Doing the Limbo….

This evening I went through the remaining BattleMech writeups and have spotted a few more glitches, which I smoothed over or trimmed back. The original Vulcan piece clocked in at 1,200 words! But as it was a ‘co-writeup’ with the following Vulcan II, and as that piece had only about 450 words, I felt the two balanced each other.

But a fresh look at the text showed there were several spots where information was duplicated. Sure, it was from two different perspectives, but it was redundant nonetheless, and I found that trimming the lead Vulcan piece was not as hard as I thought it would be, with the Vulcan II fresh in my mind. So I whacked away at the undergrowth (it is simply amazing what writers insist on keeping, just because it reads well or is one of our better works). The result is that the Vulcan comes in under 1000 words – still too long in light of the standard 750-word limit we impose on ourselves, but well within standards if you add the Vulcan and Vulcan II together and divide.

I am considering adding another ‘Mech (the Forge) to the stable; it is a bit left over from the work I did for the Battletech Universe website’s TRO project. It was considered too long for their format, and it was. I trimmed it back to 750 words and ‘Crayed’ the weapons references, but the BTU TRO is on hiatus and may never see the light of day. I am going to contact the original designer and ask if he is willing to permit its use.

The reason I consider this addition is because, despite the fact that it has a wonderful writeup, the Capellan Culverin is languishing due to art issues. It is an Omni-Mech with two Configurations and I have been trying to set aside money for new art, but so far have been unable to get it to Alex Iglesias in order to move things along. The price is set, and it is quite reasonable, but…well, we’ll see. Removing the Culverin would reduce the number of ‘Mechs by three; adding the Forge would leave a shortfall of two for a total of 33 ‘Mechs.

I suppose I can live with that. It is a shame to waste writeups, but there are times when you just have to let go. This may be one of them.

No new art from Eriance yet, though he has lots of questions on building and designing BattleMechs. It would appear he does not have Heavy Metal Pro or one of the other ‘Mech design programs out there. Doing it by hand is something I have never done, and from the looks of it, I have not missed very much!

Steve