Characters
Characters are the engine that drives the strategic and tactical gameplay of MENACE. They lead squads of infantry or pilot vehicles during missions, representing and coordinating the elements you deploy, and can grow to have either positive or negative relationships with each other, influencing their combat performance. They are all unique, pre-written personalities each with their own background, preferences, and goals. They can die permanently in battle, and if you lose too many, your campaign will end in failure.
Characters can be divided into two types: Squad Leaders and Pilots. Squad Leaders are the command element of infantry units, operating a unique weapon (if chosen) while the other elements, called Squaddies, are generic grunts who can be renamed at the player's behest but have no unique dialogue or personalities. Each squaddie represents a percentage of the infantry unit's HP, and a squaddie dies when the unit's HP is reduced by that percentage, weakening its morale as well as its number of attacks per turn. If a unit's HP is completely depleted and all its squaddies have been eliminated, the remaining Squad Leader is incapacitated, or "bleeding out," and must be "stabilized" before he or she is lost permanently. A stabilized squad leader cannot be used for the rest of the battle but will not die.
Pilots command vehicles such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, and bipedal combat walkers (mechs). They are incapacitated and must be rescued when their vehicle has suffered critical damage and has been destroyed.
Both Squad Leaders and Pilots have skills in a Perk Tree that can be unlocked as they gain experience and are promoted through surviving tactical battles. While some skills are shared among different characters' perk trees, each character has a special unique perk entirely unique to him or her. Characters also have their own statistics (AP, Discipline, etc).
