Record Sheets

So I decided to jump back into the design of the record sheets, so I can do the code and we can finally have record sheets for everything, woot right?


Nope, flop.


This is why I got discouraged last time, there simply *are* no blank record sheets for every unit type.


For example, find me a record sheet for a superheavy combat vehicle with 2 turrets.  Nope, none exist I've ever found.  Oh, and technically you'd need one for hover, hydrofoil, naval, submarine, tracked, VTOL, wheeled, and WIGE.  So there is a huge issue.


Next, blank record sheets.  I've been using those from MegaMekLab, but I don't have blank record sheets for Airships, Naval/Submarine, Rail (I guess I can use hover for this) or Satellites.


There are also not blanks for Warships, Jumpships, or Space Stations, though all of these I can actually make myself. 


So frustrating, not sure why they never made record sheets for all superheavies with 2 turrets, oh well.  Guess with all the unanswered rule questions (and all the issues *with* the construction rules that haven't been fixed) it is no surprise.


So here is what I am going to do, just to have *something*:


Since most units have a megamek icon (Buildings, Infantry, and Battle Armor don't, but will use alternate methods).  Excluding support vehicles, about 89% of units have a megamek icon.  The 228 support vehicles have very few, if any of them.  Most of those missing are newer designs.


So I'm going to take those megamek icons, blow them up a few hundred percent so they end up being about 1" on the page (camo optional).  I will then just make zones with big blocks of armor, and in the case of warships that could have 1000 points, I'll include a bunch of blocks (or whatever) that are larger with the number "10" in them.  Those of you who have ever played FASA's Leviathan will know what I mean, and its a great system.  In the case of vehicles that can have up to 2 turrets, I'll leave an area to have their armor blocks as well.


So the only hard part now is all the little blocks like warrior data, criticals, etc, but I already have many of those extracted separately, so its just a matter of figuring out their x,y coordinates on a page, and whammo, I can have record sheets for everything but BA/PM/Infantry, which I'll make last (no major issues on those).


I would like to see a lot more dropship and support vehicle megamek graphics get made, but since that game doesn't really support them, well, why would anybody do them?


I'll also implement the battleforce sheets in addition to the quick-strike ones (which don't really work for things like dropships, jumpships, warships, mobile structures, etc).  All the record sheets will become available in PDF format too.


Also on my thinking of doing next list:

• Method to track your units in battle, basically a virtual record sheet, usable on phones/tablets/etc
• User unit listings, with persistence and multiple lists (so you can have a unit list for various games, or the turns of various games), and can print such a list in PDF.
• Cost calculation
• BV calculation
• Construction validation
• Web interface to input your own designs, validate them, share them, etc

Stay tuned, post me some comments!

Bots

So I kinda pay attention to the Battletech Encyclopedia and watch the log files, see the images getting created, and so forth.  It actually helps me spot many issues, I'll see a black mech image and notice that I had an extra space in the filename, or pull up a mech to see dozens of APGRs because I had a typo in the database.


Anyway, I submitted the page to google so they could scrape the site, help me get rankings in search engines, and hopefully bring some more fans over so they can shower me with insults and issues, which I can then fix.  


Now, a while back I posted some special features on the site to help you search for stuff.  You can enter in some of the search specs on the URL request and if only 1 entry exists, it'll take you there.  


Well I made a quite site, the "complete listing" on the tabs up top on this page, that had a direct URL to every single unit.


Took around a month, but it looks like google is scraping the crap outta it.  I have 2731 record sheets generated right now (all mechs, its all I'm supporting at the moment) and nearly 4600 quick strike cards.  Wowza!  That is about 4GB of "temp files".  When you view a mech, it'll use the record sheet already generated, so should be a bit faster than usual.  Quick strike cards and the megamek icons (if you use that search method, which I recommend at least once) are being generated each time.


