Question for the readers!

I have a big question on where ya'll would like to see me direct my efforts towards most.

#1.  Updating this site, and giving ya'll everything promised.  This will have record sheets, unit trackers, campaign stuff, etc, etc.  If your a reader of my silly blog, hopefully your aware of the promises, if not, you may have to read a few pages to get them :)

#2.  A computer based, real time, top down version of megamek essentially.  I'll use megamek graphics, so it'll be all top-down, but it'll play real time.  You'll be like a single tank in command and conquer.  And yes, it'll have multiplayer support.  It'll support everything so things like sensors, fuel, supply, and even RPG elements.  

#3.  A turn base, interstellar game, BASED on the BT universe.  So unit names will be different, faction names different, characters different, planets different, but it'll play just like the succession wars would (the historic, not the original game).  There will be thousands of units, as every regiment, many battalions, and some companies will be modeled.  Think Master of Orion, but far more detailed, and far more modular (you can mod it to *BE* BattleTech if you so desire, but I can't release it that way)

#4.  Run for Mayor of Dallas and focus my efforts there.  This will kill all of my support for games.

#5.  Run for President of the United States, because my left hand has more integrity than any major candidate we have had in the past few elections.  I won't accept money from anybody to avoid being biased, so people on the internet would have to get my name out in their neighborhoods.  This will of course kill all of my support for games as well.  FYI, I've attempted to run for congress in the past, but last yer I got sick in the middle of getting my 500 signatures so fell through, and previously I had the libertarian candidate talk me out of running (stupid me, but it isn't a dream job by any means).

I'm serious about all 5, but I'm betting most of ya'lls votes would be for #1 to #3 :)

Let me know, if I get enough votes for any particular item I'll set my focus on it and spend 100% of my free time towards finishing it as my next project (starting in November at the latest).

New products, and other musings

First yet another apology for a lack of updates, there have been a few things in my life sucking up my free time, in no particular order they are:

Borderlands 2 (great game, I cheat so am getting bored)
X-Com (not nearly as good as previous incarnations)
Planetside 2 Beta (awesome)
A cyberboard game of Federation and Empire (ongoing)
Strike Legion Designer (nearly done)

Before that I was spending some time in the Mechwarrior Online beta.  I got bored with it really fast and regret blowing $120 for it as I really doubt I'll ever play it.  The game is horrible.  Defenders say its a beta, and will get better, but I have never seen a game in a beta state get *completely* redone, and without starting over from scratch, well, it sucks.  Some people are fans anyway, and love it, but there are also still fans of Doom playing it, so take that with a grain of salt.

World of Warplanes sucked ass too, it has promise, but the free to play model makes it a worse grind than WOW ever thought about being, and WOW at least has depth.

I stopped playing Tribes Ascend.  I put a lot of money and time into it, but now every time I log in it seems every other player is just a childish asshole, so it has turned me off to playing it.  The free to play model there got excessive too.  I put over $100 into the game, didn't have everything, and then they release the cool voices for yet more money, ugh.

I played Hawken too.  This game is with mechs, but feels much more like a FPS.  The graphics are pretty cool, the game play nifty, my only real complaint was the maps made all the fighters REALLY close up.  It has a lot of potential, and if you really want a mech game it blows MWO away already.

Ok, now onto Battletech stuff!

3 new PDF releases this week, WOOT!  I wish they'd scatter em about a bit so we don't have so long between releases, but any new releases are great.  Quick review!

Dossiers Bounty Hunter.  Like the other dossiers products, with history of the Dread Pirate Roberts Bounty Hunter, all his mechs (most of which we have seen before).  If your interested at all in the Bounty Hunter (who isn't?), pick it up.

Historical Turning Points Antallos:  Like all the rest basically.  I get the HTPs for the maps, planet data, and occasional record sheets (this only has a combat version of the Buccaneer dropship).

And the XTRO Phantoms.  I didn't know what this was going to be, and now that I see it I'm quite unimpressed.  Basically take a dozen units, add some mixed tech, and there you go.  Its an XTRO, and worth the $5 for the history.  Some unique units.  I didn't notice as many issues in this one as some previous ones which was a nice relief.  There were a few interesting units like a Grand Titan with a Thumper, and an IS Tornado PA(L) that moves 7 with clan VTOL equipment.

