Back on Track!

Howdy everybody!  Great news!  

I am coding for Battletech again!  After a long hiatus, lots of frustration, many other games, and far too many purchases of Micro-Armor recently, I am going to start coding for Battletech again.

There were a few things that brought me to this:
#1.  I still play Battletech every couple weekends with 8-12 people.  This means I *need* the ability to design a mobile structure, infantry platoon, or support vehicle.  

#2.  There was a thread started a couple weeks ago on the official Battletech forums.  While I can't post over there, it is obvious CGL is back into the "OMG, we can't design stuff because its too hard!" mentality.  A couple years ago, long before I was banned, I was approached by somebody who sent me a copy of an email that Herb had sent out.  Basically he was freaking out about the fact nobody could build things consistently without tons of bugs.  I said I could do it, then basically sent a list of "holes" in their design systems that needed fixing.  I think the list was too long, that was the last I heard from them.   Apparently though they are still just as bad off, which is no surprise, I don't think anybody but myself really understand the scope of a product that can design *everything*.  As far as I know, I'm the only one who has entered in the 120+ pieces of data, per 2200 or so pieces of equipment, that is *required* for construction.  This is on top of 170 or so pieces of data for around 650 unique chassis!  Its just daunting, really.  This is why the HeavyMetal products haven't been updated since Total War, and why I personally don't think they ever will. This is also why no company would want to take this on, as it is minimal profit (if any) and a *HUGE* amount of work.  But anyway.

#3.  I went through and cleaned up years of email in my inbox.  I saw a lot of emails in there from various people who have been interested in my projects over the years.  A lot of good support in there, and it made me feel bad.  As I've mentioned many times, I don't like to let people down, and if 50 people emailed me every day asking for something I could do I'd damned sure get it done because I don't want to let them down.  It isn't like there is much in my life that is all that important (Just the wife/dogs, everything else is transitive).

So, I wrote a few people I knew emails for that were moderators in some form or fashion, but don't expect any replies.  If folks want to pop over to the thread and maybe mention me (though it could get deleted, if history repeats itself) or at least PM Bosefius about me, it could get them on my side.  I  am not sure of the relationships between the moderators and the actual CGL employees, but surely one can trump another.  About 25% of the reason I went to GenCon in 2014 was to talk to Randall and see if he could get me unbanned based on my development skills.  He gave me a card and told me to write him, but was very busy and slammed with fans while there.  I wrote after GenCon, unsurprisingly haven't heard anything.

So, official or not, I'm going to build a designer for *everything* in universe.  I mean *everything*, and yes it'll even be crazy stuff like a character generator for  a time of war (that'll be last though, completely different code set).  I'll do what I can to support importing/exporting to megamek and HMP formats, though no guarantees as both of those formats have some pretty serious flaws.  I'll also be supporting the IO Beta rules, so LAMs and stuff, though until IO is no longer beta those units will be flagged as not-canon.  

So, here is what this downloadable application will design:
- BattleMechs (15-300 tons), 2, 3, or 4 legged, plus LAM/Quad-Vee
- IndustrialMechs (15-300 tons), 2, 3, or 4 legged
- ProtoMechs (3-15 tons)
- Battle Armor
- Conventional Infantry Platoons
- Combat Vehicles (including superheavies, Wheeled, Tracked, VTOL, Hover, WiGE)
- Support Vehicles of all types and sizes (Even things like 100kt naval, satellites, and maglev)
- Aerospace and Conventional Fighters
- Small Craft
- Dropships
- Jumpships
- Space Stations
- Warships
- Mobile Structures
- Buildings
- Integration with the MUL
- Multi-Structure Bases (lower priority)
- Character Generator (lowest priority)
- Application will update itself as necessary, run on Windows, and probably be under 10mb total with no 3rd party application dependencies.

So *everything*.

