Ok, SBF is simply broken

Plug for my patreon site, which I skip charges on, but lets you let me know you are a fan :D
https://www.patreon.com/BattletechEngineer

Ok, I haven't touched SBF in a few weeks now. During this time I have read the rules countless times trying to make sense out of it. Final result is, SBF is 100% broken and unplayable. The rules do not make sense, are contradictory, do not address too many common situations in gameplay, and are just missing too many things.

But I've already put quite a bit of work into this (probably 20-30 hours), so I'll keep going until it is playable.

As of now I am not totally sure of how I'll do engagement control. Those rules are completely broken. I am thinking that the engagement control roll is only made at the END of the turn to see how the battle pans out in the next turn. If you want to fight an engagement simply move into a hex for an enemy unit that already moved, and stop there, thus creating an engagement. If you want to force an engagement or evade from one this is the time you determine that, and can then move out of the hex if you win the engagement and choose not to engage at all. I think that'll work better.

I love the idea of the tactical rating, but can't imagine it having a significant effect in combat over just their skill rating. From a BT perspective, to me anyway, tactics at this scale should maybe give you the ability to choose the ranges at which each element fights. So, say you are a clan trinary with a low tactical rating vs an inner sphere company with a higher tactical rating. 3 elements (stars) vs 3 elements (lances). Having the superior tactical level should probably allow you to either increase or decrease the engagement range by one range band, but I can't imagine any other benefit. On the tabletop superior tactics just gives you a modifier to initiative, which at the SBF level is not factored in directly.

Some other changes I think I will make to the rules, though I have not gone through all of them yet:

- Each MP you spend, does a sensor roll AND visual detection roll against all units within range automatically. You can still choose at any time during movement to spend 1 MP to do a recon scan against 1 target. These are goofy though as movement is simultaneous, and you may scan a unit that was never really within range because they moved, or what if you ran by an enemy surely they would see you before you ran back out of range? Proper implementation of these really need a phased movement system where units all move 1 MP at a time based on their speed. - Sprinting/evasive. These are 1 BT turn maneuvers, not something that should be used strategically as both are probably quite exhausting. I left them in, but these I feel should not be allowed in SBF and I will probably remove them at some point. - Only units with RCN can do a recon scan? Gotta be *some* reason scout mechs exist right? - Eliminate the line of sight determination table on p239 of IO. If you are adjacent, you can fight (granted, the rules are sparse on the ability to fight things outside your hex) - The rules do not ever indicate what a 'Tier#' leader is, so I'll assume tier 1 = lance/star/L2, tier 2=company/binary/trinary/2xL2, tier 3=battalion/cluster/L3, tier 4=higher. This is for the initiative modifier table on p265. You don't want the tiers to go to high and give 1 side a +9 or something. - I won't support splitting/reforming/adhoc units during gameplay. These are totally real things, that happen in real life and in the BTU, but not within 3 minute turn increments. Do this admin level stuff before the game. Hopefully more to come pretty soon.

Does anybody still read this?

Just asking if folks can chime in if they still read this.  I have never followed a blog, and not even sure it is still a valid medium for folks.

I created a patreon which is set to $1/month, but I disable billing every month so it should be free:

https://www.patreon.com/BattletechEngineer

Anyway, just a quick update as I'm not sure if anybody even reads this.  I have been working on a Strategic Battleforce PC game, and made some pretty good progress, but the rules are simply broken.  I had lots of questions, some fan asked if he could post them on the forums to which I said "sure!", but his post quickly got locked, then deleted.  I also had one of the people that had been *trying* to answer my questions that was affiliated with CGL/Forums/etc back out as apparently they REALLY fucking hate me there.  Extremely unprofessional if you ask me, especially since I am a HUGE contributor, HUGE supporter, and my alleged violations are either not true, or really insignificant.  Oh well, there are still 2 folks talking to me that still help me out, and they laugh at the drama and show me some really "funny" posts from some of my haters out there.  I try to empathize, but at this point its just getting to Trump levels of stupid.

A pic:

I am not debating on if I can even finish this as the rules are simply VERY broken, unplayable broken, and I'll bet somebody 500 clan invasion kickstarter miniatures that they did NOT fix them in the new Battleforce reprint book due out soon.  If I decide to just say "forget their broke ass rules", I'll create something that I think is more in line with their goal, and make it more streamlined at other scales, and then finish it by filling in my own rules that fall back on CBT rules when possible as a computer can handle the details for you!

If I finish it, I'll also release the source code, but right now its really ugly and has a lot of "TODO" comments in it I want to clean up first.

Anyway, let me know if you read this, or whatever.  I am not sure of the best way to communicate with those who actually want to see new battletech products get created.

Oh, my engineer site sucks and is broken.  I haven't touched it in years, and never really finished it.  It started as something similar to the masterunitlist.info site, but with CBT stats, and if I got it closer to done I was going to give to to CGL and let them charge $1 or something every month for it, which basically replaces the need to print TROs and Record sheets, and just lets people print them on demand based on what they want in it.  Residual income is a GREAT thing for companies, and for some reason CGL has never figured that out.  They are not very good with technology and seem to shit on those that are who offer to help (not just me, there have been others).

Have some happy holidays!