Handbook House Kurita will probably come out by spring of next year.  Once it does, I'll go back and update my mapping programs since we'll FINALLY have complete maps of various eras.

Don't ask me how I know, but I know what the hold up is with Interstellar Operations.  Hopefully they can work through it and get at least some rules out for us to playtest soon.

Oh, I added all the new units to the BattleTech Encyclopedia, so feel free to peruse.

And speaking of, yes, I said I was working on it, and I am... partially.  Playing F&E over cyberboard plus other things listed have killed any real progress with it.  I am going to try to get my Strike Legion designer out TODAY.  After that I'll still waste my weekdays playing cyberboard, but my weekends will be devoted to the Encyclopedia.

Again, I apologize for the lack of any progress, but it isn't like ya'll keep commenting "when will you update the BTE?!?!?!" to keep me on top of my game either ;)

Robotech Miniatures?

Well I was sick over the last 2 weeks, so didn't get crap for work done.  One heck of a cold or something :(

Anyway, I came across something REALLY REALLY REALLY interesting.....

http://www.palladiumbooks.com/index.php/about-palladium/weekly-updates/625-palladium-booksr-weekly-update-september-27-2012

Scroll down to the Robotech Tactical Role-Playing game update...

Lots of 1/285 Robotech miniatures comming, WOOT!  PLEASE let them have a MAC II as well as all the destroids/mecha from all 3 series.  I'll go broke buying these.

I hope the game is great too.  I've always thought that Heavy Gear, aka the DP9 Silouhette system, would be *perfect* for Robotech as it has the "anime" feel, and a hero can be nearly invincible until  overwhelmed or fighting another hero, and can easily trash scores of stupid baddies.  I loved Heavy Gear before they went Blitz (to me they went from tactical miniatures game to 40K clone).

Anyway, lets home great things come from that.

Heck, maybe it'll work for Rifts too.  The Rifts universe is really cool, don't care much for the rules, but its a universe that allows ANYTHING you can imagine, which is kinda cool.

Anyway, stayed up too late playing Borderlands 2.  Not sure why I'm still playing it, feels like BL1, and I spend WAY too much time opening stupid crates with garbage in them, though I bet its a blast multiplayer.  I cheated and level 50'd my characters pretty quick to keep going, but I think its days are numbered for me.  Great game tho for those who dive into FPS games like that.  

A Reply To My Ineptitude

I had a viewer send me this email, and wanted to reply back to everybody in case other people felt the same way (I believe all opinions should be heard).  My original text is in orange, his comments in green, and my replies in red.  Feel free to comment below or just send me an email at bad_syntax over at yahoo.com.  Sorry if your color blind (or if this posting MAKES you color blind) :)   I also made it smaller so its easier to skim, if its too small just hold down CTRL and use your mouse wheel.

If you don't care about opinions, just scroll to the very bottom and grab a copy of the system generator using these rules, as well as my earlier one using explorer corps rules.  Both are in excel, if you peruse my blog I think there is a website that does the same thing but I don't remember the URL, and am too lazy right now to go try to find it.

"The rules state that orbits 2-4 are in the life zone. However this means that often there are 2 or even 3 occupied terrestrial planets in a single system. There is no difference in these systems, all 3 could be a high population colony, or whatever. So in essence, many times, there is no single world in a system that is predominate."
No, it says that 2-4 are in the life zone. No where does it say that there are 2 or 3 occupied planets in any given system. And there are many differences, for example, you roll for equatorial temperature and that is modified by orbital slot. Different planets may have different atmospheres and gravity even. I doubt that modern day Venus (that would be in slot 2) is that same kind of planet as modern Mars (in slot 4). You pretty clearly didn't read these rules closely.

Actually it says *terrestrial* worlds in the life zone, which my (attached) spreadsheet takes into account.  No, not every system has 3 terrestrial planets in that zone, however, the rules state nothing about what happens if you do roll up 3 terrestrial planets in the life zone, as all 3 would have populations, which could each be in the billions if its an “important system”.

