Worst Blogger EVER!

Ok, first, like I so often do, let me apologize for being so late between my updates!  No excuses, just laziness and distractions on my part, with a touch of procrastination.  I suck, now lets get moving.

I'll keep this update brief, as at this point I have probably lost half my short reader list anyway ;)

New Releases!
    Alpha Strike Companion - GREAT book if you are into Alpha Strike at all, a "must have".  It was nice to see some of my ideas make the rules, like RearX/X/X, HtX/X/X, and some versions of variable damage (my favorite version is just use a missile hit table for the damage amount, start at 7, and add/remove the margin of success/failure on the attack to determine damage done).  Anyway, buy it, I did!

    LCAF 2765 - Woot, I *love* these books.  We finally get to see all the units in the 2765 era.  Hopefully we'll get a periphery version soon (or multiple), and I'd still die for a new SLDF version with a listing of all the divisions and their quality/morale (broken into regiments would be awesome, but not very likely).

Alpha Strike Utility
    It took me a really long time to figure out how to deal with generating/storing units.  However, I finally got it, and an interface to manipulate them.  I haven't finished it, but the only hold up now is sitting down to knock out chunks of code.  I can now generate any sized unit (well, galaxy/division/regiment level) with random units from XOTL's tables for now (soon many more).  Clicking on each unit will show you my AS card, or the MUL AS card.  Beta not ready yet, but soon as it will be those of you who emailed me wanting to be a part of it will get a copy.  I also need to implement new rules/formulas from the Alpha Strike Companion in there.  This is my #1 focus, though I still get sidetracked (see next entry) as I want to have it finished and working by GenCon.

Succession Wars
    Thanks to the 2765 LCAF book, I made counters for every regiment in 2765.  I have also created a 278x235 hex map with all the planets (1 hex with 4 systems, 1 with 3, and 13 with 2, but all other hexes have just 1 system!) on it.  Each hex is 5 LY, so you can jump 6 hexes.  I did all this in Cyberboard, which is a great utility to play counter based games online.  I also imported all 500 or so of the counters into it, though it is 100% non-functional now, it was just me playing.  Here are the counters for you, though I may end up redoing them entirely:

    Basically I was thinking of having these counters on the map, and each held a counter for each battalion (which could even be broken up into companies, though not very often).  Counters would have steps of damage, representing lances destroyed.  I have pages and pages of this stuff, one day I'll finish it.

Battletech Engineer Website
    I have been making updates as people pointed out errors, and a few other things I've caught, as well as adding new megamek icons Dreadborder puts out, but I haven't yet updated the site yet.  I think I may completely redo it, as I'm not real happy with the format (I made it to complicated!).  I did find a new method to do the PDFs though, which will be MUCH faster I think.

GenCon
    I have always kinda wanted to go to GenCon, and this year I will be going, all 4 days.  I am going mostly to see the Robotech RPG Tactics stuff, but as they are all sold out I signed up for like 15 battletech games of various types.  I *really* hope I don't think it blows, like I did with BGGCon last winter here in Dallas, but at least I can say I went one day.  If anybody wants to meet shoot me an email and we can coordinate something.

Other things I'm working on:

• Once I get my AS data updated, or maybe even before using MUL data, I'll generate a PDF with record sheets for each TRO and Record Sheet book released for folks to download.
• I want to create new AS cards that look great, but I'm no artist.  I can copy the beautiful ones CGL made, but I also wanted some colors in there for each faction.  I like the new designs with criticals, but not the way they are implemented and there are situations where those criticals will become problematic.  If anybody wants to make some great card templates, I can quickly write the code to make an AS Card out of them.
• I have entered in over 4400 random tables from various products.  These will all be included in the Alpha Strike Utility though I need to figure out some standardization for them, as some of the newer tables have quite a few results that break the whole 2d6 thing.  Not that its a bad thing, its actually great, but it'll take some coding to do.
• I entered in all the data from the Clan Wolf book, and merged it with Alpha Strike.  First, something interesting, not a single name of a warrior was ever duplicated, not in like a thousand units.  Some had blood names, but the first name was always unique!  Next, want to know what each galaxy would look like if the galaxy was a single Alpha Strike card (Armor=Armor+Structure divided by some divisor, attack=Medium Range but divided by some divisor, PV beta and not skill modified, I think they all move 3)?
• Alpha Galaxy, 662 PV, Medium Mech, Elite, 21 Attack, 38 Armor
• Cumulative abilities:
• CASE180,OMNI224, ARTAC-40, AMS17, PRB37, RCN37, ECM7, TAG2,VSTOL66,SPC66,BOMB202,PNT15,IF70,MEC69,AM69,CAR345,SNARC2,FLK19/41/32,LRM28/28/48,SRM57/57 (obviously these would be modified for a galaxy level battle)
• Beta Galaxy, 529 PV, Medium Mech, Elite, 17 Attack, 31 Armor
• Gamma Galaxy, 555 PV, Medium Mech, Elite, 19 Attack, 32 Armor
• Delta Galaxy, 616 PV, Medium Mech, Elite, 20 Attack, 34 Armor
• Epsilon Galaxy, 453 PV, Medium Mech, Regular, 15 attack, 46 Armor

