People harsh on Wing but I think the "fantasy" leaning suit designs are rad especially in EW, even if it is Char's Counterattack Part 2. Like.... quad mount GAU8/A Avengers and enough missiles to level a few city blocks... Zechs' mech just casually carrying around some Gustav Cannon type -blam!- that would have been mounted on a train in WW2. Rule of cool pretty much.

It would be relatively different I think. If nothing else, you’d have a different loadout designed for a giant mech. The player would have control of the specific weapons it’s equipped with. The idea is primarily tabletop/RP based, so in that regard, it’s the same fundamentals. Dodging & attacking, but now you’re in big robot, but your stats are probably all supercharged. Like, if you had 4 movement on the ground, you get something like 10 while in the mech.

Hmmm... which would be more unique from standard gameplay, new gameplay mechanics from being scaled up or facing new challenges by being "scaled down"?

That’s a good question! I’m not sure. :p The mech’s new gameplay would primarily come from its different moveset. You wouldn’t have access to your standard tools, and would have to work with something entirely new. Instead of fireballs and pistols, you have missile barrages & railguns. It’s possible the mech could also have a different mana system to your ground battles. The big difference in gameplay as a ground troop would probably be that you’re trying to complete objectives asap. Your mech buddy is out there fighting, and you need to make sure you do enough to give them the edge. Destroy turrets attacking them, or generators that make the monster stronger. And if you’re too slow, they might lose! You also obviously wouldn’t have your sidekick for these fights, as they’re in the mech, so depending how much you rely on them, that could require you to rethink your strategy.

Of things are functionally equivalent (fireball = rocket, magic missile = railgun, etc.) I say go with the small supporting role. If you can come up with an interesting way to make the mech feel significantly unique (like how in Neon Genesis Evangelion you can have synchronization issues or limited time off an umbilical)

Well, I did have one idea, but I'm not sure how well it'd work in an RP/tabletop, and that was the idea that the mech is actually functionally invincible, but using it puts a lot of strain on the pilot. Or in other words, you'd be on a timer rather than a health bar, sort of like the Super Sonic fights in the Sonic franchise, or the boss battles from NiGHTS. And then, potentially, using abilities might actually decrease your timer, so you need to find a good balance between firing off your big powerful abilities, and keeping your timer up. Though, I could see this result in players just using their weak no-mana abilities over and over, which wouldn't be good. The big problem is, I'm not actually super sure how to handle failstates in a tabletop/RP. In a video game, it's a simple reload from last checkpoint, but people tend to expect more from a tabletop game, where losing actually changes the course of the story. But, that wouldn't technically be an option in these fights, because this mech suit is kind of one of a kind, and the big monsters are too big to be fought with anything else. >.> I was also debating on ripping off the Evangelion cable. I haven't actually seen it, but someone told me about how the mechs needed to be on big cables, and I was like "heheh, I love that". So, you could potentially have a limited radius to move? In any case, how different the moves are compared to your base moveset I suppose would be up to the player. The idea is I work with them to craft a custom moveset for the mech (or if this were a video game, there would be different weapons for you to unlock/equip). I can't imagine they'd be too similar, unless the player was explicitly trying to make them similar, but I suppose it's hard to say without actually doing a playtest...

Yeah, that's how it works in Eva... usually... Alternatively you could do the armored core thing where you have an energy reserve that constantly refills but if you drain that reserve you overheat the engine and need to wait for it to cool. Or you could go the Gundam Wing route where the piloting system enhances the pilot's awareness but also provides an "optimal" course of action (collateral damage and pilot safety be damned) and the pilot must maintain their will over the system or else be coerced into taking the said action, often to their own and those around them's detriment.

So, the lore is actually already established. I can send you the full explanation on Discord if you like, but the short explanation is, the sidekick has a freakishly high magic reserve, and that’s what’s powering the mech. I don’t think the mech will have any sort of AI, but that could change potentially. So, it would probably have something to do with the way this character’s magic works compared to a normal person.

In Gundam Wing it's not so much an AI as neural interface. I mean, yeah, it's AI in the sense Doman Mahjong is in FFXIV is an AI because it can attatch values to tiles and recommend which to discard, but it can't pilot the Gundam itself, it still requires a pilot. Basically what's happening is it's syncronizing with the pilot and then feeding them so much data that they can become overwhelmed and develop combat tunnel vision. An equivalent (I'm assuming) to your situation could be the inverse, where they need to stem the tide of the outflow of magic or else risking losing control to their subconcious (raw paniced survival instincts) rather than their rational mind. But yeah, I'd love to take a look at the lore.

Oh, that's kind of a neat idea. They need to limit their magic not because they could physically run out, but because when they exert too much at once, they suffer some sort of adverse effect, like, as you mentioned, possibly their brain just kind of going numb for a bit. That's something I'll certainly need to think about! The lore has been sent to your Discord!

You could tie it to the umbilical concept too. Just have towers/crystals/leylines about the battlefield that either strip away excess magic or provide a secondary magic source to reduce strain on the pilot (mechanically the same but the later could be an excuse to explain how other characters could in theory use similar mechs in limited capacity)

Ooh, or maybe, putting the Star Child [i]in[/i] the mech at all is way too risky, so instead, they're hooked up to some sort of facility, like a tower, where they kind of go to sleep for a little bit, and then their magic flows out through the cable and into the mech. They could then pilot the mech with their mind while they're sleeping, [i]or[/i] if I want to avoid this whole question in the first place, it's possible they could be the battery, while the player is the pilot! That could actually add an extra layer to combat, too, where the enemy can clearly see this big honking cable, so in addition to protecting the mech, you also need to protect the tower it's anchored to. The towers, in turn, could provide a more stable environment for more consistent magic flow. No sudden power spikes or anything. [spoiler]And, it opens up some potentially insidious uses of these mechs, where the Star Child is [i]forced[/i] into being a battery while someone else pilots![/spoiler]

There ya go!

That mech has WAYYY to much recoil to be stable at all

One need not concern themselves with stabiity when none else are left standing.

Not realistic he should be spinning out of control with that much firepower, blud has A-10 guns for arms

[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunpla/comments/12z9w0a/the_heaviest_of_arms_heavyarms_wip//]It gets better![/url] But who cares? The idea of a mech (particularly a humanoid one) is inherantly flawed. It's not about practicality or realism. It's about rule if cool.