Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Working on the Record Sheets... One at a Time!



 Outworlds Alliance Sounder
Record Sheet

Welcome back!

Here is what we have for progress:


- Bill is busy turning PDFs into JPGs, images I can massage into record sheets.  This is necessary as the software we are currently using (MegaMek Lab) can handle only vehicles and ‘Mechs.  Furthermore, there are machines with features I cannot access in MML (sponsons, etc) and for some reason, the ‘Mechs do not print out the Gauss rifle ammo on hand.  It has to be put in on a case by case basis.

- I am going to spring for a nice piece of software (KviSoft’s PDF to Image) so I can do the conversions here at home - $25 is not too bad, considering the quality of the output.

- Denis Pottkämper from Germany has supplied us with all the insert art for our Record Sheets.  Thanks, Denis!  They look really good and are in a frame format similar to the layout of the rest of the sheet.

- Our cover artists – Chris Daranouvong and Anthony Scroggins – are currently working on the cover and it is coming along nicely.  It will cost a pretty penny, but then this is the cover, so it HAS to look good!

- Anthony is also working on ‘refurbishing’ the Capellan Xuan-wu, which I felt was a bit lackluster.  It is one of the few remaining original pieces and he has promised to put some polish on it without changing the overall layout.

- Folks have been generous with the PayPal button – we’ve taken in a good amount over the past month and I want to thank all of you who pitched in.  We’ve paid down everything but the cover and the Xuan-wu touch-up.  I have offered to send a printout of your favorite faction from the current Prototype (v10.5) as a thank you for a donation, but so far only three of the five who donated have taken me up on it.  The offer is still open for those of you who have an extra five or ten dollars you can spare.  The last Prototype available to the public was v6, so there have been a lot of changes.

- I have recently come upon a cache of 256MB thumb drives.  They are not very impressive as pure storage anymore (you can get a 2GB or even a 4GB drive now for about twelve bucks), but they are ideal for my application.  I am going to load hi-rez versions of the TRO 3063, the ‘Art of TRO:3063’ and ‘Record Sheets: 3063’ on a thumb drive and send them as a ‘thank-you’ to anyone who has donated $50 or more to this fan project.  I only have thirty of these, so they will go fast.  The rest of you will have to download the Web versions, which are a much lower resolution intended for distribution and quick download. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Making Headway on the TRO:3063 - despite setbacks...


Capellan Confederation
Erlang Shen - Anti-Aircraft for the Trinity Alliance


Greetings!

Work on the TRO advances by the day. Here are the highlights:

- Bill’s computer is running great (especially for World of Tanks and the Alpha World of Airplanes). We fixed the text on the back cover so it is nice and clear.

- There were some issues with the order in which we presented the warloads. They have been organized by location.

- for ‘Mechs: RA, RT, RL, LA, LT, LL, CT, HD.

- for Vees and Aerospace craft, it was: Turret, Front, Left Side, Right Side, Rear, Body.

Furthermore, we organized the equipment / weapons within a location. For ‘Mechs, it goes from the largest weapon to the smallest, then equipment, then ammo, then jump jets and CASE. For Vehicles, it is the same, although the Body locations include Cargo and Infantry Bays, which come first.

- I tweaked the entry for the Free Worlds League’s Striker II – dropped the Artemis and added CASE and more armor.

- The OmniMech and OmniTanks have been fixed, and we modified one of the Configurations for the Capellan Confederation’s Culverin to include a Thumper artillery piece.

Setbacks along the way...

We have been working on the cover art and the Record Sheets, but as you saw in the header, there have been some setbacks. Neither of these have gone as smoothly as was hoped.

- Our cover artist has gone MIA for a month now. He sent an update at the end of February and we have not heard from him since. I gave him until the end of March to finish the piece and am currently in negotiations with Anthony Scroggins to craft a new piece if necessary.

- We were working with Denis Pottkämper in Germany to create new-style Record Sheets. I have not been able to get a response from him in at least a month. I am currently trying to figure out which software I will need to get, learn and use to create the sheets for myself. John Baker may be able to lend a hand mid-April, but that is still up in the air.

- Several people have dropped by to donate to the project via the PayPal button. Thank you all! However... brand new art from Anthony Scroggins will not be cheap, and my wife is currently looking for a job, so spare money around here is scarce. I will proceed with the cover, but it would sure help if some of you folks could hit the Button for five or ten bucks.

In return, I will be happy to send you a snip of your favorite faction from the current Prototype. The last Prototype available to the public was v6.0, and we are currently up to v10.3, so you will get a view of something very close to what will hit the street.

Barring unforeseen emergencies, we are looking at the third week in April for publishing.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Monday, February 27, 2012

Heading Towards the Finish Line...


Howdy!

Welcome back! We have been hard at work on the TRO, doing most of the work in layout mode while the last of the art is completed and paid off.

Progress…

- Bill has revamped his computer after a hard drive crash. He is re-installing Photoshop so we can fix the text errors on the back cover (they look like crap) and re-build the front cover with new art and a header more to our liking.

- We corrected the writing errors as noted in the last blog post. However, there were serious errors in the numbers, most due to the way the design program rounded up armor points (instead of rounding them down, as is now the norm). Donald Hawkins not only made a large contribution to the art fund through the PayPal button, he tracked down all the numerical errors, eleven pages in all. There were also issues with the numbers mentioned in the writeup not matching what was in the actual technical data. Don also nailed those. I have finished entering all the errata he spotted.

