Pilot Experience

 One thing that was interesting about Battletech was the idea that pilots could improve their abilities to pilot a vehicle or make weapon attacks. (I’m not sure it’s a good rule, but it was interesting.) So how can we model this in Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack?

At the beginning of each clash/skirmish/battle, identify the pilot of each frame on your side by name. Determine their experience level. During each conflict, a pilot whose frame is destroyed may die.

You have to decide whether a pilot automatically dies when their frame is destroyed or if they can somehow eject to escape. I suggest giving them a 3 in 6 or 4 in 6 chance to survive, but that chance may vary or even be zero depending on environment conditions. All players must agree to change the chance of surviving ejection before the game begins.

Now for the difference between experienced and inexperienced pilots. One option is the Ace Pilot rules as adapted for Rapid Attack from pages 22-23 and 41 of Intercept Orbit (pdf link). These rules make one pilot in one frame company more effective than the rest. Say that each frame company has one elite pilot who is an ace. If they get killed, you have to wait until after the battle/skirmish/clash, and can then choose another surviving pilot to be your new Ace.

This works for general fighting with one Ace on a side, but what if you want everyone to gain experience? First, we’ll distinguish between aces (as above) and experienced pilots. Aces are the best of the best. If your army has two or more aces, they’re usually too valuable to confine to one company, their commanders want to spread them out. On the other hand, when an ace is seen in one theater of operations, you want to field an scar against them. Let’s assume that you must have an equal number of aces per company, preferably no more than one.

Experienced varies among pilots, but most are never as good as aces. So we need some kind of system to model the difference between Green, Regular, Veteran, and Elite (Ace) pilots. (I’m blatantly using terminology from Battletech.)

I want the difference in experience to be something you can factor in when comparing companies. This will make it something you can sort of balance when you have different levels of experience.

I also want pilots to gain experience from something beyond just destroying other units. In Battletech, if you’re piloting a Locust, you probably won’t get very many kills, even though surviving a battle with heavy Mechs while piloting a Locust is actually really impressive and requires a lot of skill. If you’re piloting an OTT-7K Ostscout or a CGR-1A1 Charger, you may not do any damage to your opponents at all. By contrast, if you’re piloting an AS7-D Atlas, your green pilot will probably get a kill anyway. So here’s a baseline rule: Surviving a clash/skirmish/battle means it counts toward experience.

New recruits or inexperienced pilots start as Green. A Green pilot is not as experienced as a Regular, so they need some kind of disadvantage. When I’m not experienced at something, I may be able to do all the same things that someone else can, but not as fast, effectively, or intuitively as someone with more experience. So let’s say that Green pilots roll one less white die per activation, with a minimum of one. They still have two white dice when it comes to soaking damage, and if one white die is all they have left, they always roll at least one. If you’re playing with the optional rule that says you can lose a white die to damage instead of taking the hit on a system, Green pilots can’t do that. As a result of this limitation, Green pilots are considered to have one less system on their frame than Regular pilots when comparing companies. So if you have three Green pilots and each one is piloting a frame with a full loadout of four systems, their system total is only 9 (3 each) rather than 12. When you’re a Green pilot, you quickly learn the skills to survive or you die. If a Green pilot survives two clashes or skirmishes or one battle, they become a Regular. (If you want slow advancement, you can say they have to survive three to four skirmishes or two battles, or you can even say they’re Green until they survive their first campaign.)

For Regular pilots, we’ll say they’re the baseline. No changes to the rules, they always roll the normal dice and systems count as normal when comparing companies. When they survive six clashes or skirmishes as a Regular, they become a Veteran. Battles count as two skirmishes. If you’re using slow advancement, they have to survive two campaigns as a Regular to become a Veteran.

Veterans are really experienced pilots. They can choose one system type (RA/RD/RH/B/Y/G) when they become a Veteran. They can roll an extra six-sided die of that color for that activation. This doesn’t give them a system they don’t already have or let them attack at a range they couldn’t normally attack at, it just lets them have one more die to choose from. So if you have a Veteran who is experienced at defense (B), you roll an extra blue die and can use that for defense. If you also have one defense system, you don’t get to treat it like you have two defense systems (I.e. you can still take damage when you are functioning as cover for someone else unless you have two actual defense systems). You can never field more than two Veterans in play in your frame company. If you field more than two pilots who would be Veterans, pick two who will count as Veterans for that clash/skirmish/battle. The rest are treated as Regulars in play. Veterans count as if their frame has one more system when comparing companies.

Pilots only become Elite/Aces if they are the most experienced pilot left in an army when that army’s Ace dies. If there is more than one character with equal levels of experience, choose one to be the new Ace and select what type of d8 they will use per Intercept Orbit rules. Since every side has the same number of Aces, it shouldn’t make a difference in comparing companies. If you want different numbers of Aces, say that each one counts as two systems.

I don’t know how well these rules are balanced. They seem all right on paper, but until I really try them out I can’t say if they’re good or bad. Most likely it will be inherently better or worse than simply changing the number of systems on a frame, but I’ll have to think about it.