So, lets say your looking for a mech, lets say the SHD-2H Shadow Hawk.  If you go to google, type in "goodsects SHD-2H", it is the 4th link.  Google something less common, like the PRF-1R Prefect ("goodsects PRF-1") and its the first link.  Cool huh?  Now you can basically do a quick and easy google search to find your favorite mech, without having to go through my site at all!  You can use mech names too, like "goodsects Sirocco" and it'll work, often as the first link as my domain isn't too common a string out there.


So basically, remember "goodsects" as your first search term, and use google to hit my site directly and find stuff out.  For those of you more google friendly, using "WHM-6rb site:goodsects.gotdns.com" and specifying the site you can pretty much be assured it'll be the first match, but thats a lot longer to type. 


History Lesson:  "Goodsects" was a technology company I had a few years back, it was short for "Good Sects Technology", and I did contract work for GTE and various smaller companies around the DFW metroplex.  It looks harmless until you say it out loud :)  That is where the domain came from, and may help you remember it.  Oh, and I use "goodsects.gotdns.com" instead of "goodsects.com" so I can host the site at my house, and I have software that updates that domain name with my dynamic IP if it ever changes (which it rarely does).  Eventually I'll probably host this somewhere else, but for now its on a server in my extra room.


Also, I made a HUGE number of updates to the site and database today.  Most relatively minor, but it fixes a large number of units that popped up with errors (if you see an error for a unit and want to see it, leave a comment, I'll fix it that day most likely).  Check out the History page to see more details.


I meant to finish up most of the record sheets tonight, but like most nights the last few weeks I'll be playing Tribes Ascend instead, sorry, and MWO goes beta in a week, which means I may not get to doing it for a while :)  Please please please let MWO not be a typically F2P game and nickel and dime me out of fun.  For the record, I blew $150 on TA, which is most likely because I was a HUGE fan Tribes 1 and 2, but its not quite as fun or team balanced as the predecessors (but the engine is much improved). 

That was NOT easy!

I'm a blabbing blogging fool this week!


Ok, it took me longer than it should have, but eventually I got code to combine a list of weapons into every possible unique combination.


Then, the easier part, I updated the code and the new optimized factors to go through 3 BattleTech turns, and determine how effective that unit will be over those turns.  It is possible over those 3 turns to see some heat, but after those 3 turns it'll balance out to 0 or less.  So, the optimized ballistic and energy attacks factors are *extremely* accurate.  The overburn factors as well are extremely accurate.  I am only listing the highest overburn that gives a bonus however, its possible that overburning 1-2 when a 3 is listed could increase attacks as well (I simply had no room to print it).


There is 1 issue I can see though.  Rotary/Ultra Autocannons.  As these weapons can fire more than 1 time, its possible for a RAC to fire 1, 2, 4, or 6 times in a turn.  Technically that would be 4 different weapon types.  My weapon code has it as one with 6 ROF though.  It'll be a lot of pain for me to break the data down to account for higher ROF weapons firing less than their maximum ROF.  That also borks up ammo calculations.  Perhaps nobody minds, as it seems accepted for fighters and such.


There is one other "issue".  If the unit has over 10 weapons, I don't calculate those values.  Basically to determine the unique weapon firing combinations requires 2^WeaponCount loops.  For each optimized attack I do 5 loops, for a total of 10.  So even 10 weapons is over 10,000 loops.  I'm trying to avoid killing my web server.  I looked at one mech with 15 weapons, which was over 320,000 loops, and I ran outta memory on the web server.  Hopefully ya'll don't kill it much, if you do I can just cache the data (I will do that when I'm happy its all error free... someday).


So all the optimized values have been updated, and IMO should be used instead of any other values to avoid lopsided units.




Thoughts on scaling Battleforce:


Another thought.  Thinking about Battleforce, *NOT* Quickstrike.  Currently BF is based on the 1 element = 1 BT unit, and 1 maneuver element (ME) is 4-6 elements.  However, this limits your ME's to lance sized, meaning a battalion would be about 9-10 ME's and probably big enough to play in an afternoon.


