I Screwed Up...
I will keep this brief:
Despite our attempts to bring the best product to you, we released flawed versions.
- Bad or missing data in the Record Sheets.
- Internal structure dots don't show up in the Vehicle Record Sheets.
- The images in the TRO have degraded over time due to multiple printings to PDF format. We caught it on the covers, but the interior art slipped by us (we rarely zoom in on it).
- Other stuff.
- Other stuff.
The Current Status of the Fix...
(1pm PST, Saturday 1 September 2012)
The old Record Sheets
The NEW Record Sheets
(1pm PST, Saturday 1 September 2012)
Please Click on the Images and LOOK!
Time: 1345. Our hard-working Bad Syntax has now been hugged. But he is not my 'entourage', he is a working partner! I take a definite back seat when it comes to what he is doing - in fact, I decide things only after he has educated me to the point where I know what I am deciding *on*. I am lucky if I get to ride on the bumper - the last programming I did was in COBOL back in 1988.
- I am 60% finished with replacing the degraded images in the TRO. The damage was not as bad as I expected.
- I have made the necessary corrections in the TRO text and data as Bad Syntax makes corrections in the RS files.
- I have not yet checked the Art of the TRO for image degradation as well. I will get on that after I drop my wife and son off at work, vacuum the house, clean the bathroom and start the laundry.
- We now have Lords of the Battlefield, BattleTech Universe and OurBattleTech as download sources, and will update all of them by this evening.
- PLEASE DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANYTHING UNTIL I POST THE ALL-CLEAR HERE ON THIS BLOG.
- PLEASE DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANYTHING UNTIL I POST THE ALL-CLEAR HERE ON THIS BLOG.
Issue date for the Revised TRO files:
Evening - 1 September 2012
Again, please accept my apologies....
Steve
51 comments:
Congratulations!!!
So when is work starting on TRO3100?
Funny like a crutch, BadSyntax. I have some BadLanguage I would like to use, but this is a family-friendly blog.
Maybe in a few years, after I have won the lottery and my son is in college....
Steve
I, ah, kinda already *did* start on TRO:3100. >_>
No money, artwork, layout, or anything of the sort yet, but I have been hard at work on designs and fluff at least.
In any case though, hooray for 3063 being done! It looks terrific :D
Glad you like it.
I am gonna wait on 3100, like, to see where the whole DA thing is going.
Also, the previous two events.
I think an Infantry Primer is in the works.
Steve
And there was much rejoicing! =D
Not least from my little family, who welcomed their Dad back from the hinterlands (and the garage) with much rejoicing and a game of tennis and a hug.
How lucky can one guy get?
Congrats sir cannot wait to pick a copy up.
Our long national nightmare is over :b
@Schottenjaeger: What?
- Snooki finally gave birth?
- The Learning Channel has 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo?' optioned for a second (!) season?
- they 'found' the 'missing' BT faction dice from GenCon2012?
- Joe Biden finally shut up?
See, this is why I visit your blog and post so very, very often. Perhaps if you were not so snippety... ah, but you are now a married man. Your soul has been mortgaged to She, Who Must Be Obeyed.
Welcome to the club. You get your bathroom key in about a month.
Open the Champagne now?
Permission to cheer loudly?
Well done.
@ Ashley: You have your copy. You mean you haven't popped the cork yet?
Yes. It is all over but the shouting. I even scrogged the PayPal button.
Congratulations, great achievement for you and the rest of the team. I can't wait till it's 28th's.
Kind regards,
Maurits Jan Donga
Congrats! All the hard work you guys have put into this will make this very much worth the wait.
Steve,
Speck is working on the link today over at BTU, so we should have that up in a day or two. All depends on his schedule.
I want to congratulate you on a job well done!!!
Jeff"thecircus"Wheeler
Site Admin, www.battletechuniverse.org
Thank you all for the congrats.
We released the corrected version today to the general public. Get yours before the Cease and Desist letter arrives!
STeve
Magnificent! Bravo ladies and gentlemen bravo!
Congrats!
Is the download speed slower for non members of that particular forum?
I posted a download mirror on my mediafire account, link on my blog http://btengineer.blogspot.com/. Hope ya don't mind Steve :)
Well Done, great to see this is out and about!