I am currently planning on supporting the following features, though subject to change:
- Import/Export to MegaMek
- Import/Export to Heavy metal Pro
- Import/Export to Solaris Skunk Werks
- Import/Export to XML
- Import/Export to Text
- Export to HTML
- Export to PDF
- Export to PNG
- Export to a PDF Record Sheet (same format as canon record sheets)
- Custom components
- Printing of record sheets with all environmental considerations applied
- Ability to modify a dynamic record sheet (for the few of you that hate paper)
- Various refit and repair calculations
- A lot of support for campaign games
- Force builder/tracker, including noting which miniatures you own
- Planet/System Generator (pending rules getting published)
- Random unit tables

- Full support for Alpha Strike in every way

- Full support for *ALL* published rules, even the April Fools stuff 
- I plan on including as much support for German as I can, though my google translations may suck and need some typos fixed :)

- When I release this application, I'll kill my engineer site as it will no longer be necessary.  I suck with web code anyway :D

Some things I'm thinking about, but not sure yet:

- Map Maker
- Planet Mapper (stitch maps together, make a planet)
- Combat simulator (think real time megamek, but with any unit types)
- Random unit designer
- Planetary database
- Dynamic system for mech availability that would allow creation of random units based on any era, by denoting how popular a mech is per faction, per era.
- Inner Sphere in Flames, or whatever it is to be called, game.  I can't use current IO Beta stuff though, its very broken and would not allow for recreations of in-universe events (1 planet can make more mech regiments than all of the Capellan Confederation in 3025 could in a single year!).
- Stellar map support.  I kinda already wrote this with my ISMapper thing, but this will be an updated version that is a bit less klunky.

Obstacles I may encounter:

- Hitting a wall with the way certain rules are implemented.  For example humans kind of assume a lot when we are reading about rules.  Computers though, they can't do that.  So I can come across a system that simply has an unknown interaction with another system.  Or worse, and I know I'll encounter this often, many systems are missing certain data or the data is inconsistent.  What is the BV of the Centurion Weapon System from Jihad Hot Spots: Conspiracies?  Does a full head ejection system count as an ejection seat in Alpha Strike?  Can a combat vehicle really have an aerospace cubicle?  Maglev's have no availability or introduction dates!  There are a lot of things like this I'll have to work around, note, and correct whenever I can get an answer.

- Real life.  I can't predict what will happen, but in the past few months I flooded my house, almost died and had to have a surgery to fix what the army screwed up and said was fine 10 years ago, got sick for 2 weeks, had to take a work trip, and various other things that just kill free time.  I'm also a 90% disabled veteran who has all sorts of medical issues that could interfere.

- Project creep.  I will document EVERY feature when I start, and will stick to that list as much as I can.  I will add other things once I get certain portions done so I don't end up with endless project creep (where I never finish as I'm always adding new features).

- hmmm.... actually, I think that is it, everything else with this project is within my capabilities.

I will release beta's once certain portions are finished.  I'll have more info on how to apply when I actually have one.

I'll try to post an update a month, and an update with any significant milestones, but don't hold me too closely to that :)

I need to go architect this out, but I should have some rudimentary screenshots of the interface within a month.  Luckily the *really* time consuming part I have already finished :D

Off to start design work!

MINOR UPDATE:

If you got this far congratulations, you get a cookie! Ok, no cookie, but I did start a facebook group for kind of a dev diary and a place to discuss features and issues.  I am BadSyntax on facebook, and the group is "Battletech Design Works" though it is currently closed and you have to request access.

Nothing New

Been a *really* long time, so I figured I'd post something to let folks I am not dead.

No update to the site.  In fact, if it does get an update I'll probably rewrite it from scratch.  I have made a new TRO like page for mechs, which looks better I think, but haven't pushed it out.  I keep my own database updated with the latest releases, but haven't pushed those out yet either.

I play battletech, on average, about once every 2-3 weeks still.  What I don't have is motivation to dive back into the site.