- We converted all the text from Times New Roman to Myriad Pro, to conform more closely to standard TRO formatting. The font remains 9 point for easier reading.

- We still have issues with the OmniMech and OmniTanks. It has to do with pod space and allocation. We are working out the details with Don and John Baker, and they should be done pretty soon. As always, real life takes priority.

- We are, at long last, finished with individual art pieces. The last piece (by Stephen Huda) was done for a secret Bonus Entry at the end of the Art Section. All I can say is that it is Capellan and intended for the Trinity Alliance.



- The Art Section is some forty pages of sketches, miniatures and pieces that were finished but never made it into the TRO due to format changes. It represents a lot of money wasted otherwise, so I put it all together for your viewing pleasure. I am told by the handful of people who have seen it that it represents a very unique look at the game and the process of creating a TRO. We think you will enjoy it.

- I am not going to update the MUL with the new BVs – the difference in most cases is a matter of one or two points due to the addition or removal of a single point of armor. Not worth the time and effort.

- We are working with Denis Pottkämper in Germany to create new-style Record Sheets – the HM series of programs offer only the old style and I want to keep this TRO firmly aligned with the look and feel of more recent company offerings. The Record Sheets are going to be bundled in a separate PDF – the web version of the TRO already takes up more than 45 megabytes. These Record Sheets will feature the artwork found in the TRO and will include every variant mentioned in the writeups (well, excepting the failures).

- MekWars: Legends (an online BattleTech game) has begun adding the machines from this fan TRO to their list of available equipment. Let me know if you need more information, guys!


[Click on the image for a closer look]
My apologies for the lack of art – we usually have more available, but we really are coming to a close here. I am looking at the end of March with fingers crossed.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks goes out to a BattleTech fan who is currently in Afghanistan. He donated $250 through the PayPal button and enabled me to pay off nearly all the remaining art in one shot. Thank you, Jeffrey! I hope you enjoyed your look at the latest Prototype (v9.2).

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Monday, January 09, 2012

Errata Has Been Entered - and a bonus Section begun!

Free Worlds League Guillotine
art by Chris Daranouvong

Hello, everyone.

It has been a long time since the last update. We have been busy with the holidays, and I am sure the rest of you were as well.

Progress…

- Bill has passed the baton on to me as regards the layout of the TRO. We spent some time going over the various commands, and I have my Dummies book to help me with anything odd that comes up.

- During the past two months, I have been collating errors in the TRO prototypes. I am happy to announce that the first fourteen pages of errors has been corrected.

- I have gone through and formatted every entry to standards set by the company’s products. We still have our own look, but the data is arranged in a familiar way and most of you readers should have little trouble navigating.

(Click on image to enlarge)




- We resolved the issue of pixelated art in the InDesign program – with one or two exceptions, it was the way InDesign handles the image. The actual hi-rez printout looks fine, regardless of what we see in the assembly program. I did discover that a lot of the images were huge, but at 79dpi or 200dpi. Converting those images to 300dpi seems to have corrected problems we were having with sizing as well.

- I have updated the MUL to include the Star League version of the White Knight, and found a way to import tables directly from a Word document into InDesign. The result is quite crisp (the Prototype version looked like crap).

- The Index is in place; the Table of Contents has been undated. We dropped the last Section Introductions into place.

- I have begun work on an additional section. Right now, we have the TRO proper, ending with the Index. Then we have the Master Unit List (MUL). Then we have a section titled ‘The Art of TRO:3063’. So far it runs about 25 pages, and should top out at about 30-35. It includes a lot of stuff you folks might find interesting - things we’ve posted on the blog as the years went by, but now all collected in one place and annotated.

- Don’t worry about me killing time with this addition – I have been waiting for our editor to proofread the errata’d version and he has provided me with another six pages of things to fix (so far…)

- The time we are taking for the errata and art allows me to catch up on payments to the artists. I still have a couple of hundred dollars to go, but we are nearly there.

- We are re-doing the cover. Hah! Yes, someone brought it to my attention that the machine on the cover does not actually appear on the inside of the TRO. We are changing that with the help of Chris Daranouvong. The header for this blog post is the proposed replacement for the current Guillotine art.

NEW MINIATURES!!!

This is how the Aurora and the Claymore look, prior to becoming miniatures available on Shapeways! Thanks for the hard work, Dorian!





What follows is the final re-issue of the Free Worlds League Thug:

That’s all for now, folks. Stay tuned and please, hit the PayPal button to help move things along. I always respond, and the money always goes to the artists.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

PS: Does anyone else notice something about the Company Forums? Whenever they ask a question about some bit of fluff or fact mentioned in a TRO, nearly everyone tries to justify it 'in-universe'. That is, they try to give reasons why such a thing might be true or false inside the storyline itself.

When someone like me comes along:


and suggests that the writers might simply have made a mistake, or that the company did not choose to go in that direction, there is (usually) dead silence. I have ended whole threads with this type of comment. In the case above (click on link), my comment was simply ignored.

I love to write in the BT universe and make no mistake, I have a lot of fun playing the game. But some of those people hanging out on the forums are in a bit too deep, if you ask me. I mean, c'mon. You have to read some of the comments to believe it.

A writer makes a mistake twenty years ago - or writes about something that never amounted to anything outside a single book - and it's clear as day after two decades of hindsight that that's exactly what it was.

And ten fanboys immediately leap to the author's defense with Byzantine explanations as to why all of it makes perfect sense in universe. That ranks right up there with the apologists explaining why there are typos and other glaring errors in the company writing - because that was what the in-universe author intended.

