Ok, SBF is simply broken

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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.