Lurking in the weeds...

We are quietly working on an update to the '3063'.  It will be a report from the year 3065 and feature mostly new machines, with a few significant updates to older units that could have been done better in the original TRO.  We're going to put out about 15 entries, so it won't be in the works for five years (!).

The new units are going to focus, again, on the technology of the Inner Sphere vehicles and 'Mechs.  It has been 11 years since the original TRO was published, and I see no change in the need for new Inner Sphere machines.  By 'need', I mean machines that are interesting, likely, function well in a reasonable tabletop scenario, and look cool.

In Memoriam...

The folks on 4Chan had a nice TRO project going.  It was started in 2014 or so.  It went along well for about six or seven years, then sputtered and ran out of gas.  Real Life can be hard on dreams.  I expected great things of it.  I was very favorably impressed with the designs and the thinking behind them.  I was less enamored of the sometimes harsh criticism of my own work, but 4Chan's gonna 4Chan.  

Nevertheless, I tried in my limited way to help get things going again.  Things looked up and it seems as though the project might actually get rolling.  Munin even graciously permitted me to do a few edits.  But it all came to naught in the end.  It seems that some folks behind the project were more concerned that they alone be perceived as 'owning' the project then actually get the thing done.  

I was (falsely) accused of trying to 'take over' the damned thing and claim it for my own!  Like I'd have access to art and files that they'd paid for.  Like I'd want to sink more years of my dwindling lifespan trying to 'take over' someone else's work instead of, you know, doing my own - *again*.  After a discussion between myself and Munin, I was quietly dropped.  I believe they decided to carry on themselves.  But after that, nothing happened.  No more comments on 4Chan.  No more updates to their blog.

So be it.  

I have been a member of many fan clubs at one time or another in the past, and watched with fascination (always from the outside) as the internal politics played out.  It was always the same.  There were so many promising ideas and projects, and so many wonderful things that could have been done by such talented people.  But the ones in charge seemed concerned mostly about their share of the credit and this idea of 'ownership' of the resulting projects.  And one thing was crystal-clear: if they weren't getting what they wanted out of it, neither would anyone else.

I wish the fellows who were on this project nothing but the best.  A lot of bad things were said about my character and my motivations, but I forgive them.  Talk is cheap, especially there, and I am old enough to separate the wheat from the tares.  It's a shame, really.  I have a copy of their initial demo and that is all.  

Like the Star Trek fan clubs of the early 1990s, it could have been a great thing.  Maybe one day someone will pick the 4Chan TRO up again, and in the words of Captain Picard, "make it so".  

We need our dreams.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

 I have some News on the TRO: 3063 Miniature front....

Ten years have come and gone since we released the TRO: 3063.  I made a paper copy of it, considered making an Updates version, and life went on.

Some people used it in their own games, others simply read it.

Back in 2011, we collaborated with several artists to create 3D models for miniatures based on the illustrations found in the TRO.  There were about fifteen or so.  They seemed popular.  All of these miniatures had to be purchased from Shapeways, a 3D printer foundry, because ten years ago, only company-level organizations could afford to purchase and install 3D printers.

The Shapeways miniatures were (and are) expensive.  

Over the years, our principal miniature designer, Dorian Sherratt, died of a heart attack while playing lazertag somewhere in Scotland.  God rest his soul.  Meanwhile, 3D printers came down in size and price and went up in capability and speed.  So much so, that everyone with a few hundred laying around can make his or her own custom miniatures.  The CAD programs for designing miniatures (and other things) have also increased in power and gone down in price. 

So now, our former layout man, the irreducible William S. Burt, is in the business of making miniatures based on what's in the TRO: 3063!

He has an artist, a very good one, Kiwi Colour Studios, who will be gradually producing a model for each machine in the book.

I know some of you still play Battletech, some of you actually used the machines in our TRO, and some of you have always wanted miniatures to represent your stuff on the table.  Good.  But - a Shapeways miniature now costs almost $50 for the good high-rez version.  Some new options are on the way. 

You can get the STL files either by joining Kiwi Colour Studio's patreon

(https://www.patreon.com/posts/claymore-design-76066245?utm_medium=post_notification_email&utm_source=post_link&utm_campaign=patron_engagement)

or when they are released on Cult3D. There are several authorized merchants that will be able to print the mini for you if you don't have a printer...

Give it a try!

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

 Another TRO Update...

As everyone is aware, the 'Rona hit us rather harder than we thought.  Well, harder than some people thought, and nowhere near as hard as some people predicted.  I am almost 61 and have been controlling diabetes for a couple of years.  No illness yet.  We're blessed.

But... the crisis has passed from being a medical problem to a political opportunity.  Some folks, having tasted the power granted them under temporary conditions, have done and are continuing to do their best to make sure that our present 'pandemic state of emergency' will never end.  We've had an election 'fortified', a euphemism chosen by the victors to describe what folks in the old days would have called 'ballot stuffing'.  All under the cover of a 'crisis' of the virus.  But I don't care about any of that.