DISCLAIMER:  Just brainstorming here, some numbers and stuff may need to be tweaked, but this is how I'm envisioning scaling a game so you could fight the battle for Tikonov in 3028 (8 full Crucis Lancers RCTs vs around 80 regiments of defenders on 1 planet)


I recommend the following rules not be used in battleforce:

• Everything heat/overburn related
• Critical Hits (Optional, but perhaps each structure hit gives a roll of 1d6, 4+ to kill unit outright)
• Advanced Movement (p270)
• Custom Configurations (surely one of the 2000 designs out there is good enough)
• Alternate Munitions (p308, except for artillery/bombs)
• AC, SRM, LRM, TOR, MML, ATM, HT (IF/NARCs/FLK still ok)
• The following can also be ignored as they are redundant:  CAP, MSL, SCAP, SDS, RAIL, MAG, SPC, TELE, ATMO, KF, UMU.

Now, lets say you wanted to do a regimental battle.  My proposal is to make each element = 1 lance/platoon/star/etc.  Then, each ME can be 3-6 of those.  Basically, allowing you to have 3 or so times as many "units" on the battlefield, but play the same.  To get the factors for each element, simply total the armor/structure/attacks/etc, and divide by 5.  Skills are averaged for the 3-6 BT units, and quality PV multipliers use the new average.


The following rules changed at this level:

• Range bands changed so they are short/medium, and long/extreme, and ranges divided by 4.  Basically, short/medium are averaged into an attack that can be used in the same/adjacent hexes.  long/extreme averaged into attacks that can be used 2 hexes out.  Artillery ranges are also divided by 4 at this scale.
• All movement is halved, round down.
• AEP/ECM/All C3/WAT/PRB/LPRB/AECM/BH/ES/EE/FC/LECM/CASE/TAG/LTAG all have no effect at this scale
• AMS is averaged for all units that form an element, rounding down.
• ARM/ARS/BAR/BFC/AFC/BHJ/SHLD/BT/FR/SEAL/TSMs/XMEC/MEC/MEL/MAS/LMAS/OMNI/ORO/AMP/STL/VSTOL must be on all systems to display
• Other systems are cumulative added up, or shown if even a single unit is equipped.

Now, for the scale where each element is a company/trinary/etc.  Much is the same as the previous scale, but each ME has 2-3 elements, each composed of 4-6 units.  Skills averaged the same way, just with more units.  Armor/structure/attacks are summed up, and divided by 15

The following rules changed at this level:

• Range bands change again.  Now average medium/long into a same hex attack, and extreme gets you an adjacent attack.  Divide artillery ranges by 12.
• All other rules as the previous scale.
• Movement is 1/3rd, round down.

And now, for an element that is a battalion or cluster, again copy the previous scale.  Divided armor/structure/attacks by 45.  Medium/long/extreme ranges averaged into a same hex attack.  Ranges divided by 36.   Quarter movement, round down.  Everything else about the same.

Essentially, each tier you go up (Platoon->Company->Battalion->Regiment->Brigade) divides ranges by 3, damage by 3 (except the first tier, which is 5), and each destroyed element becomes a lower tier.  

So, a Regiment has a single counter on the map.  You have a single piece of paper to track that regiment with 3 different elements on it, one per battalion.  Each battalion has perhaps 5 armor and 3 structure, and does perhaps 4-4-1 damage.  If you destroy a one of these units, you lost a battalion.  If you attack a company level unit, multiply damage inflicted by 3, if you attack a brigade divided it by 3.

Do the reverse math if you want your battalion counter to become 3 company counters, each with 3 maneuver elements that are lances.

Optimized Quick Strike/Battleforce

Ok, ncKestrel made me go ahead and do some interesting stuff when it comes to the damage calculations for Battleforce and QuickStrike.


For example, lets take the Black Hawk (Nova) Prime.  This sucker has 12 clan ER-Medium Lasers.  Each generate 5 heat.  However, the design has only 18(36) heat sinks.  Basically, if it alpha strikes and jumps, its at 29 heat and has an 83% chance of being shutdown, can no longer move (except jump), but luckily it has no ammo to explode.


In Strategic Operations, this unit would be able to do 84 damage.  However, with 65 heat generated, and only 36 able to be dissipated, its heat efficiency is 55.38%.  Thus, the damage in Strategic Operations is 46.5, or 5 points at both short and medium range.


