Mecha Ace: The Q&A Thread

Thanks, although I’m so outraged at the trickiness of this point that I’d rather make good on the threat to blast Steele to bits right now. Knowing why you’ve succeeded or failed at something is rather important for solving the problem.

Maybe was based on Gundam wing?, they have the same base story

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@Cataphrak Is there still a chance for this game having sequel?. For anyone that wanted to report my post im just asking for info not pushing for sequel. I got enough of people who is more sensitive than the actual author.

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Really liked this one. Good pacing, great action, great writing. Would have been nice to have had some more events/activities between battles but overall very solid piece. Perhaps, a sequel is not completely out of the question? :smiley:

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@Cataphrak hope this game will have sequel or prequel or another series set in different universes. You know like gundam

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Hey @Admiralsouthpaw, welcome to the forum :slightly_smiling_face:

Check this post out, it may have the answer you need it;

Spoilers for Mecha Ace

So both times I played mecha ace, I got Hawkins good ending, but my lance squad died in chapter 7(I was able to save cloud base) so I wonder its it possible to save your squad and get Hawkins good ending. I though since your CO mention that they were missing and their is a rare chance they survived, that they will appear in the final episode but no. So if anyone of your house could help that would be great

I am not very good at playing mecha genres but I love this. I like Hawkins. May I know what inspired you to write his character?

If there’s anything that can be called the biggest influence on Hawkins’ character, it’s the fact that they basically act like someone who’s playing an RPG.

Hawkins is all about getting stronger through conflict, but on a scale where they as an individual can act as a substantive force. They look for the strongest opponent they can find and they’re constantly seeking ways to challenge themselves because that is genuinely how they think they’re going to become more capable, and more powerful, to “make the numbers go up”, so to speak.

The fact that the societal privilege they inherit has given them a real leg up in the sense of being able to develop their abilities beyond what “normal” people would serves as a sort of “chosen one” narrative on its own, and the fact that the Imperial Military encourages that sort of behaviour definitely serves to reinforce Hawkins’ mentality. In the end, the world they live in has conspired to convince them that they’re the protagonist, and that if the universe does not suit their own interests, then they can make it change to suit them, through nothing but main strength and willpower.

In a lot of stories, it could be argued that Hawkins would well-situated to be the hero - and those are my favourite types of antagonists to write.

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Hey, real quick, I just wanted to say I f*cking love this game. Thank you for making it.

Also, since it seems rude to post in a Q&A thread without asking a question, did you have any “canon” genders in mind when you were writing the protagonist and ROs?

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I really tried not to. I figured it’d be easier that way.

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I feel like the story ended well but also left enough room for the writer to pick up where they left off like in one the possible endings

When your invading the Earth your doing it as the captain of a ship, or another ending is showing you about to take off again to retake the planet you lost in the first game.

I’m curious, between the MC and Hawkins, who is the superior pilot?

[For example, in the first engagement, Hawkins was clearly better. MC won the second time but that’s a sign of the Lionheart’s capabilities. However, in the final fight, with MC piloting similar machines, MC won again. Is it just luck or is the MC better? I really want to know since it stated that Hawkins trained since a very young age.]

This is left pretty ambiguous, actually.

In the first engagement, Hawkins has the definite advantage, and the MC will be able, at best, to force a draw. However, that might be easily chalked up to the fact that the MC’s obsolete combat armature is simply outmatched by Hawkins’ Vallier Custom. The second engagement (where the MC might be piloting the Lionheart with limiters off) and the third (where they will be doing so) give the advantage in hardware to the MC - but it should be noted that the MC can still lose these engagements.

So the question of “who is the better pilot” relies entirely on the player’s decision-making, and the stats they both chose at the beginning, and chose to use in those three duels.

