Sunday, July 24, 2011

Prototype v1.3... ready for your review!


'Running the Blockade'
by Chris 'Colourbrand' Sumner

Greetings.

We’ve made some progress – as you might have guessed.

- Stephen Huda is currently working on a new Capellan vehicle, the Feng-niao (Hummingbird). This is a hovercraft which carries a TAG on a turret and moves at extremely high speeds. The second draft is below:


Capellan Combat Spotter 'Feng-niao' (Hummingbird)
Second Draft
by Stephen Huda

Unfortunately, the advent of this little beauty means curtains for another design – in this case, I pulled the completed Halberd out of the Federated Commonwealth. It is a redundant design, given the AA capability of the Werefox line.

- The BARS (Bulldog Autocannon Remote System) is still in progress. It is hotter than hell in Texas right now, but Lee is still working on it.

- Chris Sumner (‘Colourbrand’ over at DeviantArt) has completed work on the piece entitled ‘Running the Blockade’. You can see it at the top of this post – click on it for a better look!

- Karl Olsen is still pounding away at the Diomedes and the Hammerhead II. There were some issues with email bouncing repeatedly off his account for nearly ten days, but I finally got the suggestions I made through to him. Meanwhile, he has done a very good job on the background work for the Sabra XIII artillery vehicle.

Sabra XIII background (rough)
by Karl Olson

Bill and I were scheduled to get to work on the layout again today, but early this morning he called in sick. Nevertheless, he has been working on the beast at home.

- Bill found that the Lyran section did not have the symbol in the background. Corrected.

- He also went through and got rid of that annoying screen artifact at the bottom of every page (the thin line).

- He has corrected the goofs we made with factual stuff, as well as the misspelled ‘Vehicles’ and ‘Assault’. Or at least I hope so :)

- He added the ‘Mech section to the Lyran Alliance.

Now, keep in mind that we have not gone through and installed bold, italics or anything else of that nature. Nor have we changed fonts (though I have been giving it some thought). But the Third Prototype should be ready for your viewing pleasure as of this posting.

Note please, it is at the same address as the previous version: we left it that way for convenience.

http://www.wartairsoft.com/TRO3063WEB.pdf

- I have been spending more money (!) provided in part by our generous donors (via the PayPal button). Several of our color pieces are lacking in sharpness and professional look. I commissioned ten new ones – colorized versions of work done by David White, Matthew Plog, Alex Iglesias and Eric Ou, among others. Jim Lafferty and Anthony Scroggins have been working on making them come to life!

Capellan Culverin OmniMech
Art by Eric Ou, color by Jim Lafferty

If you want to chip in via the PayPal button, even $5 would be to the good. The delay on this project is not the actual work – we are on schedule – but paying the artists before using their art. We have about $350 to go.

We even have a special section planned! A bonus that will be at the end of the TRO... er, never mind. You didn't read that. Nope. Bill would kill me if you did.

As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged. For those of you who contributed, the Credits section has not been updated on the prototype, but I have updated it here on my computer. We will drop the finished Credits in when everything settles in for the final draft.

Enjoy the prototype and thanks for stopping by.

Steve

[Bonus section: Playtest of the Feng-niao by Dorian Sherrat and Helen Troy]
[Coming SOON!]

12 comments:

 Ashley said...

And there I was thinking the bonus section would be about using infantry in BattleTech.

Anonymous said...

Looking good!!!


thecircus

Shepherd Gunn said...

I am so happy to see the prototypes. I like the general layout. I've been looking over the pdf. I do have one question, though about the Daimyo DMO-6K. It shows as having 14 double heat sinks, but in the Weapons & Ammo section, it shows as there being a Double Heat Sink in the RA. Is this a typo, or should this Mech have 15 Double Heat Sinks?

Steven Satak said...

Thanks for the sharp eye.

The Daimyo has 3 DHS in the LT, one in the RT and one in the RA. Together with nine in the engine, it comes to fourteen.

But I will check again this evening with the original HMP file. It's on the laptop.

Steve

Steven Satak said...

@Ashley: Thank you for the donation! No, the Infantry Primer will be a separate PDF publication. Far too long for a TRO and not really fitting in with the theme anyway.

@Shepard: the Daimyo has nine heat sinks in the engine - the other five are as I listed, for a total of fourteen. The numbers match, but thanks for bringing it up anyway!

Anonymous said...

@Steve

I have Will painting one of your redesigned Argus that Mechanized Designworks did.

Anonymous said...

Okay I gotta ask... how is the Hummingbird a VTOL? Looks more like a hovercraft, enless the duct(s) for vertical lift is hidden?

Capt K

Dorian Sherratt said...

@Anonymous

*cough* Argus? What Argus? *cough* I made a Bifrost. which is cool, but I've not done an *cough* Argus *cough*.

Anyway, I hope you like the model. It was a real challenge that one, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Steven Satak said...

Hey, it is a VTOL which flies at NOE ALL THE TIME! How's that for crafty?

No, I fixed the reference. Silly me, I was thinking of the Magistracy's Oculus, which is even faster and IS a VTOL.

Anonymous said...

@Dorian

The photos of it will be at www.battletechuniverse.org when Will has it done. I will post the link here.

thecircus

robunos said...

Been watching this project develop with great interest, and waiting for it's final release.
Not sure what your policy is on BT vehicles being based on 'real' vehicles, but see :

http://btvt.narod.ru/3/koalition_sv/koalition_sv.htm

(Sabra XIII), and

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hemtt&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=q341TsTaJMWWhQfH9qCECw&ved=0CDQQsAQ

(Ural Transport Truck)

Also, the description of the 'Fafnir' mech is reversed with respect to the image. Either the image should be swapped left for right, or 'right' and 'left' should be swapped in the write-up.

Steven Satak said...

@robunos: Please contact me at my email address: ssatak@yahoo.com. We need to talk.

I fixed the Fafnir glitch. Good catch!

Steve