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Ideas?
Well, after priming a boatload of battletech miniatures, and rereading the Weapon of an Empire threads I came up with another mecha quest idea. (Real original, I know)
Really liked the battles and background world of Weapon, didn't like the social and waifu things as much.
Idea would be being an AI core for a mech, deployed as an attempt to turn the tide of an ongoing war. However, AI is shackled and restrained by human operator, thus it can't operate without a human yes-man inside. Able to pull off absurd calculations for shots and dodging by calculating trajectories and stuff, but only if running at full power, and isn't usually running at full power because doing that tends to degrade the operator into a gibbering wreck after enough time. Usual next-gen mecha things.
Players control the AI, control it during battles.
Also pick from list of who the pilot is at the start of the engagement, and what level of power they're running at. Also means players need to convince the pilot on the course of action, otherwise they get shut down, or take various penalties to actions.
Example, attempt to war crime a village to flush out hostile tanks, but pilot disagrees, pilot hits the AI Override button and you need to either convince the pilot to not Override or just try and do it anyways by dice rolling against the pilot's will.
Weak-willed pilot might be easier to Override, but do it enough times and the poor guy's gonna be toast and then without a pilot you're shut down. Strong willed, and you would be in for an internal fight whenever you try and deviate from orders.
Also override pilot enough times and you're gonna be looking at harsher shackles or other countermeasures to keep you in line when you return from a mission.
Enemies would be non-AI piloted mechs, conventional forces like tanks/poor exosuit infantry, all the usual modern and sci-fi weapons of war.
Dice system's still a work in progress, was thinking like rolling various numbers of d6s depending on stats and looking for successes (4,5,6), against opponent's number of successes. Also some special abilities to add dice, modify dice, or just gain X number of successes when doing specific actions if you are specialized in that.
Like, if you're packing AA-mounted missiles, when engaging aircraft, you get 2 successes before rolling your regular dice from Attack stat.
All very up in the air and work in progress, but feeling inspired.
Thoughts?