Are there any formal rules in the game for players gaining a network of contacts, supporting cast or allies in play? or is this just assumed to happen anturally and the GM is assumed to apply this himself.
Or is their some king of mechanical benefit to having a contact or ally available?
they're not terribly deep, but there are sidekicks, contacts, and temporary improvements written out on p248-249. you burn your hero points on them. though there's really nothing stopping the GM from just throwing a friendly minion or LT into a scene or session, without charging hero points.
There's no formal rules, but I've found that its relatively easy to add some minions/lieutenants to the scene on the side of the heroes. If it makes sense in your story and your group members are using these contacts frequently, then maybe scale up the baddies to be a little harder (adding more of them, higher dice pools, stronger abilities, etc.). Many of the scenes in the starter kit are (H) minions and (H)/2 minions; you could easily do something similar and just do (H) + 1 or whatever.
Personally, I've only ran one game outside of the starter kit thus far, and I had an ally that I used as a balancing mechanic. Depending on how well the group was doing when entering the yellow and red zones, I added a heroic minion (happened to be a d12 cuz they werent doing so great) and it added both to the story and mechanics so I would reccomend doing something similar if needed.
I was also thinking out of combat, rules just to say what a contact can do with giving bonuses to overcome actions due to their help amd knowledge. Also any guidance on if the contact is availalble or not representing how close the contact is to the hero.
I'd say don't get too mechanic, and just go with what works for the story.
If you want them to get some information easily, let them bump into someone who turns out a bug fan, and who just so happens to work for the Mayor. If you want them to be stuck, or work especially hard, all their allies are out of town (you can even drop a running gag when it slowly becomes clear they are all visiting the same obscure butterfly breeders convention everybody knows about, except of course the heroes).
It's comic, so any cheesy reasoning usually works better than realistic probabilities.
"If you want them to get some information easily, let them bump into someone who turns out a bug fan, and who just so happens to work for the Mayor." — der andere Jan
Yeah, that seems like a goood person to go to. . . if the heroes need help fighting Myriad! ; D
Would be nice to be able to upgrade the Sidekick from Minion to Lieutenant.
Especially when the player group is small.
If you’re intending a faceman-type, the minion maker abilities can be easily reskinned to be call up contacts, then those contacts providing suitable actions.