Strategic Operations Method.  5-5 Attack, 3 Overburn.


Ok, sounds reasonable, and is a decent extrapolation.


However, 5 attack is at least 45 damage, meaning 7 lasers fired.  7 lasers a turn for 3 BattleTech turns while jumping results in 12 heat at the end of those turns, roughly on the BF heat scale at 2.  Well again, that isn't very fair.


See these computer things rock, and I can easily do thousands of things in milliseconds it'd take you days to do, with lots of errors, with a pen and paper (or even in excel!).


So I wrote a function that takes every single item on a unit, and figures out every single possible combination of firing in a turn.  I think figure out just how much a unit can fire without any heat, and I then have some really accurate data!


Using this method, each turn the mech can fire 6 lasers, resulting in 42 damage, rounded to an attack of 4-4.  Each battletech turn it has 1 heat unallocated.  Well this is far more accurate than the SO method.  



Now, when it comes to overburns, you can go from 0 to 4.  Mechs can go from 0 to 30.  So basically each point of overburn represents about 7.5 heat in battletech.  However that is over 3 turns, and is cumulative, so each point of overburn is really only about 2.5 heat per Battletech turn.  Not much for a BattleTech player eh?  


If I add 10 heat per battletech turn, an overburn of 4, it allows me to fire 2 more lasers each turn.  This results in a 6-6 attack.  This is annoying.  While I generate +4 Battleforce heat, it actually results in only +2 damage.  Ack!


But for now I am showing these calculations on the right side of the Quick Strike card, to show what the mech *should* be.  In this case, the Black Hawk is 4-4-0-0 attack, but if using Overburn 4, it can actually be 6-6-0-0.  FAR more accurate than SO.


My Current Method:  4-4 Attack, 4 Overburn gives 6-6 attack.


Not to dog SO at all, nobody wants to do that much math, but I'm using a computer to do it all for me, so it ends up making the unit data FAR more accurate, and I didn't use a single piece of paper!


I calculate ballistic (all ballistic/energy weapons considered) and energy (only weapons without ammo considered) in these calculations.  


This isn't the end however.  I really want to do totals over 3 BattleTech turns to show proper abstraction into BattleForce.




In 3 BattleTech turns the Nova would have 108 heat dissipation ability, use 15 for movement, leaving 93 to fire weapons.  That is 18.6 shots, so 18*7/3 = 42/10, or 4.2 attack.  So the unit should have an attack of 4-4.






Adding overburn there would be 108, 115.5, 123, 130.5, or 138 heat dissipation for each overburn factor over the 3 BattleTech turns encompassing a single QS/BF turn.


0 Overburn, 108 Heat = 18 Lasers Fired = 4.2 Attack
1 Overburn, 115.5 Heat = 20 Lasers Fired = 4.7 Attack
2 Overburn, 123 Heat = 21 Lasers Fired = 4.9 Attack
3 Overburn, 130.5 Heat = 23 Lasers Fired = 5.4 Attack
4 Overburn, 138 Heat = 24 Lasers Fired = 5.6 Attack


Using this method, you'd get 3-3 Attack, with an overburn of 4 giving a 6-6 attack.  This actually matches my current method, but it won't always.  The Marauder II Bounty Hunter has +10 heat using my method after each BT turn, as its simply not enough to fire another ERPPC.  However, if I average across 3 turns, thats +30 heat, and allows 2 more shots, giving the unit +1 attack at long range.  


Notice how I'm ignoring special attacks like SRM, LRM, HT, TOR, etc.  That is because if you break these attacks out, well, the sheet becomes horribly convoluted, and the system completely breaks down.  IMO, if you want those values, well, play BattleTech, otherwise completely skip those values completely as they really don't work right anyway (FLK/IF/NARC are all fine)


I'll try to get the multiple turn code written in the next couple days, but for now you can at least see something far more accurate than any other method has produced.  Simply go to the Encyclopedia and find a unit (Preferably mech, maybe CV/Infantry/BA/Fighters too) and click on it to see the record sheet and Quick Strike sheet with the new factors.