A few errors I've noticed, mostly in the Capellan section:
Anvil ANV-9MER has to many crits in the Right Torso.
Sentinel SNT-6K is missing a DHS in the heat section (it's in the mass and crits, though)
Spector 8L has to many crits in the Right arm, and is a ton underweight. The writeup mentions having a Streak SRM rack instead of the standard SRM rack shown on the record sheet. Both Spectors are missing their right hands, despite having them in the art.
The Liao Privateers are far off-BV, and appear to not account for the TSM or CASE properly. 2L should be 2143 BV, not 1794. 3L violates crit limit on the RT (having 2 more crits than is possible), and should be 1942 BV, not 1624.
Cataphract III is missing the hand the art shows above the Gauss rifle.
Culverin the stealth crits are fixed in place when the omni chassis is made, but they float around in the RS. Moving them to the bottom of the crit area fixes that problem without messing with the arm actuator options or weapon fitting. The B config is also missing the 3 tons of LRM ammo in the RS (TRO entry says 3 tons LRM ammo, RS only has the Thumper and SSRM ammo) BVs are also off, being 1795 (Prime), 1794 (A), and 1519(B).
San Ku Chu entry in the TRO mentions "The savings in weight, combined with the removal of a machine gun, make room for an advanced Apple Churchill Beagle Probe." This is either a mistaken reference to a Beagle Active Probe (none is on the unit in any other writeup of it), or a really poorly named system.
Other BV errors: Griffin 3L is 1697, Griffin 3L ERLL is 1615, Spector 7L is 1151, Spector 8L is 1060.
I would suggest looking into Solaris Skunk Werks, as it is quite good at preventing crit errors (Barring some problems with AES systems), and is very accurate with BV for Stealth armor and TSM (and numerous other designs do not seem to have paid for their CASE in BV, though that is normally to minor to matter). Even if not used for making the Record Sheets, it serves as a nice way to double check.
Also, the hosting method used is very slow for downloading (It took me 2 hours to download the web quality version on a broadband connection, while a 1 gig game update takes less than 30 minutes)
All that said, loving the TRO. Just wish the record sheets were a bit more accurate.
@Todd: I believe the download speed is affected by how many folks are downloading. It would seem there are a lot, at present.
Steve
@Anonymous: I will contact Bad Syntax with that list of issues, we will see what can be done. Probably a lot.
I will issue an updated version when it becomes available. I am assuming this is the RS:3063, right? Figured it might have a few issues. There was a lot of pressure to get it done and not much time.
If you knew how much time and work went into that thing, you would be amazed at just how few glitches there really are. But yeah, they need fixing.
Steve
I've only just had a quick skim through, but I think it looks great, a very professional job.
I’d suggest using the link provided by “Bad Syntax”; it was gonna take Five & half hours to download the print quality version via the other link, but only took about 6 or 7 minutes via the link in his blog >> http://btengineer.blogspot.com/
I'll jump on the RS issues ASAP and get a new version out... hopefully today.
Greetings from Germany.
An awesom work.
Thanks.
Hmm, well I'd hate to criticize, as this is great work, several of the art pieces in the high resolution version seem decidedly low resolution. This is especially noticeable with the Eriance pieces in the DC section. Maybe its just me?
@Bad Syntax: the RS vehicles are missing internal structure dots! Can you fix that too?
@MetalDragon: Hrmm.
Fucking InDesign.
See, we've printed out several versions of the TRO over the years, and the art was not our focus.
Then we started printing out the finals. Each time I finished printing the final out, the program would ask me if I wanted to save the changes. I could not understand why there would be changes when it pumped out a PDF, but I hit 'yes' to be safe.
Then we started noticing the cover art was degrading to the point where it looked like a low-res pic.
I fixed that by importing the art all over again and then clicking 'no' on the prompt.
But I forgot about the rest of the art.
I am going in to check the art again, and replace the pieces that are degraded. Not all of them are, for some reason.
steve
The vehicle structure dots were an issue with a file being saved, and some graphics application changing the RGB of a color, its all fixed now.
I fixed all the bugs anybody has mentioned, EXCEPT BV and the Omni Slot config.
Both of those I'll have fixed and a new RS file tonight.