There have been no local gatherings of BattleTech players for over a year.  A lot of the folks playing the game have other things on their mind - such as gainful employment and making their payments on time, or at all.  I don't blame them.  The annual wargaming convention has been cancelled once, and will likely be cancelled again.

The current (and forever ongoing) insanity has affected my schedule as well.  I originally intended to have TRO: 3063 Updates (circa 3069) ready to go in April 2021.  I figured a year was enough time to get the art, writing and so on together in a timely manner.  After all, been down this road before.

But it's been one damn thing after another, even while CGL relentlessly 'updates' their product and pushes it and the available technology into the future of BT - I think 3145 was the last date I heard of, but I cannot be sure.  It is hard to remember that the Jihad, Devlin Stone and the Republic of the Sphere, and the Dark Age are all in the rearview mirror, and getting smaller each day.  

These things were current and larger than life when I published the original TRO:3063.  However, from hanging around fan sites and reading posts, I gather that even today, many folks are playing in the eras of the past, and not the present.  Not sure why.  Clanners are the most vocal of the online faces I see, but I always thought of the Clans as the Klingons of the Inner Sphere.  They are meant to be level bosses, or the Ultimate Boss, of a video game.  You don't play the Klingons, unless you're OPFOR.  

But folks have made fetishes of the Clans, despite any number of unreal 'facts' about them that clash with human behavior or even the little we know of how the human body works.  It's why a goodly amount of BT fiction, fan or professional, comes across as Mary Sue.  It's wish-fulfillment.  

So I will STILL not deal with the Clans in 3063.  There is no shortage of fanboi Clanners - let THEM write their own TRO for that era.  It has been almost nine years since our work came out; anyone could have done something like it in that time.  One effort originally started in 4Chan looked good in 2014, posting some truly impressive progress over the years, but.... it's been seven years and the book's not finished.  It may never be finished.

People grow old, people change.  But I still have an abiding interest, if not love, for the game and a respect for the world-building that lies behind it.  I will move my Updates schedule to April of 2022, cross my fingers and clear the decks.

Wish me luck!

Thank you for stopping by.

Steve Satak

Welcome To the site!

Hi!  If you're new here, and looking to download the fan-made TRO: 3063 and associated books (Record Sheets, Alpha Strike cards, etc), please use the map on the right and go to September 2012.  The first entry will be your destination.  I have installed new links for your downloading ease.

----------------------------------------

This site has been through a few changes due to my various dreams.

I wanted to get a German language version out.  I spent money and time on that and though the second guy was willing to do it, Real Life intervened and I realized I just didn't have the chops to do it.  Throwing money at a late project doesn't save the timetable.  And there didn't seem to be a demand. 

I stop in about once a quarter to my cloud storage and check the traffic specific to the download of the TRO.  I don't do this to feed my ego.  I do it to gauge the need for maintaining this place and the links. 

So far it seems substantial, enough to justify keeping this blog open and the cloud storage paid up.  For the past eight years, you folks coming here have been able to download this TRO to your heart's content. 

That shouldn't change. 

Enjoy your stay here.

We're Making Some Headway...

Hey, everyone!

Alex is back from summer vacation and is working on the translation for the back cover, the inside headers, etc.

I daily await my InDesign Dummies book, as I am eager to brush up on my old skills.  It can't be very hard; it's just that I did a brain dump in 2013, never guessing I would need the skills five years later.

Can't find the original InDesign disk, either, so here's hoping I never get a corrupted program!

I am working hard at completing my paperwork for the shipyard, looking for temporary work while I wait, and so on.  The days are wide open, and I should have time for everything.  If the weather would just cool down a bit, I might get more done!

This is one of the things I do when I am not working on, or playing with, Battletech:

Life counters and Trackers for Magic, The Gathering.

Thanks for stopping by!

Steve

Another Try at a German Translation...

    A translator by the name of Alexander Sosedow recently contacted me about continuing the German translation of TRO:3063.

Of course, I would like to see it completed.

So I sent him the pertinent files and we will peck away at the project, one entry at a time.

No telling when it will be completed.  End of the year would be great, but these things take time and according to Alex, there are at least 100,000 words to translate.

But!  He has the InDesign files and so it's up to him.  I will have to dig up my InDesign 3.0 for Dummies and re-learn how to drop text in and resize the pictures - stuff like that.

He's busy.  I am too, having recently lost my job at Trulife due to a reduction in force at the Poulsbo plant.  Lots of things to do - re-purpose my 401k, look for a job, work out in preparation for qualifying for a shipyard position, look for a job... like that.

Wish us luck.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Well, THAT Ship Has Sailed....

Hey, everybody.

I tried and tried to get a German translation going with Andre Winter, but it was just one thing after another.