Marauders! (Updated)

UPDATED!  This has been edited with some issues that ncKestrel pointed out (see comments), and the overburn value has a graphic issue I'll be fixing in the today.  All the cards are new and the comments were tweaked.


Apparently I can't escape this game, there is simply no other one I can get into :(


I like Quick Strike/Battleforce stuff.  I like any game that abstracts combat potential into a single number.  Not sure why, but I have tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of counters that do just that for all sorts of games.  


NOTE:  I calculate damage and heat efficiency by range band, not for the overall design like strategic operations.  This makes some units more powerful at some ranges.  I also make Rocket Launchers a single shot weapon, and split attacks into ballistic (with a corresponding LA for limited ammo, or shots / tons to reload) and energy.  And finally, I round normally, not up, a single MG shouldn't be 0.2 rounded up to 1, that is silly.


So, I'm going to compare all the Marauder II (not IIC) models, and point out how they differ in Quick Strike.


First, they all have SRCH, SOA, ES, and SEAL.  Also, all are weight 4 and armor 10, and none have an ER attack.


All have 8 structure and 3j move unless I indicate otherwise.


MAD-4A. 21 Pts.  3-3-2 attack, ENE.  It also has 1 overburn.
  Great mech with no downsides.  This is the stock model with 2xPPC, 1xLL, and 2xML.

MAD-4H. 22 Pts.  1-1-1 attack, ENE.  Also has 3-3-1 Rocket Attack and 2 overburn.
  This mech is a one-shot wonder, but even its one shot at best gets you 3 attack, it is always better to choose the MAD-4A, which is not only cheaper but has better long range attack capability.  This is the rocket crazy version with 2xERPPC, 2xERML, and 180 rockets.  Too bad its only got 21 single heat sinks.

MAD-4K. 26 Pts.  This mech has a ballistic attack of 3-4-4.  It can perform this attack 5 times, and it'll take 2 tons of ammo to resupply it.  Its energy attack is 2-3-3, so even when out of ammunition its quite effective.  It also has the ability "BG3", which means "Big Gun 3".  Each attack allows you to roll on the critical hit table, with up to a 3 modifier.  It can overburn by 1 with ballistic weapons.  This mech is pricey though, though I'm not sure worth 5 more points than the MAD-4A.  This is the dual HPPC and GR version, which is why it gets the BG3.

MAD-4S. 26 Pts.  This mech has a ballistic attack of 3-3-2, which can be done for 5 turns, after which 4 tons of ammo are needed to resupply.  It also has an energy attack of 2-2-2.  It can run hot, with 2 overburn with ballistic weapons or 1 with energy weapons.  The mech is 26 points, and though it has BG1 I seriously can't see why you would take this over the MAD-4K, or even the MAD-4A.  This is the dual ERPPC and HGR version.

MAD-5A. 21 Pts.  This is your anti-aircraft assault mech.  It only has 4 structure due to XL, and its attack is just 3-3-2 ballistic (2-2-2 energy).  It is the same cost as the MAD-4A, but does include CASE.  Its one redeeming factor is its FLK attack of 1-1-1, which it can perform 10 times before requiring 3 tons for resupply.  It has an overburn of 1.   I would only consider this model over the same priced MAD-4A if there were lots of flying units about.  This one has dual ERPPCs and the LB10X.

MAD-5B. 26 Pts.  I can see no reason to take this design.  Its expensive, its ballistic attack is 3-4-3 with BG1, and it does have 8 turns of ammo.  However it has no CASE, and its energy attack is only 2-2-2.  It can overburn by 1 but that doesn't help enough.  It simply isn't worth the points over a MAD-4K.  2 ERPPCs and a GR fill out the armament.

MAD-5C. 20 Pts.  Again another horrible mech.  With only 4 structure, a 3-3-2 ballistic attack (2-2-2 energy), and 7 turns of ammo it simply sacrifices too much over the MAD-4A to be a viable option.  Even its overheat value is only 1.  This one has the dual ERPPCs and the UAC5.