My life in the last 6 months:
- Bought a new car
- Bought the wife a new car
- Flooded my game rooms trying to wash said new car in April, still not totally done fixing
- Started playing the hell out of WarThunder, a pretty decent tank sim
- Moved from battletech to real world stuff as my primary interest
- Watched more TV/movies.  Decided I'd much rather see nudity than violence (Game of Thrones, I'm looking at YOU).
- Got my Micro 3D printer.  Printed 2 things, it broke, got a replacement, printed 10 things, seems broke again.  Can't really do 1/285 armor or mechs.  I printed a 4" skull that looked good, and a 1/100 Tiger tank that looked like crap.  It is great at straight lines, details it sucks.
- Became completely disillusioned with Kickstarter.  I'll never back another technology or "little" KS on it, and will be VERY cautious on any others.  In fact, if they don't have enough bonus crap to be worth it, I'll just wait for retail.  Lose less money that way, less pain, less BS, etc.
- Decided our best presidential candidate is Bernie Sanders, all the rest suck horribly and he has some really good ideas if you can look past the hair.  I was hoping for John Stewart, but I think he's too chicken.  Oh well.

Maybe when IO comes out (or one of the 2-3 books IO turned into) it'll motivate me again to get back into Battletech, but I don't know.  Without much of a fan base, no forums to post and get feedback, I can't see enough demand to justify my time.  I haven't even purchased the last couple products, and not sure if I'll even keep up with errata anymore.

I do still want to make a real time, planetary scale, BT game using megamek icons that is 100% faithful to the board game.  However, there may not be much of an audience for it so I may be wasting time even thinking about it.

Anyway, that is why there has been zero progress.  Sorry, but the battletech folks basically said "they don't want me anymore".  Stupid reasons got me banned (no, I wasn't a troll/ass/mean/etc) and they decided that one of their few community developers they had producing new contact was not worth any energy.  I went ballistic after that, probably cemented my chances at 0 for ever getting back in, and now all my projects have basically died.  Perhaps if they re-admitted me on the forums I'd consider jumping back in, but being insulted for volunteering thousands of hours of your own time kinda makes it hard to get over.  I even tried talking to Randall at Gencon, who said email him, and who has never replied to me.

I still respond to emails if you have anything to ask, but I probably won't be doing anything Battletech related for quite a while.

So, if you still read this, assume me and all of my Battletech projects are dead until further notice.

PDF or PNG?

Well over the past couple weeks I've redone all of my record sheet generation.  I got rid of the PDF generation, and went to PNG.  This was mostly due to the excessive overhead of creating PDF's the way I was.  I found a new library which was faster, but after implementing everything I did that library ended up being slow as well.  So, I went back to PNG's.  Aside from superheavy vehicles, buildings/mobile structures, and infantry platoons, I have created the code to generate ALL the other record sheets.  This includes protomechs, warships, dropships, battle armor, even airships!  Well, I think there are a couple things missing in there like satellites, space stations, and 2 turret tanks.  I will try to finish the last few before I update the website (so yeah, you are still stuck with PDFs right now).

I fixed a few bugs on the record sheets as well, like some internal structure not being correct.  I still want to add a few more things as well, like showing the armor/structure type *by location* to support frankenmechs and patchwork armor, but these are pretty easy to knock out.

The next website update will be HUGE.  I will be redoing all the TRO like pages, making them more like what you see in the TRO's.  I'll change the colors when I do so you'll know its been updated (it'll probably be black on white instead of the gray background that is there now).

I also inputted all the new units from the RS IndustrialMechs and the other new books that came out recently.

I also got my 16 boxes of Robotech RPG Tactics, oh boy, that is a LOT of models!!!

Catalyst released a playtest of the "Abstract Combat System".  I really wanted to love this, but can't :(  The system "map" is too small, the planet map WAY too small, the amount of record keeping too large, and the "mini-game" just doesn't seem very fun to me :(  Oh well, hopefully we'll see something better soon.

