[Tomkat]

I think the idea of characters is a good one.

In civ2 you have your "advisers" and they tell you about different aspects of the game (Science Adviser, Military Adviser, etc). You could get the same here; they could give you advice on what they think you should do - obviously there'd be clashes of opinions which you'd have to decide. This could help newbies get used to the game.

Then there's the other route of perhaps "Pilot Heroes" where you get given some particularly charismatic and talented pilots - you could perhaps send them on certain runs and get an xx% increase in stats. However if you send that pilot and they crash and burn, then you lose them forever (or until a new one is trained in xx ticks).