MAD-5W. 24 Pts.  This mech gives you 3/5j movement, so it is far more maneuverable than most Marauder IIs.  However your attack is energy only with 2-2-2 with 1 overburn.  It does have C3I, BG1, and MHQ2.5 so it makes a good WOB Level II unit, but only if the whole Level II can move the same.  Otherwise you may as well take a 4A again, which is cheaper and overall more effective. This model mounts dual SNPPCs and a HPPC.

MAD-6D. 24 Pts.  Another version with only 4 structure, expensive, but it does give 3/5j movement.  Its ballistic attack is 3-3-1 with 1 overburn (energy 2-2-1, no overburn) but it only has 3 turns of shooting.  It does include CASE but to compare the design with the same price point 5W, its reduced long range damage and lack of electronics and BG means its just not cost effective either. This sucker has 2 SNPPC, 2 LPPC, and a HPPC.  

MAD-6M. 22 Pts.  This model, along with the 4A and 4K, are really the only ones I think should be considered.  It does only have 4 structure, but its movement goes to 4j.  Its energy attack is 3-3-1 with 2 overburn and it even includes ECM.  This crazy version has 2 LXPL, 2 MXPL, and an ERPPC.

Marauder II Clan Refit.  29 points.  This is a very pricey model, but worth it.  It has only 9 armor and 5 structure, but it gains a move of 4j, has CASE, and a ballistic attack of 5-5-4 (energy 4-4-3).  And that without any overburn necessary.  It also gets BG2, AND a flak attack of 1-1-1.  It has 7 turns of ammo and only requires 2 turns to reload.  Overall this is the best non-unique Marauder, but you pay for it.  This is a standard version with clan weaponry.

And finally the super munchy one.  The Marauder II "Bounty Hunter".  Obviously the Dread Pirate Roberts.... er... Bounty Hunter knows his designs.  While the design is a whopping 38 points, it easily rules them all.  It has 3j movement, a 5-6-5 ballistic attack (3 overburn) with 5 turns of ammo (2 tons to reload), and its energy attack is 5-5-3 with 2 overburn.  It has CASE, AND its BG3 so it has a good chance to obliterate your enemy.  However, if your paying points for your game, you could nearly buy 2 MAD-4A's for this, which have more firepower, far more armor, and doesn't put all your eggs in one basket.  While this model has 2 ERPPCs, 2 MPLs, and a GR, the jump jets and targeting computer really spike the point cost.

So the Quick Strike/Battleforce calculations really help to see a more of a difference in the designs.  The MAD-4A is a great and solid design and should usually be the Marauder II of choice.  The MAD-4K or Clan Refit are viable options though, if one has the points to spend.  The MAD-6M could be taken if additional maneuverability and jump jets are necessary.  Simply don't take the 4H/4S/5A/5B/5C/5W/6D ever, for any reason, they suck.  If your in a Solaris VII arena however, the Bounty Hunter's build rules them all.


Looking at these numbers, its pretty easy to see how BV may not be quite so balanced.

Battleforce/Quick Strike Updates

Well for some reason I'm still making almost daily changes.  I really need a better front end, and do the code for vehicle/fighters/etc record sheets (its funny, those are all WAY easier than mech, I'm just not very motivated to do them).


Aside from bug fixes, and implementing new features, there are a few ideas I'm thinking about now.


#1.  Adding the ability for you to create a list, set skills/pilots, and display them all at once.  Optimally I'd like to create a PDF, but need to play around with PDF creation a lot more.  Another part to this would let you edit any values with any of those units.  So you could change armor, add hits, do refits, whatever, and it'd keep the data for you and create new record sheets on demand with the changes implemented.


#2.  Creating an EXE that does everything the site does, but faster, with lots more options.  I can make a better interface this way, but you won't be able to view the data on your phone or linux/mac box.  Also, I wouldn't support both, so the EXE would end up replacing the site completely


#3.  Completely redoing the quick strike/battleforce cards to support all my additional features.  For example, I'd remove the heat scale, its silly.  Instead the attack block would be 3 lines, one for ballistic, one for energy, and the last for ammunition so you can fill in circles as you use up ammo.