Just thought I would see if anyone else has noticed this. It seems awful silly to me.

S

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The Editing Path Clears... and new Art!


Word of Blake Aurora Mobile Flak Battery
Art by Stephen Huda

Greetings!

We did it again.

We added another vehicle.

But this one was worth it. I am putting the finishing touches on the rough draft for the writeup.

Imagine if you will, an anti-aircraft battery in BattleTech that can actually shoot down VTOLs and even aerospace fighters. I mean, actually do it in the game, with no special rules, for real. There are many such designs in the BT universe, but none of them are really all that effective.

Oh, sure. The writeup says they are effective, the design is such that you might think they could do the job, but when it comes to putting metal on the table and rolling the dice, most of them come up short.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not talking about missile launchers. They do a good job – that is, unless the target has an AMS (or in the case of our Outworlds Alliance Sounder, several). Then you’re sort of screwed unless you spam the hell out of them with a bunch of little stuff.

This new machine is called the Aurora, and it started out as a joke. Click on the image for a closer look.




As you can see, pretty cool. I thought ‘what if I send this to our new proofreader and pretended to panic, telling him this was the next project?’ So I sent the pic and some stats I threw together. Instead of a flustered proofreader, I got a comment from John Baker telling me he’d tested it on Mega Mek and thought the new machine was pretty effective. When I told him it was meant as a joke, he shrugged and said words to the effect that it was ‘still damn good, even for a joke’.

I ran it by Bill and he liked it. So much for the joke! I commissioned Stephen Huda to illustrate the machine, using the Claymore’s chassis (they are the same tonnage).

This is a 100-ton machine. It moves 2/3 with nearly ten tons of armor (1/2 for the militia variant and that one carries more armor than an Atlas). There are six LB-5X autocannons supplied with four tons of cluster ammunition. It has a range of 630 meters and a backup battery of five ER small lasers. Oh, and did I mention? It comes equipped with C3i.

With a potential of up to thirty rolls on the motive hits table, this baby will force most other vehicles to grind to a halt if they don’t wind up destroyed completely. Against aerospace fighters, the Aurora has a fair chance of forcing a crash, even on a strafing run.

Recommended for good gunners, and please, don’t do like the boys in the UK did, and try to move it around. The base model moves 2/3 and all they did was drive their targeting modifier up, making it harder to lock on a target. Stick it and its lancemates in a Level One revetment and leave them there.


Word of Blake Claymore (color)

As you can see, the color plates for the Vehicle sections are done. Jim Lafferty did excellent work.

Mercenary Hessian Hovercraft (color)

Good News on the Editing Front

We have a new editor, John Baker. As you can see from the list of errata on the previous blog post’s comment page, there is still a lot of stuff that needs fixing. John is a volunteer with very good writing skills and he has already sent me six pages of corrections. Normally, I would despair because it means I have to make multiple trips to Bill’s house to get these punched in.

However! I now have a copy of InDesign and will install it on my computer tomorrow. Bill will drop by with the files from his computer, and we will get it up and running on my powerful new laptop. That way, I can do the corrections every night instead of once or twice a month!

[We installed it and the fonts it required. Bill brought the TRO files over and installed them. It is up and running for editing, folks! Bill is sick now (imagine that) but will be around in a week to drop the new art in place. By then the remaining introductions should be back.]

- Geoffrey has agreed to look over the new Introductions for the Vehicle sections, as well as the writeup for the Aurora. I will send it to John after that.

- Prototype v6 is still up and ready for download. There are about three days left before I get down to business and start working my way through a fourteen-page Errata list. If you see anything, let me know.

Again, if you want to chip in, please hit the PayPal button if you have five or ten dollars to spare…. I want to get these debts cleared before the end of November and need all the help I can get. I have had several people donate what they can and I have sent it on to my artists.

Also! A new banner for my forum posts!



Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Monday, October 24, 2011

Entering the Final Stretch.... Prototype v6 is Ready!


Mercenary - Harbinger Gunship
Art by Stephen Huda

Hello. Welcome back!

This is a milestone for me. After four years of on again-off again announcements of ‘the last art is in!’, we really do have all the art on hand. It’s not all paid for – Karl Olson and Stephen Huda need their moolah before we can print these. But I should have that part finished by mid-November. There is also the matter of paying Paul Skowronek his bucks for the four additional edits as well as others (about $40) and getting the final payment to David Dryburgh for work he did a long time ago.

Please hit the PayPal button if you have five or ten dollars to spare…. I want to get these debts cleared before the end of November and need all the help I can get. I have nearly run out of stuff to sell on Ebay (well, not if you count the unpainted Warhammer:40K Leman Russ with all the electronic special effects, but who knows what that would sell for?)

- The Draconis Combine’s BARS (Bulldog Automatic Reloading System) is done. Stephen Huda did an outstanding job, as usual. I owe him nearly a hundred bucks, but should have it paid off by mid-November.


Draconis Combine - BARS
Art by Stephen Huda


- Karl Olson has finished the Mercenary Hessian hovercraft. At a weapons expo, you never know what you will find!



Mercenary - Hessian Hovercraft
Art by Karl Olson

- Bill and I tried to get together one last time for the final push. Sunday the 23rd should have see the remaining art and text entered, along with the special art section and the Master Unit List. As it stands, we did not get together, but I uploaded all the remaining data to Bill via OpenDrive and he put it in. There are some glitches – words misspelled, etc. But Prototype v6 is up and ready for download.