I think I had more to say, but this was a quick update to just let ya'll know I am indeed still playing with Battletech stuff.  I'll try to do a much better update when I finish the site updates and push them out over the next few weeks.

'Meh'

Well its been a while, and I haven't done crap for Battletech.  Maybe I got played out at Gencon, maybe its because I stopped playing with my local group (hard to justify playing a game when over 90% of a turn is spent with other people doing stuff without being affected), or maybe all my other hobbies, but for whatever reason my progress on everything has been minimal.

But first, I did get the 2 new products, the The Operation Revival, and the Record Sheets Industrialmechs.

For the first time in a really long time, out of all the Battletech products I've purchased, I can honestly say these two were 'meh', and cannot recommend anyone purchasing them unless they just want to throw money at the Catalyst folks.  

The Revival PDF, well, *I* never cared about the trials of the clans in 3048 in determining who invaded, but maybe somebody did.  The only thing in this book even closely useful in my opinion were random tables for mechs/fighters/tanks for the clans in 3048.  Aside from that.... well, 'meh'.

Then we have industrial mechs and exoskeletons.  I think this is the way many may have felt about the TRO Vehicle Annex a while back.  Its a bunch of units, mostly without any combat capability, that I have a hard time thinking anybody gives a crap about.  I'll eventually enter them into my site, and will undoubtly find tons of issues like I always do, but it'll be reluctant as they are almost without a doubt stupid.  I'm sure somebody may want to plop one on a tabletop, and use a MWDA figure, but 'meh'.

I still have not heard back from Randall about my forum access.  At first I'm like "wtf, do these people not read email??!?", and then I found an email I sent a year or more before I got banned that I sent him and never saw a reply to either.  Then I did a bit of research and found some dubious character flaws on the CGL side, and just said "fuck it, their loss".

So here is what all I've done in the last month or so since gencon:
- Assembled my RRT miniatures from the free core box I got.  I'm happy with them, so some are a serious pain to assemble.  I'll get them painted up soon and post some pics.
- Got my Battle Systems Sci-Fi kickstarter stuff.  Squares a bit smaller than I would have liked (why the hell don't we have HEXES for this stuff???  squares are stupid and inaccurate) but its decent quality.... for a paper product (and thus not real durable).  I paid about $400 for 140 card sheets of terrain... ouch.
- Got my Wasteland Game Studio kickstarter stuff in.  I got 6 VTOL platforms and 20 bunkers (which fit perfectly in a heroscape hex).   Good quality stuff.
- Got all of my Heroes of Normandie stuff in, well, the stuff that wasn't moved to another KS as a crappy "wave 2" move.  It was quality stuff though, and looks like a pretty cool game.  I was looking forward to the Sliterine PC version, but now it looks like that may be just for iPad, so oh well.
- Bought another 32 little $0.37 clamps at home depot.  These things ROCKED for putting miniatures together.  Also got a few plastic things to make into 6mm buildings.  And I got a "cracked ice" cover for lights that I'll paint sea blue and hope that it looks like good water.
- I went through all my books and inserted the posted errata out there.  28 pages for the Alpha Strike Companion, sheesh!

Ok, back to Battletech!

I do update my data when I see errata so things stay *mostly* updated.  However, until CGL learns about data consistency there will never be a good, accurate, designer for all units.  I tried to help with this a few years back when Peter Smith sent me an email about it (Herb went ballistic internally about the errors in the record sheets).  It seemed to go somewhere, then I presented the amount of data that was currently missing or inaccurate and never heard from them again.  I think they have implemented some method internally though, as record sheets over the past couple years have gotten better.  However, we still don't have things like building construction, warship construction, protomech construction, RPG "construction", support vehicle construction, mobile structure construction, etc, etc, utilities.  I am closer to most on this, but it requires me do up a pretty web interface and my motivation is pretty small :(

My real time battletech game, dead.  Why?  Well, I got bored I think.  I wanted the world to move and rotate around the mech, instead of the mech moving in the world, so it was a major change I just wasn't ready to bite off.  I still think folks would like it, especially if I can make it run on a phone.  Dead though, but I may play with it at some point later.