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Thank you for the answer :slight_smile: I’m curious, what was going through Hawkin’s mind when they decided to destroy the Lightbearer? I know they decided to destroy it due to their philosophy, but it seemed counterintuitive. Since the rebellion went kapputt afterwards and that goes against their philosophy of endless war. Then again, if we turned the Lightbearer on the Imperial Fleet, we go on to invade Earth. However, there had to been a better option than those two. What was going through Hawkin’s mind? It felt like they were ready to die going on that last mission, and wouldn’t that again be counterintuitive? You can’t get stronger when you’re dead.

Are any of these characters based on a historical figure? Or characters in general? Also, when writing, do you do the worldbuilding first then fill it with characters or the other way around? Has this changed over time? Thank you for everything!

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The way they saw it, while losing the wormhole would have been a major strategic loss for CoDEC, the rebellion would still be able to reconstitute its fleet and keep fighting, even if only as an insurgency. This meant that instead of being able to impose peace through the threat of total destruction (as the Empire would be able to do with Lightbearer), the Imperial Fleet would have to continue through the wormhole and keep fighting it out under more and more difficult circumstances (as they grow further from their bases of supply). As a result, it was possible that the Imperial offensive might lose momentum and a new equilibrium might form somewhere deeper in CoDEC space.

Hawkins wants to keep the war going, beyond all else, because as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Hawkins thinks like someone playing a game, and they want to find a way to see all the content, beat all the enemies, reach the level cap and unlock all the upgrades. To them, Lightbearer is a “shortcut” which will lead to one side or the other necessarily “blocking off” the rest of the “content” of the war, and to them, that’s an unacceptable loss.

There is one - if you can convince them of it.

I try to avoid one-to-one translations of historical figures to characters, but if there’s one thing I definitely based at least some of the naming schemes and plot points on, it’s the Peninsular War, which is why the initial CoDEC Combat Armatures are named after British army officers who served in that war, and the Imperial Fleet has a very Napoleonic French theme. Obviously, a lot of these references are skin-deep. There’s also bits of the American Revolutionary War, the Second World War, and other conflicts in there as well. The biggest influence, of course, remains Real Robot Anime, especially the Universal Century Mobile Suit Gundam continuity.

This actually depends.

Mecha Ace was intended as a one-off, and the media which inspires it often focuses more on individual personalities than grand scale “sociological” narrative. Yes, the world is still there, because these narratives usually demand there be a war on, and a war generally means at least two sides fighting for reasons they consider to be sound, but the focus of the narrative in this kind of setting remains on the people caught in that war, and the personal bonds they have with each other.

So while I did do a bit of worldbuilding to justify the premise in the first place (humanoid mecha are not practical without that sort of fictional scaffolding), most of it began with the characters. Funnily enough, my original pitch involved three separate PoVs (from the characters that would become Asadi, Watanabe, and the MC), as they experienced the war from the standpoint of a rookie pilot, a civilian, and an ace veteran respectively.

Naturally, that proved too impractical, so I focused on the one point of view which I thought was most interesting (partially because it’s the one this genre seems to cover the least).

When it comes to other work, I will shift focus from worldbuilding to characters as the genre requires. The Fledgling Realms (Kendrickstone and Hallowford) has a very “bottom-up” setting, where I set the plot and build the world to justify it. The Dragoon Saga (Sabres, Guns, and now Lords of Infinity) are very “top-down”: there’s a setting, things happen in it, and the characters choose how they respond.

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Those are somethings I haven’t thought about before. Good food for thought. I appreciate it

I’ve been wondering- do you have to successfully romance Hawkins to get her to join you for the Si Vis Pacem achievement? I tried doing a Presence run, and even with 5 presence she wouldn’t join me.

I think you do have to romance them, it’s the only way I remember them staying.

Turns out you DO have to romance her, otherwise it’s either the spare/kill options.

I actually had a question directly for you @Cataphrak , relating to the initial Manningham/Picton/Uxbridge you pilot: What happens to it when you take the Lionheart? Do you get to keep the old mecha after the war, as an obsolete souvenir?