"The USILR code (p366-376 ATOW), or the A-B-A-D-E thing planets have is said to need to be created, but there is no way to do this without, well, pulling numbers out of your ass. You don't have any idea how many of any type of world there may be."
In response, "Settled worlds must also establish a USILR code (see pp. 366-376, AToW), as well as the nature of local government, the presence of recharge stations, HPGs and the like. ***These details are largely left up the gamemaster***, though pp. 146-149 offers a means to randomly determine a settled world’s government."
So best judgement on the gamemasters part. Its your game, do with it that you will.

Yes, like I said, if you are a GM, just make your own systems, these rules simply aren’t complete enough to randomly generate one.

"Giant/Dwarf terrestrials are mentioned to be habitable sometimes, but no rules, nor sizes, nor any details can be gained."
page 140, "For players interested in even greater levels of world-building
detail and development, a more sophisticated version of these rules will appear in the Interstellar Operations core rulebook." While you complaining that those rules aren't there is actually valid, the solution is already provided.

Yeah, again, the solution is just do it all yourself, and ignore these rules entirely… PERHAPS IO will have a very detailed and complete system, but I’d bet money it won’t as there isn't but a couple (like Galtor III) really detailed systems in the entire game.

"The stellar subtype, a number between 0 to 9, which can be considered a decimal number between 1 start type and the next, is on a 2d6 table. In stellar terms, this should be a 1d10 and there should be a pretty equal chance of each, not mostly 5's"
Maybe because they didn't want to make people use dice other than d6's. I.e., "The following rules represent a basic guide for generating detailed
star systems (page 140).

That was my assumption as well, but seriously, what person who would use these rules does NOT have a d10 around?  And there *are* ways of using d6 to produce 10% results, and they have been in the rules before (explorer corps book).

"Nothing whatsoever on terrain generation"
So what did you want, software provided that would generate terrain for you? Maybe you should use your imagination on what your planet should look like? If your planet has 70% water coverage...draw a planet with about 70% water coverage, and a variety of land cover types. Seems simple enough to me.

The Wars of Reaving book has terrain for planets, nothing too complicated but easy to implement rules, so that isn’t a new thing.  This book would have been a great place to have those.

"The record sheet has stats for only a single habitable world, when a system could have up to 3. This isn't really a flaw, as you would use one of these per world. However, it would have made a lot more sense to have a simple system sheet on 1 page, and a world sheet on another."
So print out three sheets if there are three planets!

That is what I basically said, but then with 3 world sheets, you have the system info 3 times, so its redundant and a waste.  They didn’t even include space for all the planet details that you could roll up.  An empty box would have been helpful for GMs.

"Overall its a very generic and abstract system without really giving much detail. If your a GM, and want a world, just make one up on your own and avoid this whole section. If you really want to generate a detailed system, avoid these rules entirely and go get GURPS Space 4e (or some of the older GURPS Traveller or Traveller products) which does a far better job at creating a more realistic system."
From page 140, "The following rules represent a basic guide for generating detailed star systems where players can set adventures and campaigns
in the BattleTech universe. As the universe itself is filled with infinite
possibility, this three-stage system is merely a means for GMs and players to create believable—yet unique—worlds without requiring advanced degrees in physics, geology, and astronomy to do so. For players interested in even greater levels of world-building detail and development, a more sophisticated version of these rules will appear in the Interstellar Operations core rulebook."

Which is what I said, if you want detail, don’t use these rules, but GURPS is FAR more detailed, and doesn’t require a degree in anything to accomplish far more.

"No details for moons, but we have lots of MW/MC games that have had moon based battles :("
Moons are small terrestrial bodies, maybe use some of the rules on terrestrial planets about making moons? I'm not an astronomer, but even I have enough of a clue to go there. Do you want orbits, and periods? I refer back to page 140, "worlds without requiring advanced degrees in physics, geology, and astronomy to do so."

So you are a GM, your players raid on a moon, and there is no method to determine gravity, atmosphere, etc.  So these are simply *not* rules by any means, as there is nothing complete about them at all.  They aren’t even a decent guideline, and are better left ignored.  Why in the heck would you print something that is best ignored and even in your own text say “these aren’t complete”???