Alpha Strike Card Utility.  I wanted to do this, then the Alpha Strike Companion came out.  It implemented a few more things which I fixed in the code.  The part that killed progress was, well, the interface.  I had it very close to workable, and may still finish it, but I need to basically mentally start over from scratch.  Too long of a break and I forgot my thought process at the time.  Not dead yet, but not being worked currently either.

Battletech Engineer Encyclopedia site.  This still works, and I make occasional changes to it.  Every time somebody posts a bug I go try to fix it.  Well, almost every time.  Somebody submits a bug with just a mech name that doesn't match the one on the screen.  They've done this like 20 times, and I don't know what the actual error is.  My best guess is they are using some old index or something.  If you are that person, please add more information to the little blank, or throw in your email in there (that email is NOT saved anywhere, I'll have to manually reply back) so I can actually resolve any issue.


Ok, what am I doing?

Well, played some Deadpool the last few days, as well as quite a few hours in FireFall.  Watched Person of Interest the other night, even with all the new shows out this is the BEST SHOW ON TV (yes, better than game of thrones, but granted not any boobies).

Ok, what are my plans?

Well I still love Battletech, and if a new *good* product comes out I may jump right back into it.  In my head right now I'm thinking we *REALLY* need a strategic game, but with Interstellar Operations due out sometime in the near future any work I do may become invalidated.  So the Alpha Strike Card Maker, or minor updates to the BTE site, are probably all I may do.

BUT.

I am thinking maybe I should just write my own Mecha based game, with my own universe (which I wrote up a long time ago), that would be much like battletech in some ways, and fulfill that desire for big robots, but make more sense and have better written rules.  I'd do up the rules, playtest the crap out of them, make a mini-tro with great art (and associated 3D models) and a miniature line (with those 3D models 3D printed).  I don't have a lot of desire to do this, but it has been in my mind and may see some fruition.

As it stands now though, my interjection of Battletech desire has been pretty darned low.  If I got an email saying I could get back on the forums, or a huge number of people show support for me doing BT stuff, I would start doing Battletech stuff again, but without that interjection my motivation is just really low.

My forum is pretty dead too.  I blame myself for not posting to it constantly and keeping people engaged, but that all falls back to my declining motivation for Battletech :(

Feel free to offer up any ideas to motivate me again, I feel like I'm in hobby limbo until my 16 boxes of Robotech RPG Tactics show up.

Post Gencon!

Howdy folks!

As I mentioned, I went to GenCon this year.  It was my first, and at the last moment I would have refunded everything if I could have as I *really* didn't think I'd enjoy it.  However, I think I ended up having fun, and for me being the grumpy old man I am, was a pleasant surprise.

First, some things I learned at GenCon:
#1.  If you fly in that day, put your crap somewhere and do NOT try to walk around with it all day.  It'll deplete your energy faster.
#2.  Get one hell of a great pair of shoes, just for this event.  Your feet and back will thank you (I'm a disabled veteran, this convention hurt!)
#3.  Take various snacks and drinks in a backpack.  The gouge you with prices, and often you'll be in the middle of a game and not be able to step away.
#4.  Get a hotel as close as you can, even if it sucks (you won't be in it much anyway), and use a cab to get to/from.  Buses are annoying and unreliable, and I've hard parking is a nightmare.
#5.  Make a plan, and stick to it.  Its a freaking HUGE convention, and I missed all sorts of things because I didn't even know they existed or where they were.
#6.  Take some Ricola for your throat, it will thank you.  You scream the whole time, and your throat is killing you even on day 2.