        Or would you prefer each cluster?

• Trinary Clan Command, 40 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 4 Attack, 7 Armor
• 13th Wolf Guards Cluster, 106 PV, Veteran, Medium Mech, 10 Attack, 18 Armor
• 328th Assault Cluster, 183 PV, Elite, Heavy Mech, 17 Attack, 32 Armor
• 4th Wolf Guards Cluster, 179 PV, Elite, Heavy Mech, 17 Attack, 33 Armor
• 279th Battle Cluster, 154 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 15 Attack, 25 Armor
• Galaxy Command, 82 PV, Elite, Heavy Mech, 7 Attack, 14 Armor
• 341st Assault Cluster, 133 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 13 Attack, 25 Armor
• 352nd Assault Cluster, 149 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 14 Attack, 26 Armor
• 3rd Battle Cluster, 164 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 16 Attack, 27 Armor
• 7th Battle Cluster, 159 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 16 Attack, 26 Armor
• 16th Battle Cluster, 141 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 15 Attack, 25 Armor
• 11th Battle Cluster, 181 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 18 Attack, 30 Armor
• 11th Wolf Guards Cluster, 167 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 16 Attack, 27 Armor
• 37th Striker Cluster, 161 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 16 Attack, 26 Armor
• 4th Striker Cluster, 177 PV, Elite, Medium Mech, 18 Attack, 31 Armor
• Nega Garrison Cluster, 101 PV, Regular, Medium Mech, 11 Attack, 31 Armor
• Choyer Garrison Cluster, 96 PV, Regular, Medium Mech, 10 Attack, 30 Armor
• Gurbeng Garrison Cluster, 99 PV, Regular, Medium Mech, 10 Attack, 31 Armor
• Dorbeng Garrison Cluster, 103 PV, Regular, Medium Mech, 11 Attack, 32 Armor

        Eventually I'll get Clan Jade Falcon done too, then the other clans inputted and RATs fixed for them, but for now this was an interesting side project.

Forum

    I made a forum but its hardly used, I will respond to stuff on it very quickly compared to the blog.  Oh well, if it stays dead in a few more months I'll probably just end up removing it as supporting it is a lot of work.

Major Update

It has been a REALLY long time since I did an update, and for that I apologize.  My focus has been off since December, but I'm working on getting back on track now.

To avoid a REALLY long posting with all the updates, I'll do a quick nice and simple one:

