume of statistics provided. Between the old Mech Warrior and AC you should find great examples.
The series went from very eastern designs and gradually toward western influence.
I was looking at Western and Eastern mech as a progression of Technology first starting out with the power armor now mainly used as engineers. A couple years later WESTERN mech will become the new big thing and able to make armys 10 times stronger by simply by having a light mech. It will then go on making them bigger stronger so on so forth. This is where AI would come in as a way to help soldiers be able to do things they wouldn’t normally be able to do like Target assisting, hacking, mental support and all that. Coming closer to now the other two factions have recently come out with eastern mechs they may be smaller and faster and with less armor but their much more maneuverable and versatile. When I think of mechs it usually goes western mechs then eastern mechs. Usually it’s Battletech and Gundam, but I do have a deep love for mech just about anything because anyone can get in one and turn the tide of battle. Now thanks to you guys I have so many more to check out.
Maybe one of the supporting characters could be an AI-controlled mech. That could be the prototype. Two birds, one stone.
Just remember the more stats and changes you make for progression, the more difficult the coding will be.
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