Now, all the stuff I did:
- I walked around to every exhibit in the, umm... sales part.  Some impressed me like Hawk wargames and Dropzone Command, Star Trek Armada, and the Dwarven Forge Kickstarter (which blew me away it looked so good, glad I ordered like 10 painted sets!).  This took a day basically, minus stops.  Lots to see.
- I spoke with the DP9 folks about my unhappiness as to the direction their game is turning.  I don't think they really cared, nor should they.  I was however told to post stuff on their forums and that DP9 would put their "canon" sorta official stamp on it if it was a good product.  That was cool, though I still don't like any Heavy Gear since 2nd edition :(
- I bought 2 of the new Ad Hoc Alpha Strike Card sets, which are great.  I presume folks have done a review out there, if not let me know and I'll do one.  I also got a mousepad for battletech, which like most mousepads, is too small for me to use (but its still cool!).  I also bought the Scapa 9 tank box, a couple Leviathan 2 miniatures (which suck for quality btw), and an old school Charger I used for scale pictures.
- I took some Robotech RPG Tactics 1/285 miniatures with me and gave them to the Palladium booth.  I ended up speaking with them for a long time, got permission to take scale pictures of everything, and had some unprecedented access to them.  In the end, I ended up getting one of the 3 boxed sets that exist in the US for *FREE*.  I did an unboxing video as quick as I could, and have been struggling through the miniatures for the last few days.  There is a lot more on it out there if your interested, but this is a Battletech blog.

And finally, to Battletech!

I signed up for all sorts of things.  I ended up playing 1 alpha strike game (that was fun, I still don't care for the all-or-nothing damage system, but the game is great as an *alternative* to battletech) but most of my time was spent on the Grinder.  The grinder let me pop in, take horrible designs, die gloriously teaching somebody new the game, and it was quite fun.  I got lots of pins, which I gave away to newer folks.  I ended up with a couple left.  

I will say all the Catalyst demo folks I dealt with, as well as the other players (both new and old), were all in the greatest of moods and we all continually had a great time, even after 12+ hours of play in some cases.  It was great to have a place I could show up to at any point, and start playing (having a good place to sit helped!).

It was a very positive experience overall.  People were all very nice, police, and I didn't notice body oder at all (I was actually worried about that!).  I was quite surprised just how positive of a place it was.  Its a great experience, even if you do it only once. 

I doubt I'll ever go back again, but maybe.

I did speak with Randall for 30 seconds about getting re-instated on the forums.  I figure its worth a shot as I'm the only one actively producing new software for Battletech, and can save them and their volunteers many of hours of work by some of my automated processes.  He told me to email him about it after some other game convention this week.  I know what getting back can be like after being gone, so I'll probably wait till next week.

If I get denied, I will probably try very hard to back away from Battletech though, maybe to focus on Robotech, or more likely just go back to playing computer games to pass the time.  I kinda need the community feedback to feel like I'm not wasting my time.  The blog helps, and honestly is the only reason I'm still into BT at all, but I don't get a lot of views.

Till next time!

Off track, or am I?

Just a really quick update.

• I wouldn't plan on the Alpha Strike Utility being done, even in Alpha, before Gencon (which is next week!).  Just been too busy, and too side tracked.  Sorry.
• I have too many miniatures... seriously, I think something is wrong with me.
• I created a Cyberboard module for the Reunification war, specifically the invasion of the Taurian Concordat.  Each hex is 5 LY, and I have all systems on it.  I will probably post it once I get a bit more done.  My biggest goal ever with BT had been a game that lets you model things like the Reunification War, Succession Wars, Age of War, etc.  I want to model at least down to company level (meaning a company has a counter) though most units will be regimental and sometimes brigades.  This was so I could start working on the prototype rules I did up a while back.  Expect more at some point in the future.
• I've also always had an idea for a real time, top down (megamek graphics) battletech game, that is online, allowing hundreds if not thousands of players at once.  I've tinkered with this in the past on and off, but never really had anything to show for it.  I kinda wanna just use GDI (what draws the windows on your screen) but DirectX (what 3D games use) has a lot of potential too.  Anyway, over the last 2 days I used GDI to create a real time system to draw mechs running around shooting at each other:

The warhammer has the Marauder targeted, and has fired a couple weapons (the grey # is the 10 second countdown to fire them again).  Damage on the right is the target.  Still little bugs here and there to work out, but 1 more day's worth of work I should have them done, and criticals implemented.  At that point I'll make it a bit easier for users to edit and will release it for folks to play with.  The neat thing is it requires no 3D hardware to run (though I think it may help).  I can even play it on a remote desktop window!  Once I release the single player version hopefully with some rudimentary AI, I'll create a network version.  It is really only 3025 now, but most other tech could be easily implemented.  This is just a concept I guess though.  I'll go farther as its not fully fleshed out as a concept, and will work on it lots of interest is there, but it may fall by the wayside to something else more interesting if interest isn't overwhelming.  Oh, and I'm trying to keep it 100% as faithful to the board game as possible, with 10 second "turns", turning slowing you down, using piloting skill rolls, etc, etc, though some things will have to be tweaked to work in real time.

Oh, and finally, since I'll be prepping for GenCon and going/recovering over the next 2-3 weeks, I doubt I'll have an update or much progress for a while.  Anybody who wants to meet up at GenCon feel free to email me (Bad_Syntax at yahoo.com).

Hard at work!

Ok, quick update, minimal rants.

#1.  I worked on those counters, and worked on them a LOT.  I eventually created like 2500 counters (individual files) probably 100 times.  I am not happy with them, and created a re-design, but haven't implemented yet (these counters will have more symbols/colors, and less letters/numbers).  Then I started working on the map, and made a bit of progress, then remembered this whole path was off track, so I stopped.  However, thanks to one persistent user I did create a pretty darned neato HTML5 Canvas map of the Inner Sphere in 3140.  I can make these very quickly for most eras, and can do a LOT more with it.  This was a proof of concept, feel free to use the code.

#2.  MASSIVE updates to my BattletechEngineer database.  Aside from some infantry and buildings, I can go through all 6500 or so units and generate their alpha strike stats, based on the new rules in the alpha strike companion.  I am still tweaking things, but the database is a lot more consistent now and I have fixed many errors folks had noticed.  Once I make a bit more progress, I'll create a PDF for every record sheet book made real quick and move on.

#3.  Kinda off topic, as this is Robotech, but as a HUGE investor (over 300 regults incoming!) in the project I'm happy to see progress being made.  However, as a big fan of the other generations I didn't want to wait, and am having my own models done.  Take a looksie at my 3D printed prototypes, all in perfect 6mm or 1/285 scale:

#4.  I'm going to GenCon, woot!  I *really* hope I enjoy myself.  Unfortunately while I LOVE Battletech and games with lots of numbers and statistics, I haven't had a lot of fun playing them in the last few years.  Its only ok and hasn't recreated the fun I've had with WW2 and moden micro armor from the early 90s.

#5.  An Alpha Strike Freebie!  Hand-Held Weapons in alpha strike, here is a PDF you should be able to use pretty easily for now, though you'll need to know what mechs have 2 hands as it isn't denoted on cards (yet!).  I envisioned counters for the hand-held weapons, as they can be dropped/moved around easily, though I haven't made any yet.  Download the PDF here.

NEXT:

Next I'll focus on finishing up the Alpha Strike cleanup, updating the point values, and tweaking some values to work.  I'll also finish up and test all the designs with all the "Bad_Syntax Optimizations" turned on (things like RL #/#/# for a 1 strike rocket launcher attack, TUR(#/#/#) for mechs that can flip arms, STR # for fighter strafing, average rounding, and all sorts of other things).  Once this is done I'll hope back into my Alpha Strike Utility as I *really* want to get it working by GenCon.

May you pass your piloting skill rolls!