However, some of the BV calculations done in SSW I can't seem to find in the TM anywhere. Things like the Gyro Type Modifier (it is in an example, but nowhere else) and TSM modifying BV. If anybody can find those I'd be thankful, as I really don't want to implement something that isn't in the rules, logical or not, just because some other designer has it.
And its getting damned hard to prove I'm not a robot these days.
@Bad Syntax: I am sorry! I wish this had not happened, but I suspect that even with all the alpha and beta testing, there is stuff that just crops up.
And there are boneheaded oversights, like the print quality art.
I need the RS update before I can punch in any BV changes in the TRO. Might as well get it all knocked out in one go. Hey, Douglas Gatto should be happy. I fixed his name.
If you have a look on the official releases from CGL there are not less errors in these commercial & professional products!
So chin up, chest out!
You all did an outstanding job on this release!
@Bad Syntax
Page 304 of TM mentions part of the BV increase for TSM, but the main increase is in that you use the higher speed for the movement-related BV parts. Most notable is that 4/6 to 5/8 (such as with the Privateer) you're moving from a +2 target Movement Modifer to a +3 Target Movement Modifer. This is specifically the Defensive Factor, explained on page 303 of TM. Incidentally, this is why Stealth armor does not have an armor BV multiplier: it has the benefits accounted for in the Defensive Factor BV.
Gyro costs are on pages 302 and 315 of TM.
While I am pointing this stuff out, I know this TRO has had an enormous amount of effort put into it, and that the only problems I've noticed are a few math and RS errors (and not in any way that makes the design impossible) is impressive. Thank you for getting all of this done.
FYI, the RS file has been updated to fix the invisible vehicle structure circles and the bugs that were mentioned. Click on the mediafire link on the top of my blog at http://btengineer.blogspot.com/.
Last errors I noticed on the Mechs:
The Blackjack G2 cannot exist. The fixed DHS crits in the arms, combined with the upper arm and shoulder, leave only 7 crits in each arm. Two LBX 2s takes up 8 crits, and there's no other spot on the mech with 4 or more crits. Downgrading a pair to standard AC 2s would fix the problem, but I'm not sure you'd want to do that. Using LBX 5s instead of the RAC 2s on the G would work as well.
A mentioned variant of the Kurita Privateer isn't in the Record Sheets, though that may be intentional.
The Durendal DND-5DE has an extra crit in the Right Arm. Moving one of the tons of Gauss ammo to the RT fixes the problem easily, as the RT has an empty crit already. The DND-6D has a spare half-ton, but being underweight is legal by the construction rules last I checked.
The Targeting Computer on the Death Incarnate is one crit to small (5+5+1+1+1+1 = 14 tons, 14/4 round up is 4 crits and tons for the Tcomp), though the mass is correct.
I have no clue on the ICE Thud's correctness, as I'm not sure how ICE engines work on mechs with DHS. It is an awesome concept (and piece of art) though.
The CHP-3Q3 has "Standard" crits, and is overweight by a ton. It appears to have been designed to have Ferro-Fibrous armor, but was switched at some point and the program didn't properly change the armor type. Using FF armor gives it 5 spare armor points, removing a ton of LBX ammo allows it to keep the Standard armor.
And one non-mech thing I noticed:
The base Auroch model is missing from the MUL in the back (An older version had it essentially the same but with MoC/CC secondary availability).
Can't see any other mistakes at this time. Again, a few minor mistakes given the scale of the project, and I'd personally say that the TRO is better done than some of CGL's work.
I found a few BV calculation issues and they are now fixed. The BJ2-0G G2 ended up being invalid, so it'll need a bit of an update and the RS should be much better after that.
Thanks for pointing out any errors. As of this message, they are all fixed!
See if you can find anymore before we re-release it :)
FYI, we didn't have many eyeballs looking over things like BV/Cost/Availability calculations, so they are all highly prone to any errors. Any that are found I'll fix same day.
I just uploaded a new copy, Mk28, at
http://www.mediafire.com/?qab14yc1iutpi1g,mqatmqib7p9gk4l,ifcpna802ky362s,b4g3omgj7adg7r8,xiubbjz1mh6rd77
This added a Privateer variant, fixed the Blackjack and a everything else that was pointed out.
Omni slots are still not consistent between variants, this has zero impact on game play, and I have an idea to fix it which I'll implement soon.