- All writeups are done. Everything we need for the current layout is complete. All the art is on hand and inserted (although we are looking at replacing current art with bolder versions for a better look and I forgot the color plates – two more have been commissioned). Please go over it with the proverbial fine tooth comb.

- Also, we will try to post the current Errata List for you to download. If you find an issue, please look over the list of things we’ve already found and see if your ‘find’ is there. If it is NOT, then please post it in the comments section on this blog along with any suggestions you have for correcting it. We will add it on this end to the Errata List

- The official window for finding errors in the final Prototype is one week. That’s seven days after the Prototype and Errata List go live. After that window closes, I will begin fixing the errors. It will take about another week, during which time I will be open to stuff you spot at the last minute. Please, please, look hard and do it as soon as you can.

- Upon correcting the errors, I will begin the laborious task of going through the entire TRO, adding boldface and italics in appropriate places. This should take at least a couple of sessions over at Bill’s house – I don’t want to tie up his main computer and don’t think I can do all of them in one sitting (I would probably go blind and crazy at the same time!)

- Still selling stuff on Ebay. I just listed two very rare Revised Dual Land artist's proof Magic cards signed by the artist.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve


Errata List



The names are not always coherent depending if you look on the left or the right page, they can be in capital letters or not, be the full name or a part of it, have a - or not.

More annoying is the Capellan Griffin.
The weapons are listed as being on the left side but the picture shows them on the right one.

-----------------------------------------------------
The drawing of the Vagabond is captioned 'isomerus'. As an aside, will the handwritten captions on Eric Ou's illustrations be removed?
On the Ural page there's a missing word or phrase :-
'While most drivers shouted at each other to turn back.
Groves quickly[missing word or phrase] his Ural and left his bickering comrades behind.'
And again on the Grffin GRF-3L page, the title reads 'Grifn'


[ Bill, the Griffin header needs to be corrected – it says ‘Grifn’. We already addressed the conflict between data and image with the last error report.]

[At the top of the Vehicle text, we have several pieces that do not follow the standard format. That is my fault – I should have gone through and fixed them all to say ‘Type/Model: Name’ rather than leaving them all caps with no lead-in. This is probably the case for the entire TRO, so let’s get in there and fix that when we get together next.]

[On the Vagabond art, we have Eric’s signature and the original name of the ‘Mech – the Isometrus. I want to get rid of that but leave Eric’s signature. Furthermore, I want to go through all the art done by Eric and get rid of ALL the names, as well as reduce his big signature to something quite small but legible over to one side. It is currently too big and distracting; it detracts from the overall feel of the work to have the name of the piece listed along with the TRO number. Takes you ‘out’ of the TRO and back into the real world, if you know what I mean. The thickened art gets rid of the name]

[On another note, I think the header text listing ‘Heavy Mech’ or ‘Light Mech’ should include the apostrophe. Make them all ‘Mechs, not Mechs.]

[On the Panzer IX, get rid of the hyphen on the page header name. Comb through and find any others that have this issue. None of them should be hyphenated except for some BattleMechs and the Capellan machines, and that exception applies mostly to the vehicles with Chinese names.]

[Montgomery II Heavy should be just Montgomery II]

[Panther Battle Tank should be just Panther]

[The Panzerfaust text begins with ‘Assualt Gun’. We can correct that when we get in there to add ‘Type/Model:’. As a rule, unless the machine is a significant departure from a standard tank, leave off any descriptor but the name. If it is enough of a different beast, we should keep the name as descriptive as possible with as few words as possible. Panzer X Cruiser Tank is good. The Panzerfaust should be Panzerfaust Assault Gun, not Panzerfaust Mobile Gun (all tanks are mobile guns). Kangaroo Support should be simply Kangaroo. If they want to know what it is for, they can read the writeup.]

[Ural Transport Truck – in the Notables section, it reads “…Groves quickly his Ural…”. This is my goof, it should read “…Groves quickly accelerated his Ural…”]

[Cobra CBR-03 should read CBR-3S, in keeping with the current usage. My goof. I will go in and correct that when we get together next. It needs to be cleaned up in the text and probably in the HMP and record sheets as well.]

[BARS Fast Strike Tank - Power Plant is listed as Nissan 245 Fusion, should read Nissan 225 fusion]

[The text for the FWL Black Knight reads wrong for the placement of the MLs – does not match the art. Drop the new text in when we get a chance or repair it in place.]

[Need to replace ‘enmity’ with something else on page 7]

[Need to install new stats for the FC Roland – the armor has been modified on all variants to match the Prime model and the C version has another ton of LRM ammo and a corrected C3 link.]

[Need to install the art for the missing pics in earlier House entries.] [DONE]

[Remove the Shielding and Transmission portion of the stats section on the DC Tomahawk]

[Change the CM-33’s cargo bay to 9 tons and the loading equipment to 1 ton in the stats section, and correct in the writeup if needed.]

[add ‘and a new look’ to the ferro armor description of the DC Sentinel]


REV SIX

[Aerospace headers are misspelled ‘Areospace’]

[Assault ‘Mechs headers are misspelled ‘Assualt’]

[Forge heading is misspelled ‘Forgr’]

[House order has been Vehicles, then Mechs. Comstar follows this but WoB reverses it. Why?]

[Harbinger is misspelled ‘Harbringer’]

[Hessian text page is missing the smaller art]

[Master Unit List looks good but should come after the Index. I will gen a new index up using the page count you established by putting all of this together]

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Another Monthly Update... and more Art!