"I'm sorry, but who really cares what the highest form of life is on a planet??? Isn't it always humans anyway? :) This is something that I think long ago should just be ignored, as it isn't very relevant when BT isn't as much about "exploring the universe" but "exploring ruins""
I wasn't aware that humans were native to every inhabited planet in the BattleTech universe, didn't they all come from Terra? Seriously, it even says, "Step 7: Determine Highest Local Life Form. To determine the highest native life form..." And why should it be ignored when a large section of the AToW *and* this book go into details about native life forms, how to make them, what they are good for, etc?

Because the GM will determine if there are dinosaurs on the planet, not these rules.  I was being a bit sarcastic though, as every planet with a population is going to have humans, and thus mammals are always the highest level of life J

To sum up my wall of text:
You need to:
A) Use your own imagination.
B) Read the book you are complaining about.
C) Stop assuming things

      A)    These are RULES, they are there to assist when my imagination can’t do it.  By that statement, why have any rule books at all, just “use your imagination”.

      B)     Uhhh, I did, I went through every single line of the system generation, often more than a few times

      C)    I didn’t assume anything, not sure where you got that

My main beef is why bother printing some half-assed rules, when you have a full system on the horizon, and even better stuff already printed?

While I can NOT recommend this book to people who want to generate systems (use this or cheaper/older this instead), it still looks go be a good book for any GM or people playing the RPG.  I haven't read through the new rules for battlearmor (that look cool at first glance), creature generation, high level npc generation, or some other sections that also may be awesome (or not).  

Here (right click, save as) is an old download, 2.8mb, that has a system generator using the older (and more detailed) explorer corps rules for system generation (as well as a bunch of other stuff in it that may not be updated).

And here is the new one.  Both are excel 2010 files.

A Time of War Companion System Generation

I jumped in excel today and spent a couple hours making a spreadsheet that can easily use the system in ATOW to generate, well, tens of thousands of systems in <1 second on my machine.  I now have gone through the whole system generation rules, and its fell short in a few ways.

• The rules state that orbits 2-4 are in the life zone.  However this means that often there are 2 or even 3 occupied terrestrial planets in a single system.  There is no difference in these systems, all 3 could be a high population colony, or whatever.  So in essence, many times, there is no single world in a system that is predominate.
• The USILR code (p366-376 ATOW), or the A-B-A-D-E thing planets have is said to need to be created, but there is no way to do this without, well, pulling numbers out of your ass.  You don't have any idea how many of any type of world there may be.
• Giant/Dwarf terrestrials are mentioned to be habitable sometimes, but no rules, nor sizes, nor any details can be gained.
• The stellar subtype, a number between 0 to 9, which can be considered a decimal number between 1 start type and the next, is on a 2d6 table.  In stellar terms, this should be a 1d10 and there should be a pretty equal chance of each, not mostly 5's
• Nothing whatsoever on terrain generation
• The record sheet has stats for only a single habitable world, when a system could have up to 3.  This isn't really a flaw, as you would use one of these per world.  However, it would have made a lot more sense to have a simple system sheet on 1 page, and a world sheet on another.
• Overall its a very generic and abstract system without really giving much detail.  If your a GM, and want a world, just make one up on your own and avoid this whole section.  If you really want to generate a detailed system, avoid these rules entirely and go get GURPS Space 4e (or some of the older GURPS Traveller or Traveller products) which does a far better job at creating a more realistic system.
• No details for moons, but we have lots of MW/MC games that have had moon based battles :(
• I'm sorry, but who really cares what the highest form of life is on a planet???  Isn't it always humans anyway? :)  This is something that I think long ago should just be ignored, as it isn't very relevant when BT isn't as much about "exploring the universe" but "exploring ruins".

Some EASY potential fixes:

• For a system with 2+ terrestrial worlds in the life zone, roll a 1d6/2 if 3, or 1d6/3 if 2, to determine which planet is the predominate one.  Other planets are always lesser population.  If the predominate planet is a colony, other planets must just be settlements.
• Random USILR codes.  Roll 2d6.  2-3 is an A, 4-5 is a B, 6-7 is a C, 8-9 is a D, 10-11 is E, and 12 is F.  Roll Technological, Industrialization, Raw Material, Industrial Output, and Agricultural dependence in order.  To make more sense add modifiers.  If Technology A, -4 to other rolls, if its a B -2, if its E +2, if its an F +4.  Raw material is never modified.
• Giant terrestrials are 14000+1d6*1000 km in diamater, dwarf are 1000+1d6*1000.
• Stellar subtypes are a d10 roll, treating a 10 as 0.