Of course those all seem interesting, but what I SHOULD be working on, in no particular order, is:

• Battle Value calculation
• Cost calculation
• Finishing all the record sheets
• Multiple image support, let you choose which one gets printed on the RS/Cards
• Bug submission option on the bottom of all pages

I'm not seeing a lot of use on the site though, so I should probably still move on ;)   Funny how many questions I hear about "what book is mech XXX in" when a quick search on my site will give you EVERY book it is in, while the MUL only shows you the latest and has nothing recent.

Be sure to check the history page often, as it has a lot more updates and more detail than I do here on the blog.

The Star League is Stupid

Ok so I was reading the Liberation of Terra book, which is right up there with Reunification was as the best products since FASA died, and came to a conclusion.

The SLDF is stupid.

The US island hopping campaign of WW2 is a decent comparison to the SLDF retaking the worlds of the Terran Hegemony.  However, while the US bombed and island, then bombarded it until there was no resistance, the SLDF just sent troops in without any preliminary bombardment.

That is how most of their losses occurred.  If I was a grunt in the SLDF, I'd be defecting to the rebels as well as my naval officers are idiots.

The SLDF should have jumped in with combat fleets, removed the Caspars and Rim Worlds fleets, *THEN* sent an HPG back to the staging area for the transports to jump in system.  Instead, the transports jumped in with them, and entire divisions were blown away in space before they ever set foot on the ground.

No wonder their losses were so horrible.  I guess if they didn't do that though, the SLDF would be so potent after retaking Terra that they could have just conquered the entire inner sphere instead of going on Exodus, and 300 years of peace would have followed.

I'll also say this to Randall:  "Good luck with IO".  There is a problem with Battletech.  While it is a small enough universe to get your head around (opposed to say Traveller or Warhammer) it is still a REALLY REALLY big universe.

3000 worlds.
The SLDF had 451 divisions and 301 independent regiments, 3000 warships, 500 naval bases, and who knows how many transports and facilities scattered about.  How in the heck would you model a game with that?  Sure, by division, otherwise you easily have 4000+ counters, for the SLDF only.  Problem is, there isn't 1 division per world attacked in canon, so you really need to break up those divisions brigades at a minimum (1353 brigades), but it'd make more sense to do regiments (4360).  Then warships, it appears that squadrons average about 18 vessels, that is 167 or so counters, doable.  Bases tho, well we can assume that a huge chunk are irrelevant in game, so the SLDF could be done, at a regiment level (plus a few SAS battalions and what not), with about 5000 counters.  Woah, thats a lot.  I have that many counters and more for Federation and Empire, but sheesh.  5000 counters, over like 150 worlds.  Thats 30+ counters (regiments) per world, on average.  Far too many to use on a map, and too many to track with paper.  The other alternative is to just drop the detail.  Use divisions, and instead of each world track regions.  This simply becomes risk and all battletech "flavor" is lost.

Now, after the SLDF evaporates it becomes easier to track.  Roughly 500 mech regiments and 240 warships by non-periphery nations in 2765.  About 500 mech regiments in 3025 too.  At this scale it makes sense to have counters for a mech battalion, armor regiment, infantry brigade, 10-15 dropships, 3-6 jumpships, and 1 warship.  Add in miscellanous markers and units, and you are probably looking at about 6000 counters to model the 3rd Succession war, perhaps 8000 or so with various addons.  While that is a lot, it isn't unbearable.  It could also be reduced by having more larger formations, then generic units when those larger formations are broken down (like 1st Davion Guards could become 3 generic heavy mech battalions).