No game book is 100% perfect on release, there's always going to be something that slips through. The fact that your addressing the issues encountered faster than most game companies is a big plus. First rate work guys, don't let the minor mistakes get you down to much.
Todd
@Todd: Some would beg to differ:
http://ourbattletech.com/forum/general-discussion/tro-3063-initial-impressions/msg23701/#new
JPArbiter is a good egg and I know he means well. His response probably represents what a good number of fans think when they first open the file.
However, I did note that the review consisted of six points and all were negative. He had little good to say about the work. His points were valid from the perspective of someone looking for a copy of a company TRO.
Needless to say, our is not a company TRO, and furthermore, following the blog for a few days would have warned JPArbiter of what to expect. I kinda wish he had done that first, but then, I kinda wish I had checked the quality of my TRO art going out the door, too.
Rework sucks.
Steve
@ Steven and Bad Syntax: First of all, thank you both for all the hard work. It's appreciated. And don't beat yourself up about the errors - like wolftech said, even the professional products are usually riddled with them. ;-)
I have no clue on the ICE Thud's correctness, as I'm not sure how ICE engines work on mechs with DHS. It is an awesome concept (and piece of art) though.
The current rules AFAIR don't allow for hybrids like the F4X. BattleMechs have to be powered by fusion engines and only BattleMechs can use DHS. [Not that this would matter at my table. Like the TT rules, the construction system is wayyy to rigid and convoluted.]
@Faraday77: I knew the diesel T-Bolt is illegal but have resisted Bad Syntax's best efforts to turn it into a glorified IndustrialMech.
It is a relic, there are only eight of them, and Rule of Cool kicks in. The entry is, far from what some folks say about 'min-maxed designs', just a fluffy, fluffy entry that is fun to read, coulda happened and is actually playable.
Sorta.
Steve
Hi Steve,
Yes, Rework does suck. But honestly, given the time and investment involved, for the size and scope of the project the changes made are minimal IMO. Heck, I've playtested for gaming companies Big and Small, and nothing is more frustrating than seeing months (if not years or more)of hard work put together in a half assed manner by someone in production who doesn't care as much, and once out the door has no interest in fixing any mistakes, big or small.
Frankly, I think JParbiter is missing the point, but that's just my opinion.
Heck, If doing TRO's was easy, everybody would be doing them. Heck, I'm doing a complete AU from the 4th on, it's kicking my butt and I'm only a year in :-).
But it's fun, and I love doing it and working on it. :-)
Todd
TacOps errata now (well, since sometime last year) allows for non-Fusion BattleMechs.
to all the people who helped, and all people who want to know, and all the people who don't care, and to all the bad-mouthed with s.f.b.:
I like it!!
nuff' said
Flashhawk
TacOps errata now (well, since sometime last year) allows for non-Fusion BattleMechs.
Interesting and no wonder I didn't find it...got better things to do than slog through almost 90 pages of combined errata. =/ Shame TPTB didn't think of adding rules for it until after they finished the book.
IIRC, the problem with the Thunderbolt being illegal wasn't the engine, it was double heat sinks or armor or something. I knew BM's could use ICE engines. I think I had suggested just changing HS to single to "fix" it, but Steve was set in having it be goofy :)
Is it just me or are these "prove your not a robot" things too freaking hard to read?
@Bad Syntax: Actually, 12 singles would have drastically reduced the warload, armor or both. We needed the heat dissipation for that warload and I did not see why, in 3063, they could not cobble 6 DHS into a T-bolt with a diesel engine.
In any case, there are only eight of these walking violations of nature. We did not run out of handwavium covering them, as the entire entry made it clear this was not the wave of the future.
Or not yet.
And yes, the filter is a pain. I just cycle it until I get one I can read.
@Bad_Syntax, the errata refers to the number, not type, of "free" heatsinks. Jump jets are the only equipment currently prohibited on ICE BattleMechs.
@Faraday, yeah, TacOps was a bit of a mess. For what it's worth, I suspect the low-tech BattleMech rules were omitted on purpose. TPTB spent a lot of words getting Industrial 'Mechs how they wanted and they probably didn't want other unit types to overlap with 'em.
@Steven and Bad_Syntax and all others who contributed to this book: cheers and well done!
We all love you Steve, and your entourage! ****BIG HUG****
You, your staff, escort, and entourage all bit a big GROUP HUG!!!!
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