Word of Blake - Claymore
Art by Stephen Huda


Howdy. Thanks for being patient while I update.

- Lee Madison’s BARS is cancelled. He dropped out of sight too long, too often. I am scrapping the work he sent and am sending the commission on to Stephen Huda, who will also be working the Harbinger.

- Karl Olson is working on the Hessian hovercraft.

Mercenary - Hessian Hovertank (rough)
Art by Karl Olson

- We still owe Paul $40, Stephen $30 and Dave Dryburgh $70. I am nearly done paying for Momma’s dental work, so they will see some money soon. I also have some other bills related to the TRO – mostly a debt for $100 for 3D CAD work done on miniatures that, unfortunately, we cannot use at the current time.

- Bill and I have not been able to get together for the layout this month. Bill has a ton of yardwork he is trying to get done before the weather turns to absolute crap. I have been doing little things around the house – new doorbell, leak in the roof, cracked door frame – that take up time and money. We are going to try to get together for that last push with the data entry this weekend.

- The writeups for the Hessian, Harbinger, Heirax and Claymore are done, and Paul is working his editing magic on them as I write this. The Claymore art is complete, the Hessian nearly so, the Heirax is already in the bag and I sent the Harbinger stats on to Stephen this evening.

- We have a list of Errata that will address the issues you readers found in the Prototypes. I may relent and release the ‘final’ Prototype to everyone, as I have had very few people volunteer for the job of proofreading.

- Stephen Huda took over and competed the FWL Jaguar commission for Mike Sullivan, who was too busy to finish his version.



FWL Jaguar
Art by Stephen Huda

Doing My Part... Part IV

Sold some more stuff on Ebay:

- A pair of special lands for Magic: the Gathering.

- A foil Dark Depths.

- A Mana Crypt.

- Had some trouble getting those two playsets of Natural Order to Italy. Never again!

Sad Demise

Some of you know I smoke cigars and drink strong coffee while working on the TRO. This has been an institution for the past four years. Unfortunately, the last tobacconist’s shop in the area closed on last Friday night forever. I will have to find another source, probably online, for good smokes.

[Please click on the image for a full-size reading]


Don’t hesitate to hit my PayPal button for whatever you can afford. The art is nearly done.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Monday, September 05, 2011

Some Good News... and Some Bad News...

Sounder Aerospace Fighter
Art by A. Agussoekarno, color by A. Scroggins


Welcome back. Got some mixed TRO news here.

The Good News…

- Lee Madison’s Jaguar is nearly finished. We had to resize the soldiers and round off the nose a bit.

- Karl Olson is paid up to date. So is Stephen Huda. So is Anthony Scroggins.

- We got a big donation last night but are hanging on to it for reasons which will soon be clear.

- Stephen Huda finished the Blackjack quick, fast and in a hurry. And it looks really good!


Blackjack BJ2-OG
Art by Stephen Huda


- Mike Sullivan’s commission is still under construction.

- We still owe Paul $40 and Dave Dryburgh $70. I will pay them off by mid-September.


Working the Layout

- Bill and I worked on the layout yesterday. As was mentioned before, we are concentrating on data entry. The corrections to errors spotted by our BattleTech Readers are on a document and we will implement these after the book is filled in. We have completed the Federated Commonwealth and the back cover.

- The issue of some of the art being too ‘light’ will, like other errors, remain until later. I have the thickened versions on hand, but there are some problems with the white backgrounds turning a shade of bluish grey (take a look at the comparison of the Privateer in the last blog post). Bill assures me he can deal with this – he has access to more powerful art tools than I do. The important thing is that he agrees the art on at least some entries needs correcting.

- You folks have been donating via the PayPal button and I thank you. I was pushing to get this out in September and it will not make that deadline mostly for one very simple reason: the TRO is not finished.

Doing My Part... Part III

- A pair of sealed old-school WH:40K Space Marine Rhinos went for $60.

- The pair of sealed WH:40K Imperial Guard Mordian Iron Guard squads went for $70

- An old-school WH:40K Space Marines Predator got $65.

- The WH:40K Imperial Guard Catachan Sentinel Squadron got $60.

- A playset of Natural Order MtG cards got $145.

Wait…What Did You Say?!

And now the bad news. Yes, I did say the TRO is not finished.

Bill and I were looking at the tail end of the TRO and realized that after the Periphery States, we were left with a hodge-podge of singletons – four Merc units and one unit each for the WoB and Comstar. Now, the Jihad has left everyone with more WoB machines than you can shake a dead cat at, but the fact remains this is a very awkward way to close out a TRO of any sort.

We hemmed and hawed, spent an hour discussing various fixes, but finally came down to a decision: we are going to add four more units to these sections of the TRO.

Before you get that sinking feeling, consider the following:

- We have already notified the writers, artists, editors and proofers and they are on board for a solid push.

- We are nearly paid off on previous work.

- We are using the art from an Outworlds Alliance piece, so it’s three bits of new art, not four.

- We have already got the new designs in place and mostly tweaked.

- I am currently working on the writeups and they are very well fleshed out as far as concepts. The actual roughs, writing and editing should be done in two weeks. These are not filler. They follow the guidelines for the rest of the TRO: they are playable, the faction needs them, they do not duplicate earlier designs, and they have a solid mission profile that is not too narrow. They make sense in-universe as well as on the tabletop.