- I bought 4 copies of the new introductory boxed set.  The new miniatures are awesome, and to not see a clan version, a 3067 version, a 3075 version, 3085 version, 3145 version, and so forth, of these wonder miniatures is a crime against humanity.  Hopefully we do see other sets get printed, as I'd MUCH rather have them than the garbage coming out of IWM these days.
- Field Report 2765:  FWLM.  Awesome book, like the rest.  Soon as I get the LCAF one, I'll start working on the 1st succession war game.
- XTRO Royal Fantasy April Fools PDF.  Not your usual joke, the units are completely usable.  Fine designs, only beef with it is no artwork.
- XTRO Gunslingers.  Woot, some nifty new units, a bit munchy on some.  Didn't seem like many were gunslinger pilots though but I didn't read much.  Anyway, great purchase.
- Era Report 3145.  This looks like a good transition book through the dark age, and I kinda hope it is the last book of the dark age.  It goes through the various MWDA factions and such.  I have very little interest there, and didn't really read it.
- I finally got my 4 mats from Hotzmatz.com.  The only way the guy would write me back was to send money first, then modify my order.  I got 4 mats, a blue, tan, green, and white.  They are much thinner than they used to be, and are basically just felt you could get at a hobby store with a silkscreen hex grid on it (not dots, but lines).  Meh quality, but all I know of right now.  GripMats should have something soon to beat them though.
- Kickstarter is a curse, I have been spending too much time, and WAY too much money there.  I am starting to step away from the pre-order system, and trying to avoid spending as much money.  I have been disappointed a few times with non-games, and games seem way overpriced in most cases.  
- Windows 8.1 blows donkeys, and Office 2013 blows the product that blows donkeys.  I've tried for months, but they are just too slow, too buggy, and too much of an impact on my productivity to keep using.  Back to 2008 at work, and soon 2008 on my desktop at home.
- I have now spent way too much money on Heroscape terrain on ebay, but have enough to do whatever I want and can easily fill a table with anything.  Sure wish somebody would make a similar system, perhaps that didn't interlock so difficultly, and kickstart that sucker.
- My forum is pretty dead, but its my own fault for not posting on it much :(
- Nobody in my 10+ person battletech gaming group wants to even touch alpha strike, go figure.
- I have been trying to get a 3D modeler on contract to knock out all the robotech/macross/rifts mecha, and then battletech stuff.  Basically somebody i can give a few hundred bucks a month to for 2-3 models of stuff.  I want to get some 3D printing going and have a 3D printer due at the house this year to play with.

And the good stuff:
- I have done database updates on my bte.battletechengineer.com site.  It has everything, even the units from the newest PDFs, though I need another refresh for that last batch of books.  Many bug fixes, including the new beta PV system, have been implemented.  Still needs work though!
- The next version of my alpha strike tool will support the German language, and any other that somebody wants to translate for me.

Ok, now the great stuff!

Even though I haven't been very active here, nor my forum, I do still watch the forums I'll always be banned from.  Pathetic, I know, probably even stupid since they said they don't want me, but have zero problem taking my orders.  Anyway, that has kept me somewhat involved.  I even email lots of errata and issues with the MUL and various books to the couple people I have emails too over there.  I think above all that is the #1 worst, is that I find all these issues but can't let anybody know (Anybody have Xotl's email?) :(  Anyway, this activity has kept me "in the game" so to speak, plus my gaming on weekends.

Ok, anyway, I have now spent about 20 hours on the new Alpha Strike Utility.  Yeah, it has a rename, but it is no longer just a simple card maker.  It is that, plus a force tracker, a unit browser (pulls from the canon MUL, my own, and my own "tweaked" as options), a PDF output generator, card comparer, card generator, random unit generator, and best of all, a tool that you can use to track your alpha strike units in game.  Click a button, take a hit, optionally it'll even resolve critical hits for you.  I have a LOT of work to do yet, and as of today I just have an extensive search/filtering system with support the cards for my site, and the MUL site, but more will come very soon.  I've already written all the back end code to support alpha strike in game for example.  Now its really just all about the interface and application design, the hard code has been done.

Now, hopefully within the next few days, I'll be ready enough to get it tested.  This will NEED to be tested by other people, especially people that can really point out the flaws in my interface and recommend any fixes.  You don't need to know programming or be technical, but do need to understand the various types of windows controls and how to build a fluid application.  As an example, right now, my filters have a checkbox for things like "MR damage", then a number box where you can go up or down for the minimum and maximum value you want to search on.  It works, but its far from elegant.  Any ideas on how to make it more intuitive would be greatly appreciated.

Beta testers shoot me an email at bad_syntax@ yahoo.com.  There will be goodies for those that can provide some great feedback.

Good News + Historical - Wars of the Republic Era

Woot, finally, after nearly 3 months, some goodies!

First, the Field Report 2765 AFFS.  This is like the others, so if you liked the others get it.  You get 2 new warships (one is a Congress mod, so kind of a cheat, but the other cool) and all the usual goodies.  I love these books, and once all of them come out I'll be starting up a long dead project :)

Second, the Historical - Wars of the Republic Era.  I bought this thinking it was the age of war era, so kinda disappointed as the whole dark age simply hasn't captured me.  That may be my fault, I hardly read the books anymore :(  Anyway, its a pretty decent book it appears.  It felt a LOT like the Brush Wars historical, which is a good thing.  Lots of various little operations with their maps.  It has random unit tables, some personalities, a new mech and dropship, some deployment tables, and no new rules.  Pick it up to support the IP!

