Saturday, January 10, 2015

Some Proposed Upgrades for 3069...

Welcome back.

I have been waiting on the next installment of German translations.  And Bad Syntax is busy with other things and cannot work on Alpha Strike cards for the 3063.  

But there is my proposed Upgrades: 3063.  

We always wanted those HPPCs and so on.  And we always knew, despite the cries of 'MUNCHKIN!  OVER-OPTIMIZED!', there were machines that were not all they could be.  Much of this was due to a priority chain that was supposed to prevent min-maxing... the focus was on price and the minimum technology required to get what we wanted from a given design.  So the machines were cheap, but yeah, a lot of them could be better.  And let's face it.  

We originally present a machine of payload 'X' that costs 'Y' C-bills and is worth 'Z' Battle Value.  Then, later, we present an upgraded version that can carry '2X', costs nearly '3Y' but whose Battle Value is only '1.2Z'.  Do you build your battleforce based on C-Bill cost?  Or do you use BV2?  Would you rather pay '2Z' to transport your troops, or '1.2Z'?

That's what *I* thought.  Thus, Upgrades: 3063.  

Better costs money.  How good do you want to be?

Getting the Ball Rolling... 

  So I keep busy by going through reviews of the fan-TRO I found on 4Chan.  I could only find a short review of vehicles - apparently a fellow with the screen name of Munnin did a more thorough review, but I cannot seem to find it.

Acting on the writer's comments, I have come up with a list of machines that can be improved.  Mind you, this is just the start - I have the rest of the Vee review to go through, and it doesn't even touch on 'Mechs or Aerospace.  I am already looking at the amount of machines that need 'upgrade' and am taken aback. 

It appears that the Upgrade is going to be something huge, at least in the number of machines inside.  This does not even take into account the new machines I wished to include - such as a variant on the Grand Dragon.  It looks like I am going to have to keep the writeups brief, maybe 350 words at most.

I had planned on new art for at least 50% for these Upgrade entries.  We'll have to see; after the dust settles, I will check the budget and see what we can afford.

Meanwhile, we have to start walking before we can run!

Proposed Vehicle Upgrades



I have also put out an appeal on 4Chan to submit reviews of the 3063 contents.  However, that place is more transitory than I expected.  I may have to address individuals rather than what appears to be a very nebulous group to get the results I need.

That's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Regards,

Steve

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Übersetzung hat begonnen! [Translation has Begun!]

Hey!  Welcome back!

Glad to see you here.  The holidays being what they were, we got only about four or five pages done.  Andre has his life and a job performing (what else?) translations of entire books, so we're kind of feeling our way along here.

Our editing team of Thomas Lagemann and Nadja from Germany have been busy too, but they took a look at what I produced and offered only minor changes.

Most of my trouble comes from having forgotten how to make InDesign 3.0 do the wonderful things it did for me back in late 2012.  I have to relearn it, with my Dummies book in one hand.

Here is a sample of one of the early pages...


 photo EnglishGermanPageOneComparison_zpsc4bd70f8.jpg

Looks like the Draconis Combine will be ready to install around mid-January, as we all recover from the holidays and welcome the New Year!  Happy 2015, everyone!

Thank you for stopping by.

Steve