The New Faces

Here they are:

- A VTOL (the Heirax) for Comstar (we are repurposing the Leopard from the OA, they have plenty) for inserting a six-man battle armor squad at high speed.

- A 100-ton tank (Claymore X3) for the WoB sporting four Light Gauss, experimental C3i and three medium lasers - 2/3, I think.

- A VTOL (Harbinger) for Mercenaries, purpose-built by the FedCom in a program similar to the one that spawned the Kuritan and Capellan Privateers. It moves 8/12 with an ICE, mast-mounted BAP, three MGs and three SRM-6s. This is the FedCom's attempt to supply mercs working the Outback and Periphery border with an inexpensive workaday machine.

- Mercs win again! They get a new hovercraft (the Hessian) purpose-built for them by the Lyran Alliance. It was originally intended to work alongside the Harbinger but is now separated by political issues - but both can still be had on the marketplace. It comes with five SRM-2s and two MLs on a 25 ton chassis moving at 10/15. Fair armor, should prove useful (and it is cheap). Furthermore, it has several factory options you can choose (variants) and like the Harbinger, is accompanied by a goodly stock of replacement parts included in the purchase price.

Yes, I said 'four units' and that comes to four - but we are pulling the OA Leopard. The art is good and the OA already has six entries. So we are reducing that to five.

Unfortunately, I cannot promise this all before mid-October: as this delay is due to our own decision rather than a lack of funds, I am reluctant to take any more donations. It’s not your fault and those of you who have donated already are probably disappointed. Before you grind your teeth at the delay, consider also the following:

- This will push the total entries to 112. Again, no filler, the TRO will balance and the art will be spot-on.

- The publishing date is being pushed back, true, but it is not entirely due to the additional work.
You know that Bill and I are working on our own personal time – we, like you, have day jobs – and I think it unlikely we will get another Slogging Sunday in before the end of the month. Bill has to attend school, take care of his kids (all four) and like that. Getting a day off to do nothing but work on the TRO is not easy for either of us. And the weather is going to turn on us very soon. No more coffee/soda and tobacco sessions in the warm outdoors.


I will keep you posted as to the progress, of course. Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Saturday, August 27, 2011

One Last Prototype - and Progress on the TRO


FWL Zukhov II
Art by JP Sphagnum, color by Jim Lafferty

Hi! Good to see you again.

Here is the latest with the TRO:

- Lee Madison has finally responded to my email. He had a broken computer. We have some additional tweaking to do with the BARS, but it is shaping up nicely.


Draconis Combine BARS second draft

- I owe Karl Olsen $100 and should have that cleared up soon. Below is the work he did on the FedCom Roland:


Finished Roland background

- Jim Lafferty has been paid up to date.

- Anthony Scroggins has taken the last coloring commission – for the Periphery Vehicles entry – and should have it ready in a few days.

- Stephen Huda has taken the last commission, a re-do of the Blackjack OmniMech.

- Mike Sullivan’s commission on the FWL Jaguar is in progress. It is taking a backseat to his day job, but in this economy that is a good thing – it means he knows his priorities.

- We still owe Paul $40 and Dave Dryburgh $70. Income has increased at least temporarily due to our Ebay sales.


Working the Layout

- Bill and I are scheduled to work on the layout tomorrow. Some corrections and issues have come up, of course. We have the corrections listed and will fix them one by one.

- One of the issues is that a good portion of the art is too ‘light’, the lines too thin for the purpose of illustration. At least it can be said that the line thickness varies wildly from entry to entry, and so I have done some extra work and ‘thickened’ the lines in most of the offending pieces.

As you can see, there is a noticeable difference without losing the details:

Bill is still unconvinced that this issue is worth the time and effort we’ll make doing the replacements, but it is a problem that has been pointed out by at least three of our Readers. Thus I consider it up for consideration to the point where I have prepped all the pieces and am ready to punch in the ‘thicker’ art as needed. Better now when we have only 2/3rds of the Houses done than later.

New Prototype Available Soon!

The latest version, Prototype #5, will be available for your inspection next week. Bill was not able to make it here this Sunday, but we are going to meet again next week. Or try.

This will probably be the last public offering for the Prototype – after this, we will send it to a select group of reviewers to save time and keep some secrets! So don’t hesitate to check our work and send in anything you think we missed or should correct.

Lending a Hand…

- Several people have donated mightily via the PayPal button, one reason we are catching up on the art payments so quickly. I want to thank you donors, one and all. Keep sending if you can – we are nearly done.

Doing My Part... Part II

- The original FASA version of Battlestar Galactica sold for about half of what I expected – we got $40 from a fellow in New Zealand.

- I put up an extremely rare Pokemon collectible, a sealed Trainer Deck B. It went for $142, a huge boost to our Artist Fund.

John is keeping the proceeds to his Tarmogoyf – seems he is getting back into the game! However, I have put up more stuff on Ebay:

- A pair of old-school WH:40K Space Marine Rhinos, still sealed in their boxes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769316538?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

- A pair of WH:40K Imperial Guard Mordian Iron Guard squads, still sealed in their boxes.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769315976?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

- An old-school WH:40K Space Marines Predator (the one with the rounded sponsons and turret). No box, unfortunately, but it is still on the sprues and comes with the instructions.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769317028?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

- A WH:40K Imperial Guard Catachan Sentinel Squadron. This was the initial issue – the box is not sealed, but it comes with 3 of the Sentinels, all still on their sprues and with instructions.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120769315340?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Monday, August 15, 2011

Hard At Work - Another Prototype Ready for Review

Glad to have you back!