So I got these, read through them, entered the units into my database (not yet updated for ya'll, sorry), and then just a couple days later, we get the pre-order of the new boxed set!  If you buy 2 for $120 (Plus shipping) you get a 3rd set of miniatures!  Woot!  I bought 2, well, 4 boxed sets, and I have no idea why, as I had like 6 of the previous boxed sets.  I'll start giving away the miniatures at games I think.

I got Field Manual 3145 as well, which is a very hefty book and a must purchase IMO.  I won't review it, as its like every other Field Manual out there, but it does have some new equipment and rules for superheavies that make it a must-have.

And yet MORE good news.  Since everybody knew the Alpha Strike point system was completely useless, we now have a beta copy of some new rules with a well put together PDF for calculating point values!  They *seem* pretty decent up front, and I have started implementing them into my site.  Once I finish the implementation I'll remove all references to the old point values.  Even a buggy version of this system is better than a solid conversion of the old!

And it must be a great day, as there is even MORE good news.  This is actually TERRIFIC news, at least to me.  The "coming soon" page now has Interstellar Operations!  Now, this doesn't mean it'll be out soon, maybe not even this year (HBHK has been on there some time), but at least we have it in writing that it *IS* coming out.  I really can't wait for this product, and really hope it doesn't disappoint me.  This was the key rulebook I needed in order to move forward on my Succession Wars PC game.  

And the bad news, I haven't done much on the site since the last update.  Been working on a Rifts tabletop game, slammed with work, and going through many of my games deciding which simply aren't worth keeping anymore.  I hope to get back on track very soon.  Soon as I implement the new Alpha Strike Point Values I'll start updating the Alpha Strike Card Maker, which will have a LOT of new features.  If any of ya'll have a windows surface tablet you may *love* the new version!

Alpha Strike Search & Other New Features!

Ok, I'm on a roll, though I only spent a couple hours on updates, I figured I would post this one as its *very* useful for the Battletech Encyclopedia.  

Basically, you can search for Alpha Strike abilities!  The downside is I am using the data from the MasterUnitList, so there are quite a few units missing.  However, you can at least search using alpha strike abilities.

PLUS, by default, you can view the alpha strike stat line in search results!  Not sure why I never had a bit more detail on the search results, oh well.

Eventually I'll have my algorithms good enough to create my own Alpha Strike stats and be confident in their numbers.  When that happens I'll start using my own data instead of piggy backing off of the MasterUnitList.

I am about done with textual updates, and will soon start fixing my cost/BV/weight calculation algorithms.  This is a pretty slow and painful process hampered by errata and issues :(

The new Point Value system for Alpha Strike should be released to the public soon!  When it comes out I'll instantly go implement it.  I'll run it first against the MasterUnitList data, which would only take a few minutes once I get the data inputted.  I'll then send the data to TPTB and hope they accept it, so they can update their PV on the website for Alpha Strike cards.  

I want to figure out how to get image scrolling working for units (the top image on the details page, often I have multiple, just not on the website) as well as a skill changer for the Alpha Strike Cards... lots of updates :)

And no, I haven't forgotten about the update to the Alpha Strike Card Maker nor the hex/square counter maker using megamek icons, nor the Alpha Strike Game Helper application to let you basically have Alpha Strike cards on your tablet/phone instead of needing to print them.

But I'm at least updating the site again, hopefully we see some new products soon.


Here is what I've done since that last update to the Battletech Encyclopedia site:
13 FEB 2014
 - Fixed fusilade, so the Sprite 1 works (though it kinda stinks compared to the 2 and 3)
 - Fixed Protomech Standard & Extended Jump Jets
 - Buildings & mobile structures come up and calculate kinda ok, they need a LOT of work, and in fact will need multiple Alpha Strike cards to show!
 - Fixed infantry W&E listing
 - A few more database updates
 - Added ability to search by Alpha Strike ability.  I use the canon MasterUnitList.Info data for this, as I generate it on the fly (once perfect, I'll cache it, till then we'll use MUL data).  This means there could be issues, often with units that *should* have an ability but don't as the MUL isn't complete.  Still, its as good as what they have, mostly.
 - Formatted output for both textual return types to include Alpha Strike data.  Again, this if from masterunitlist (as of 25 JAN 2014) and if the numbers are wrong they aren't mine.  I'll update this periodically, or if somebody lets me know the MUL was updated.