Overall like I mentioned, I'd use GURPS/Traveller to create a system.  They have rules for everything ATOWC has, and lots more, plus the ability to detail things out a lot.  Granted, their rules are far more complex, so go download Heaven & Earth and have a fully detailed system in minutes.

I had an epiphany last night on how to generate my own universe that feels like BT, but isn't.  One word:  Supernova.  More to come soon.

Oh, if anybody wants the spreadsheet, make a comment below or send me an email, its a bit under 300k with 50 worlds and a crappy record sheet generator.

A Time of War Companion Quick Review

First, I love new BT products, even if I don't really even use them.  There is something seriously wrong in my head I think.

Anyway, a quick review of the latest release. 

If you play the RPG, this book is mandatory.  Its filled full of new rules.  I'm sure there is a table of contents out there, and I'm not going into too much detail on stuff.  Here is what I thought was kinda cool though:

• Rank tables, both old and new for all factions
• New rules for battlesuit combat, including a critical sheet for battle armor that looks just like the mech criticals (6 slots per limb, 12 in body, etc).  
• Advanced creature creation... maybe I can write a computer program to randomize critters?
• System generation rules.  Some very simplistic ones anyway, but it beats the old ones in Explorer Corps.  I'll write a version that'll do it for you on the computer maybe this week.  I know I wrote an old one that I think is still around, so this will replace it.
• Rules for personal vehicles, basically some really simple stats (table, not a TRO) of the vehicles you see behind the infantry in TRO 3085.

I need to dig in and see how well the combat system works.  I had more fun playing Battletroops in about 1989-1990 than I have ever had playing Battletech.  With all the new rules in this book, if I get rid of extra stuff, rip out a few dozen pages, I may just have BattleTroops 3!  Hope so anyway.

And the negative.  I noticed quite a few pics in the book I'd seen somewhere before.  Not that big a deal  tho.  Page 272-273 is an add for battlecorps.com, which I was stupid and joined, and it is a waste of money (oooo, 5% discount, saved me $2.73 on this order).  And my biggest beef, the $60 for the book+PDF.  I go to amazon, the book is $30, i have to pay $7.50 through battlecorps for shipping, freaking outrageous (and they usually ship 1 book in a big empty box with lots of peanuts).  My biggest problem is I bought the hardcover, why in the hell am I also paying for the PDF????  I can see why you'd sell the PDF for $15 and the book for $30+, but if you buy the hardcopy, you should get the PDF for free, period.  Otherwise I see it as basically charging me twice for 1 product.

If you buy a physical book, the PDF should always be free, otherwise its just not ethical IMO.

But I buy it anyway, cuz I'm nuts, and I know I make more than most people who play this silly game and want to support it, but ugh, that is just wrong.

Anyway, enough ranting.  If you play the RPG a lot, I'd recommend buying this book, but I'd recommend buying the PDF as you can search it easier and it won't fall apart on you.