Here are the updates:

- Lee has still not responded to my email. I sent another one yesterday. Not sure what is going on but it has been nearly two months since his last email and we are at the point where I may have to extend the commission to someone else.

- Karl Olsen has finished the Diomedes, the Hammerhead II, the Roland and the Machete. It’s just a matter of paying him for his work now – about $153 left to go.

- Jim Lafferty has done nearly all the color work. I owe him $75 and should have that paid off by Friday the 19th.

- There is one color piece left to do (for the Periphery). I will ask Jim to do that when I have paid him up to date for pieces already received.

- We owe Paul $40 and Dave Dryburgh $70. With school coming, it’s going to be touch and go whether I can pay all this off before the end of September. But we’re trying.

- Mike Sullivan has submitted a rough of the FWL Jaguar and I returned my suggestions. The commission is in progress.

Layout Business

- Work continues on the layout. We slammed away on it all Sunday (the weather was nice) and have added another thirty or so machines – the Free Worlds League ‘Mechs and the Capellan Vehicles and ‘Mechs. We also worked in the corrections to the previous prototype. The Web version now stands at about 26 Mb, the high rez version at 65 Mb.

- We were having the devil of a time getting InDesign to create a PDF, until we realized that the image on page 138 was something like eight feet wide! InDesign just choked on it. Apparently, it is possible to have an image file that is TOO large! We shrank it down and things work okay. That is, until we tried to spell the name for the FC Dragonfly. It would not let us put an ‘L’ after an ‘F’ for some reason. We cleared that up eventually, but it was weird to say the least.

The boldface and italics will be added in later. Bill and I am considering setting a day aside so that I can go through and work on it. I will have to use his computer, so Bill plans to drop his machine off and set it up on Sunday morning. I will spend the day going through and making the changes; Bill will stop by later in the day to correct any goofs I have made to the layout (I know nothing about working in InDesign).

It may take more than a day – I might have to keep the machine for a couple of days. Of course, all this will happen after we get the whole thing put together.

New Prototype Available!

I trust you all will be willing to go through and find any goofs we’ve made – there are sure to be several, and we need to get them fixed. Bill was trying to get the Federated Commonwealth Vehicles in last night, but his eyes began to cross and he was making silly mistakes, so we left it at 151 pages. I believe that is out of a total of 232.

There is one more House to enter, then the Periphery, Mercenaries and Comstar/WoB. Bill would like to do the Federated Commonwealth and post that as the final Prototype available to you all. The rest he wants to do without review, but I am undecided. You readers have been very helpful in picking out errors in layout, writing and art. It seems to me that we could use that kind of help on ALL the sections. Please submit your name if you are interested in proofing the TRO when we have finished all the machine entries.

Help If You Can...


- We are at the point where every donation via the PayPal button is crucial to getting the TRO out in September– even ten bucks will help enormously. I send the money directly from that account to the artists and others, so if you have been watching and waiting, now is the time to send a sawbuck my way. Unlike the company, I cannot publish without completing my payments to the professionals who have done work for us.

Doing My Part...

To show you how much I want to get this out on schedule, I have put up a very old game on Ebay. It is the original FASA version of Battlestar Galactica. The counters are unpunched, sitting in their cardboard sheet, and everything else is pristine. I saw a similar game with the counters in a ziplock going for $85, so I thought $80 would be a good start for this. The money will go directly to PayPal, and then from there off to artists.


Next up will be a copy of the original Albedo RPG. It is in excellent condition, but has been played with a bit.

I have also put up an extremely rare Pokemon collectible, a sealed Trainer Deck B, one of a set issued to the original Gym Leaders for WOTC's initial release of the game in 1999. Most were opened and played back in the early days, but I got lucky and had a batch come my way. I sold most of them for about $10 each back in 2002 to players and collectors rather than cash in on Ebay. But I kept a couple for myself and ten years later, am releasing one to Ebay to raise money for the TRO art.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120765776339?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649#ht_500wt_1287

Heck, even my son is getting in on the action , putting his only Tarmogoyf up for sale (it is a Magic:the Gathering card worth quite a bit right now).

The Legal Stuff... still waiting

Finally, I contacted the Catalyst Game Labs Battletech Line Developer back at the beginning of July to see what we would have to do to permit publishing this fan work. Disclaimers, copyright notices and and things like that. I also asked Mike Miller for advice. He sent a note to the folks in charge about this, and they responded with a statement that suggested they were going to kick it upstairs.

So far, no response.

Bill thinks we may not get any reply at all. It would set some sort of precedent. But there are any number of fan TROs and other BT-related books already out there, not to mention fan forums and websites. I find it a bit hard to believe CGL does not have some sort of process in place to handle this kind of thing. But maybe they don’t. I guess we’ll see.

Enjoy the prototype and thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

The TRO Marches on....


Feng-niao (Hummingbird) Final
By Stephen Huda


Hello there!

We’ve got some stuff to report:

- Stephen Huda has completed the Feng-niao. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? He really does fine work.

- Dorian Sherratt and Helen Troy playtested the Feng-niao, fielding a lance of them alongside some Savannah Masters (for protection - !). I was going to post the entire battle report, but it’s seven pages and I think you’d run out of patience even though the reading is quite good.