12 FEB 2014
 - Fixed Protomech display and armor rounding
 - Added text box by error report to put in a brief description of error.  Emails could go here and I'd reply to them with fixes.
 - Fixed infantry chassis so they show up with no errors

 - Updated production database & copied new files

Back in the Game

While I can't say I am now hitting the ground running, I am at least now hitting the ground and moving forward.

I have done quite a few changes since 1 Jan (the last before that was October) and pushed out the new code.  I still need to update the database with some unit bug fixes, and will try to do that tonight.

I have added many new megamek icons for the 3145 units, thanks to Deadborder!

The biggest updates are just reformatting of the page a bit, fixing the display for most units, adding a link to the masterunitlist.info Alpha Strike cards, and a "Report Error" button at the top of the page.  So if there is some unit you like, and its broken somehow, report the error and I'll get an email about the entry.  Of course you can also just email me or post on my forum. 

Here are the Battletech Engineer Encyclopedia updates since the first of the year (nobody is expected to know all my shorthand):

11 FEB 2014
 - Formatted the TRO text output a bit better
 - Fixed table outputting space vessel equipment list
 - Fixed output of source list
 - Updated a few megamek graphics so they would have transparent backgrounds
 - Fixed a shots per weapon calculation bug with larger craft
 - Fixed Alpha Strike fighter attack values (they were x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x/.... and now are properly SR/MR/LR/ER)
 - Fixed armor cost/weight calculations in final table on TRO page.  Just aesthetics really, but it was breaking BV/Cost calculations
 - Updated "Quick Strike" everywhere to "Alpha Strike"
 - Added column labels to equipment and weapons for a few units that didn't have them displayed
 - Added a direct link to the masterunitlist.info Alpha Strike card, which is displayed right beside my own generated card.  This can be done now that the canon MUL is generating PNGs.
 - Fixed showing manufacturers if I only had the manufacturer data with no proper labels
 - Fixed simple table output to remove the extra column
 - Fixed some data on various units
 - Fixed some issues with the Alpha Strike TAG/LTAG abilities (I didn't have LTAG, and all TAG wasn't being added)
 - Removed extra columns from W&E list on DS/WS/JS/SS
 - Cleaned up table display.  Made things a bit smaller, and got rid of most of the bold.
 - Fixed Battle Armor display and included calculation for BA items that are less weight than their mech/vehicle equivalents
 - Fixed Battle Armor armor point/weight calculation (it was rounding to nearest .5 ton, BA doesn't round)
 - Added error reporting button to top of details page
 - For BA/Small SV I changed weights from tons to kilograms

04 JAN 2014
 - Thanks to FlashHawk, I looked at the code again after a huge hiatus.  2013 was officially the worst year of my life, and I'll be 41 in 2 weeks, ugh.
 - Fixed ammo miscount calculation or both BF and BT values
 - Fixed BF hardened armor string
 - Fixed armor point/tonnage calculation that was throwing initial errors
 - Fixed table that shows various summaries at the bottom of the page
 - Fixed heat sink weight/cost calculation formula
 - Added chassis multiplier to final cost
 - Fixed ammo BV calculation
 - Fixed armor/structure/engine/gyro BV calculation
 - Fixed CASE/Ammo explosion BV modification
 - Fixed TC/BV support


I am not sure how many folks use the site, but *I* use it, and it helps me when I'm in a store and need to look up some unit, or anytime I don't have 20+ TROs/RS books with me.

Hmmm..... maybe I should put in all the rules (TW, TO, SO, TM, ATOW, and all the newer rules scattered about) into a database that'd let folks online search faster.  I could include the latest errata and stuff.... hmmmmm.... maybe.  It'd sure beat going through hundreds of pages of rules and hundreds of pages of errata trying to figure out some ruling on the tabletop.

More to come soon!

Too Many Mechs!

First let me apologize as I haven't done an update in a long time.  It isn't that I've been on hiatus or anything, just haven't updated the blog.