Oh, one more thing.  They do now have a map for planets, its the typical 20 triangle icoshedron that Traveller I think started decades ago.  It looks nice, but I had really been hoping that Interstellar Operations wouldn't make planetary level combat stupid, and this map really hints that it'll be lame.  First, there is only 1 size of map, meaning all maps will have different sized hexes, meaning that movement and stuff will be so abstracted to lose all sense of fun.  There is only 6 different sizes of planets (8000km+1d6*1000km).  The planet given is about 25 hexes in diameter.  On average about 450km per hex.  They could very easily have made 6 of them, from 20 to 32 hexes or so in diameter, so the hexes could be consistent and your regiment move at the same speed on every planet you land on.  Another thing, there simply isn't *enough* hexes.  North America would be at most probably 4 hexes across, and 2 hexes vertical, meaning all of North America is only about 8 total hexes to fight on.  How are you going to fight the retaking of Terra by Kerensky or from the WOB when all of NA, with divisions of divisions of troops, is on EIGHT hexes?  May as well just give you a counter per regiment, with an attack and defense, and really dumb it down.  Plenty of games follow that model and work I guess.  This is how I know that the planetary scale of BattleForce in Interstellar Operations will suck, just like the Planetary Assault rules from BF2 sucked.  Hopefully I'm wrong, and perhaps IO will come out with regional maps, where it is a "megahex" with perhaps 10-20 hexes across, and each represents a single hex on the planet.  A system like that would be cool as you may only be fighting in a few of them at a time, and each could probably fit on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, and dozens could be create pretty easily (1 per terrain type on the planet).  If a system like this is done, there is still hope I think, otherwise imagine how non-fun it'll be to drop 8 counters on Tikonov in 3029, against 8 other counters, where you maybe move 1 hex per day, and no terrain really matters.  I sure hope they don't do drugs and decide to give units on this scale a range of combat, that'd just make me go ballistic.

MasterUnitList v2.0

Ok, design work has now begun on the new MasterUnitList.  The official MasterUnitList was just updated, though buggy I think it looks a bit better.  They did implement quick strike cards, but they are all text and would require you do a screenshot, jump to paint, paste, then crop the image to print it.  I'm sure they did this to save CPU on the web server, storage on the web server, and probably most of all bandwidth, but oh well.

The MasterUnitList 2.0, well, my BattleTech Encyclopedia 2.0, will have a LOT of new features.  I'll list them here, feel free to chime in any ideas you may have for it:

• A fully functional phpBB forum to discuss all things BattleTech, with far less censorship and moderation (if you want to be a mod, apply now!) as I am not a company :)
• A fully functional real time chat engine that supports die rollers and I'll add any tables such as random unit tables, Xotl's tables, location tables, etc.  It should run on your phone, and may help people play.
• Battletech record sheets for *everything*.  That includes things like warships, buildings, mobile structures, and even characters for ATOW/RPG.
• The website and chat logins will be the same as the forum password.
• You can create your own lists of units.  Create your own 2nd ACR, add all the units of any kind you want to the list, and print them out as QS, BF, or BT.  When you print, the output can be PNG or PDF.
• You can share your unit lists with some people, or everybody.
• The ability to search for units based on ANY criteria.  Want to find units with only 100 shots of MG ammo?  Done!
• You lists of units also map to lists of characters, so you can give each unit a pilot from your list (or have them randomly generated).
• All units in your list, as well as all personnel, can have all their attributes modified.  Want to use up some ammo on some units?  How about apply damage or do crits?  What about a refit?  Or give the unit some heat.  All will be implemented.
• With a single click, you can get the BV of a unit list, the time it takes to repair it, the cost of repairs, my own strategic scale battleforce data for a unit of any size, average armor or damage over the whole unit, heck, the sky is the limit :)
• A page to verify designs.  Not really a unit builder yet, but you'll be able to put in all the info, and it'll create a QS/BT/BF card, tell you the overall cost/BV/etc, and let you know if some rules  were broken in the design.
• Battle simulator.  Specify 2 units, give a range, give pilot skills, give modifiers to hit, and the simulator will determine with those circumstances, which unit will triumph and how often.
• Bug submission button on most pages to help me fix things you find that are broken.
• I *might* give the ability to export to megamek/SSW/etc, but I'm not real sure yet.  If I do, I'll probably be able to create an entity list for megamek scenarios based on your own unit lists.
• I *might* give the ability to upload your own record sheet backgrounds, but you'll have to spend some time configuring it if number layout is different than the ones I already did.
• And more I'll find when I finish going through notes :)

Due to my new job making me come up at 6, and spousal commitments, the best ETA on all this being done I can give is about January, but don't hold me much to it, as variables get thrown into the schedule of life more than I'd like.  

I did find it kinda funny that the canon MasterUnitList had a dozen or more people listed as assisting with the project, and it is nowhere as complete or detailed as mine is with only me doing it.  I actually have all the stats for every unit, not just some horribly inaccurate and partial faction lists.

More to come soon!