So here is the Feng-niao’s battle report from a Comstar attack on a Word of Blake prison camp:

  • The Feng-niao lance went in and painted three generators that were powering the WoB laser battery base defenses. Demolisher Arrow IV comes in, BOOM! No more laser batteries.
  • The Feng-niao then lit up a pristine Thug and Celestial. Arrow IV comes in, BOOM! No more 'Mechs.
  • Two Fengs go down under a hail of missiles and fire from at least six 'Mechs. Two Fengs depart.
  • At the front of the base, a Celestial jumps over the wall to intercept hovercraft leaving with Important Rescued Prisoners aboard. The remaining Fengs race up, paint the back of the Celestial. Arrow IV comes in. BOOM! The WoB player tips the miniature over, not wanting to waste time counting infinite damage to his rear arc. The rescue hovers slide by.
  • Those same Feng-niao paint the base perimeter wall – it’s just getting in the way, right? Arrow IV comes in... well, you get the picture. There is a brand-new doorway in the wall…
  • …which is key because later on, rather than run a gauntlet of firepower trying for the official exit, the remaining rescue hovers with the VERY Important Rescued Prisoner use that new door to get away safely.
The play test went very well, I think. For a combined BV of about 500, those little Hummingbirds did their part and then some.

- The BARS (Bulldog Autocannon Remote System) is still in progress. I hope. Lee has not responded to my email and his computer may be on the fritz due to the heat.

- Karl Olsen is making progress on the Diomedes and the Hammerhead II. We’ve had to pause on these due to some issues with the Sabra XIII and the Uraltruck.

Uraltruck Debate...


Sabra Debate...


UPDATE!





You can weigh in on these if you like, but the upshot is that we will keep the Sabra as is (with some barrel tweaks) due to its being based on a prototype and the Uraltruck gets a bit of a makeover on the front end. However, the Diomedes and the Hammerhead HAVE been getting some love.

Hammerhead II Rough Draft




Diomedes Rough Draft


- Bill and I are waiting on art. We have some more very good color pieces from Jim Lafferty.


Federated Commonwealth Praetorian
Art by Eric Ou, colorized by Jim Lafferty

Meanwhile we are working on another Union Class DropShip. It will look a lot like our other one (the one you see on the back cover of Strategic Ops) but is meant for actual play, so we are concentrating on battery power and a ‘Mech bay. Don’t worry that this will distract us from the TRO – we have five months to get it done, instead of four weeks!

- I am concentrating on paying off artists for their work – there is only one more piece undone and that will be picked up shortly by none other than our very own Mike Sullivan, now in a more secure place and ready to do a tank! Yay!

- If you are in the mood to move things along, donate via the PayPal button – even five bucks will get things going in the right direction. I send the money directly from there to the artists and editor (who is nearly paid off).

As always, comments and suggestions are encouraged. Go to:

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

and download the TRO Prototype 3 if you have not done so already. We should have another ready in about a week. Meanwhile, Bill and I are saving up the suggestions you sharp-eyed readers have made and will incorporate them this weekend.


- A late-breaking addition to the blog: Dorian has finished the Stingray and it is up on Shapeways for purchase.

Stingray

There are 2 in the pack and each is 28mm long. Due to the size of those bars on the front and back we're limited to FD and FUD material, but given the new pricing structure it's not too bad.

Price point on them is US$14 in FD and US$17.08 in FUD not including VAT (where applicable).

There is no need for instructions as these are one-piece models. Naturally, if you want to play them you will need the stats; email me for the writeup, stats and record sheet.

Link for them is:

http://www.shapeways.com/model/272416/c9d69bf56767e1dfacf8889a6fee3dba/tro3063___stingray.html

Hit the music bar below - I have some new tunes up. Enjoy the prototype and thanks for stopping by.

Steve


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!]

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Another TRO Prototype...


DCMS Tomahawk Battle Tank
Art by Eric Ou - Colors by Anthony Scroggins

Hi there!

Hard at work, that’s us!

- Stephen Huda has put the finishing touches on the Leopard helicopter gunship. Bill was transported when he saw it – no, he wasn’t shipped to Australia in chains; I mean he really liked it. I think that means the Leopard is a wrap.


Leopard Helicopter Gunship
Art by Stephen Huda

- The BARS (Bulldog Autocannon Remote System) is going through a revision. I have not heard from Lee when he will have it ready – he said he wasn’t happy with the first take, so he’s having another go-around. I hope he doesn’t disappear again. He really does good work.

- (Chris) is still working on an interior plate featuring the Sounder and Machete aerospace fighters. Here is the third draft, all that we have so far. He is currently about 50% complete.


- Karl Olson has been busy with the Diomedes and the Hammerhead II. They are in a rough stage, rougher than is practical to show you, but they are under construction. In addition I saddled him today with background work for the Sabra XIII artillery vehicle.

That wonderful gift my brother Jay gave me – a dual core laptop – will, sadly, NOT run CS3. So Bill paid me a visit, carrying his home computer with him – monitor and all. We got down to work on building the TRO in PDF format. It is not easy work – took us a while to get the Draconis Combine together. But the installations are coming faster and faster.

Here we are at work, two overweight white guys with tobacco and caffeine as our only allies.


Here is what we have come up with. Click on the image for a bigger version! Type the address into your browser and download it.



As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

One More Time - if your name is misspelled in the Credits, don't worry. We put it in this time because we needed to check font sizes and so forth. There is a lot more coming and we are going to make sure everyone's name is spelled correctly.

No, we did not finish the Credits section, but if you are not listed there as either a playtester or fact checker and you think you should be, mention it. I will get you in.

Happy reading and thanks for stopping by.

Steve