To keep it short, my December was pretty much destroyed when I tried to fight a speeding ticket (I have had dozens in the past, and usually just do deferred adjudication and give the cities the money they wanted).  I always believed the system worked if you used it.  I believed judges were honest, I believed cops were good, and most of all I believed that my fellow citizen wasn't stupid.  I'll just say all my beliefs were squashed, my desire to try to help my country (by running for congress) obliterated, and I have to avoid thinking about it as it still infuriates me.  Just a ticket, no biggie, probably won't even raise my insurance, but I I decided to make a stand, and it was pointless.  However, I did gain a huge amount of sympathy to people in prisons, people who say they get harassed by cops, and anybody who has ever been the "victim" of the "system".  It was an eye opener, and the City of Richardson Texas, and its corrupt police, corrupt judges, and completely stupid citizens, make me ashamed to be Texan.  

So enough with excuses, what about Battletech?

First, I did do a little bit of work to the site.  I formatted the output at the bottom when you select a mech so you can see costs, availability, BVs, and so forth.  I fixed numerous bugs, all in the history page.  Nothing real significant though.

I decided I have too many damned mechs, WAY too many, like *hundreds* too many.  I went through them all and got from about 1200 down to 650.  I plan on knocking another couple hundred out.  I just didn't need a battalion of stingers or a regiment of LAMs.  So I now have boxes of stuff to get rid of.  Note that these are just my unpainted stuff, I plan on keeping my hundreds of painted ones :)  I have some pictures, you can see them at http://bte.battletechengineer  .com/BTPics/ (remove that space before the .com as its a lot of huge pics, and I don't want to kill my bandwidth with spam bots.  If anybody wants to buy a bunch of mechs, many unseen, and has a couple grand or so feel free to inquire... I loathe the idea of wasting my time with ebay to sell it all.

I played a bit of X-Wing miniatures, pretty fun.  There goes $1k.  Pre-ordered the 2 big ships but gotta wait a few months to receive them :(.  I have 3 of the freighters I could use now from an old model set, and have like 5 AT-ATs and a dozen snow speeders that would work great.  Need opponents though.  It is nice the minis come pre-painted, but they feel like they are made out of styrofoam they are so light.

I bought Dropzone Commander.  Best miniatures of any game I've ever dealt with.  Just great quality, easy to assemble, no flash, highly detailed, just perfect.  For a starter box it is complete (down to the tape measure) and was a quality item.  The game seems ok, though I haven't played it.  I will say that even though the miniatures are GREAT quality, they are ugly and stupid looking.  But perhaps some folks would like them.

I got some of my Battle Armor painted, they look *really* good.  Here in the next month or two I should have the other 1000 painted as well, muhahaha.

Nothing has came out for BattleTech, go figure.  Still errata galore.  I email errata now as I'm not allowed to post it.  If I was still allowed, I'd be the #1 errata producer again.  Oh well.

I bought the Shadowrun DMZ boxed set.  This is the same core game as Battletroops, but they added stuff like magic and many new rules.  I absolutely loved Battletroops way back in the day.  I hope to play it again soon on some Battle Systems terrain.

Been loving some of the new Megamek icons coming out.  Props to Deadborder and P0pr0cks on the forums.  Wish they'd do a Rattler/Wyrm and some dropships though.  Wish even more they'd do the robotech stuff :)  I don't play megamek very often, but they make it better.

I purchased 75 painted mechs on ebay, great quality, very happy with them.  Will probably purchase another couple hundred from the same guy in the next couple months.  

Since Eric Hotz at Hotzmatz apparently hates his customers and the thought of selling stuff aggravates him, I need to find a new solution to getting maps done.  GripMats will probably work, but I was thinking of taking some of the map packs to kinko's and getting them printed on vinyl or something.  May end up being too slippery or glossy, but may be worth a shot.  The key thing is we use 1.75" hexes so we can use my huge collection of heroscape terrain, so we need to find maps that size.  I love the canon maps, but they are too small.  Perhaps if I can print them with 1.75" hexes it'll work really well.  Just need a good solution as my railroad green mat with almost straight painted hexes on it has a short life.

Anyway, I hope to get back into Battletech soon.  The first thing will be the app to let you use your phone/website/tablet to track your alpha strike units.  I guess I'll call it "Alpha Strike Helper" or ASH.

