Danimal I have never seen Gundam... I prefer the western style of mechs which are basically bipedal tanks.
Gundam is said to be the one to start the real robot genre, it has a faction called zeon that is whatever he author wants it to be at the time. And the most well known character is Char, who is the prince (?) of zeon, who at one point betrays them, destroys his fleet with a laser and starts throwing asteroids at earth.
The real robot genre really begins with Macross, which was adapted into Robotech for the west. the first season of Macross was about earth fighting aliens, but when robotech needed a second season they adapted a different anime, this resulted in a world with royal families. This was in turn adapted for Battletech, which is all about kingdoms and feudal lords.
So space feudalism is something I'm trying to avoid as it's very common in the genre.
Danimal You probably know this title, but Front Mission has a lot of similarities with what you are planning; and the forgotten and criminally underrated "Mission force: Cyberstorm" can become a wealth of ideas for you. That game is old but AWESOME.
I learn that Front mission existed just yesterday , I will try to look into it.
Danimal Maybe your very first mission should be a tutorial where a group of infiltrating footsoldiers steal their first mech while learning the controls.
It's a good idea, but I'll try to get all the mechanics working before thinking of the tutorial.
Danimal The news I mentioned before can just be a fixed pic with the reporters/random place informing what´s happening in other worlds, so you don´t have to move from your own to get some flavour news of what´s happening outside.
That could work
Danimal I personally like the idea of a space mothership/superweapon since it´s kind of a Damocles´ sword constantly hanging over you, but that can also be achieved in other not so obvious ways.
Indeed
Danimal How much love are you planning to give to the pilots? Will they be faceless soldiers with no impact or will they level skills and the like?.
they will have names and level up some skills points but the missions will result in casualties very often, like in old X-Com.
Danimal I like your WIP mech, but I thought it already had integrated weapons on the arms.
Well the mechs are modular, so the weapons can be changed for different effects. The left arm can be given a machinegun, or a cannon, or missiles. That's why the arm has those slots.