Ok, now problem #2.  How to track the units.  Lets say we have a mech battalion, with a unique name.  There are 3 ways to track it.  First is simply make it generic, give it a unique name for flavor, but make a heavy mech battalion always equal to another heavy mech battalion.  You could mark the counter with a quality icon for elite/green, but that gets annoying if you track XP and have to have +/-1 quality to them.  I really don't like this method, as again it makes battletech feel more like risk.  Option #2 is each counter has unique stats on it, perhaps 1 heavy battalion has an attack of 8 and defense of 6, while another attack/defense of 7.  You could flip the counter when the unit becomes damaged, having reduced values on the back.  This is probably the simplest method, though things like fatigue and experience are still a real pain to track.  Option #3 is the best for detail, and worst for people who hate using pencils.  This option you simply have unique counters, but they have pretty much no values on them.  Instead you track everything with paper.  The paper could have a unit ID, damage, fatigue, supplies, XP, and combat values, at the least.  These would be circles that get filled in and changed as the game goes by, and your enemy is never totally sure as to their capabilities (scouts could force you to give up information).  Now, the issue with #3 goes back to all them counters.  Even with mech regiments that is 500, and if you want track each regiment each needs at least 1 line of paper... lets assume you can fit 2 columns on a 8.5x11 piece of paper (no way with all them stats).  That is still 3, or more likely a dozen, pieces of paper to track just your mech regiments.  Multiply that by 3 for battalions, add in armor/infantry/etc and suddenly you have a book to track your game.  Nobody wants that.

So it comes down to making the game VERY generic, removing the battletech feel, and essentially making Succession Wars all over again, or, have so much detail that there is simply no way a succession war can be fought.  Little stuff, like the invasion of the Taurian Concordat by the SLDF in the Age of War sure, but a full blown game nope.

Speaking of the TC invasion, that is another issue.  Some of those worlds, with SLDF *divisions* on them, took over a YEAR to conquer.  With 1 month turns that is 12 full turns both sides have forces on 1 planet.  That is a LOT of die rolling.  With more sensible 1 week turns that is over 50 turns with both units having forces on planet.  ACK!

Oh, we have the map too.  With 1 hex = 7.5 LY, the smallest scale you can really do and still see mobility and only 1 system per hex, the map is over 6' in both directions, WITHOUT the clans!  That means you'd need a 3' reach to even play it.

I love counters, not sure why but I really do, but there is simply *NO* way to recreate a succession wars game on the tabletop without dumbing it down so much, that your unit doesn't matter, and the game no longer has a battletech feel to it.

I really just want to see rules for scaling battleforce, intelligence, politics, manufacturing, etc.  Stuff that if it was all there one could create an entire succession wars game, and with that I can convert it all to computer and it could become playable :)

Scaling may seem problematic but I think battleforce is perfect for this.
Right now battleforce is 4-6 units per maneuver element.  This allows a battalion to be played, or maybe even a regiment, but not an RCT.

So, to scale it up a notch, average out all the stats for the 4-6 units in a battleforce element.  Then, call that an element in battleforce company scale.  Your company would have 3 elements, each acting almost exactly like their battleforce stats would indicate, but are actually averages for a lance.  Lots of rules could be removed, like overheating and special ammo.  Ranges/movement get reduced to 1/3rd.  At that point playing out an RCT wouldn't be impossible.

Then, for a battalion, simply average the stats so a battalion maneuver element is composed of 3 companies (the average of stats for the 12 units within it).  Ranges get reduced to adjacent hexes only, movement is 1/9th normal.  Some new stats are added, like a recon factor (since C3, AEP, ECM, etc no longer do anything).  Simple enough, now even bigger battles are easier.

And finally, for a regiment, average the battalions.  Same method, but only battles in the same hex.  This scale should be pretty rare, as even the biggest planet battles would maybe be 8 counters on a side.

To go up/down these scales is easy, just take a hit and mark 3 to the subordinate unit (or whatever).  A lance could be in a company level game, but each hit would take off 3 circles.  That same lance in a regiment game would take perhaps 9 circles from a hit.

So scaling is pretty easy IMO.  Adding in fatigue, quality, XP, supplies, etc at all of these levels is pretty easy to do as well.  Units could be listed with stats like "Armor +4/Speed +1/Attack -2/Recon +1/Artillery -2" to let you have regiments have some detail to them.

Anyway, going off topic now.  My point remains, the SLDF was stupid.