Censorship and Alpha Strike

So I still kinda follow the forums.  Mostly so I can see the massive amounts of errata and when new stuff comes out, but also as fans occasionally have some great new ideas (like AS point values).  Anyway one of these threads one user was asking about Alpha Strike Unit Card Templates.  This is a pretty important question, as right now there is no "official" way to make your own cards, and not everybody is a photoshop (or even mspaint) expert.  It went for quite a while with NO answer, but a lot of views.  One day I noticed an answer, which happily linked back to me.  However, the next day that posting was GONE.  I presume they gave the user that posted it warning under maybe rule #12, though honestly I have no more stuff violating IP on my site than Sarna.net or in many cases MegaMek and/or Skunkworks.  Here is the posting if ya don't believe me (you can still get to the topic now.... until they delete it).

Anyway, my point was even as much as every single person on those forums may hate me personally, a link to an application I made is hardly a violation of any rule, and #12 is *really* stretching it.  Hopefully the user just got a warning, and not an outright permanent ban (totally possible based on their stasi style forum rules, created I assume from overwhelming amounts of those in power... kinda like our own US Government).  It was nice to see a reference to something I did, but sad to see some user punished for it.

What really sucks is even if I took my whole encyclopedia site down, and started over with only utilities, I'm positive they would still be asses towards me.  Perhaps that is justified, but as somebody who gives them a lot of money it doesn't seem right (though obviously I am biased in that opinion).  I dunno.  Maybe I'll go to GenCon next year and see if I can get a straight answer to my face, since people can be much larger asses online than they could ever be in person.

My buddy that got banned a while back that I think I mentioned just said "he doesn't care".  I think only 1-2 of the 10 guys I game with ever go to the official forums, which is sad.  If 80% of the players of battletech don't visit the forums, many of which due to the prevailing attitudes there, well, its sad.  I don't want to see Battletech die, but it sure feels some people are making it so.

There are a few things that irk me to now end.  One is hypocrisy, another is secrecy/censorship.  Those 2 things are 2 of 3 of the biggest evils I see in the world (#3 is a lack of empathy).

Anyway, since I'm sure ya'll don't care about my opinions, and maybe just come here as I'm the only relatively frequently updated Battletech blog I know of, I'll talk about battletech!

/END RANT

Played a game today, saw 2 of my WLF-2X wolfhounds (out of 4) go down in a single turn to a Banshee and Atlas.  Wowza, light mechs just can't survive these days.  Still tho, at least my turns are fast with just 1 gun :)

We play games every other weekend, sometimes more.  If folks want me to take pictures and do AAR's let me know and I can do that.

I had another thought.  I don't really have a "website" per se.  I have this blog, my master unit list clone which does have a landing page, but I don't have a website where you can easily just browse what apps I have and their status.  The forum kinda works, and lets people give feedback, but I know many of you simply don't want to log onto it.  Soooo, I'm going to put it in my queue to make a simple little battletech website to host all my apps and stuff.  Nothing dynamic or fancy, just an easy place to go browse without having to go back through 100 posts of me bitching about something to find some download link.

I drew out on paper today the little icons I'll use for the next generation of Alpha Strike cards.  These will be little things you can cross off if critical hits occur.  I will start trying to work on the new version very soon, even though the poll is now tied with an update, and doing my own thing.  Most of the features aren't too hard, so once I start working on it I should have a huge chunk done in a couple days.  One feature I wanted to implement was dynamically getting the AS card data from my site, and I have to write an API for that.  Not *that* hard, but will take me quite a few consecutive hours.

Other stuff:
I went to BGG Con.  It was poorly organized, and as I'm not a big board gamer it was a waste of time.  $110 for 1 hour, and I bought a subscription to the 3 Strategy & Tactics magazines.  Never again.

Kickstarter not only sucks up a lot of my time, but a lot of funds as well.  Some Kickstarters I spent too much money on:
Robotech RPG Tactics (like $5K)
Aliens vs Predator ($500 or so)
CastVR ($1k)
Reaper Bones I and Bones II ($1100 I think)
Zombicide Season 2 ($450)
Heroes of Normandie ($400)
Battletech WOB LAMs ($250)
Sedition Wars ($360)
Ogre ($350) + $50 for the launch party in Austin
Battle Systems ($200+, not done yet)

I spend far too much on KS, and am on there far too often (comments sections).  If you want to see what I'm currently backing (I do sometimes pull out), check it out here.  Hopefully I can find some folks to play some of those games with.  I'll be doing a huge push with Robotech and AVP when they come out here In Dallas.

More to come soon.