I am  going to be honest with you all: when I 'Friended' Andre Winter on FaceBook, I was immediately carpet-bombed by an endless string of hard Left propaganda defending the Islamic onslaught of Europe and celebrating, frankly, perversion. I did not agree with most of this, but felt it should not get in the way of the project.  But nevertheless, I had a feeling this was not going to turn out well.

Leftists as a rule do not believe they have to follow the rules of right conduct if they are dealing with anyone who disagrees with them.  In that, they share a lot with Islam.  I was nervous that Andre, having discovered from my indignant comments that I was of the 'Other', would simply decide I didn't deserve his valuable time - contract be damned.

I still don't know if that is what went on, and I will never know.  But personal problems of one kind after another - funerals, bipolar diagnosis, vacation, piss-poor communications, trouble with word selection, other more pressing work - kept pushing the actual performance of the translation back and back and back.  And that is when Andre Winter even bothered to respond to my emails and FB messages.

It's been nearly a year.  Here's how it went:  "The Lyran section will hit you next Monday".  Monday comes and goes, nothing.  Lather, rinse, repeat about a dozen times.

I finally got sick of the empty promises and asked for my money back today.  He won't give it back. I immediately received a flood of excuses (mind you, he's been dead silent for a month and a half).  I Unfriended him and blocked his messages.  First time I have ever done that to ANYONE.

 So now I am out $300 and have nothing to show for it but a couple of translated pages and a worthless contract that Andre Winter violated at the beginning of February this year.  Oh, and a string of empty promises.

This guy has some serious problems.  One of them is that he's a damned liar.  I dunno - guess he figured I was just another fanboy.

If you need English-German translation done, I suggest you look elswhere.  Meanwhile, here is the contract:

Thanks for stopping by.  Sorry to disappoint you all.

Regards,

Steve

German Translation... Eight Months Later.

Hello, everyone.

Well, I signed the contract sometime in November and sent some money off in February.

Still haven't seen a thing.  I have proofreaders who have been promised time and again by the translator that something was coming.  

For a long time, nada.

Finally something showed up with Thomas and Nadja, the proofers, about the time I decided to pull the plug and ask for my money back.

So... I relented and we are all keeping in close touch on Facebook.

Draconis Combine is done, I think, and the Lyrans are next.  Slow going and there are issues of format (the German language often uses words that wind up not fitting in the same area as the original English text), but we should have something that works for German BattleTech fans soon.

German Edition - I Can Get It, But I Need Help!

Hello!

Last entry, I noted the slow (read: nonexistent) progress of the German translation of this fan-made Technical Readout.

I have since begun to speak in $$$ and things are changing.

My translator, who does such work for a living, has agreed to a sum I can *almost* manage.

In return, we have a full translation by the end of January.

I am going to put up a PayPal button and see what sort of interest is out there for a good translation of this book into Deutsche

Donate if you want to see it happen.  I have about a month to decide if there's going to be demand for it.  If there is, I will commit.   I need to gather at least US $850 - half the cost - before I can proceed.

Thank you!

Steve Satak

An update on the various TRO:3063-related Projects....

Hello, everyone.

It's been nine months since my last post.  My apologies for the silence.

-  The German translation has bogged down, with the translator having other things to do in the Real World.  I am not sure when he will be able to work on it again... we may never see a German translation of the book, but that's life.  It was a great idea and started out very promising.  But it's 350+ pages and there's only one guy doing the work.  I will keep you updated if things change.

-  The 3063 Upgrade had funding at one point, but prices have gone up and keeping my son in college takes priority.  The folks who were to assist me in providing new machines had other projects in the works, and I was busy this summer with several non-BT projects of my own.  I did get a lot of work done on weeding out bad ideas, 'improvements' that were not really worth the effort, and the like through various reviews of the TRO found online.  The denizens of 4Chan seemed more concerned with factionalism, 'realism', flippancy and the like, so I have abandoned that venue as a source of input.

The Upgrade is NOT abandoned, but merely on the back burner for now; as soon as I clear the decks (November), I will begin working on the list of machines that will appear.  I am currently entertaining about 12 Mechs and 20 Vees, all to be Inner Sphere technology and placed in the year 3069.  I plan to have the writing and so forth finished by Spring of 2016, in time for the art to be laid down.

-  The Infantry Primer remains on hiatus, as I wait for the shuffling over at CGL to die down.  It has been nearly three years and with IO Beta, things appear to still be in flux.  Jon Morford has, in the last year, greatly impressed me with the potential for Vees and infantry in combat.  He has handed me my ass in at least two games - I doff my hat at these opportunities to improve my game!

There is a lot to be done with the 'squishies' on a BT battlefield, as they are far more effective now than they ever were in my mind.  My only complaint has been, and remains, that the rules for bombing, running infantry and so on are scattered across several books.  I want infantry and vees to be at least as easy to assess, assemble and play as Mechs.  Combined arms deployment should not have such a steep learning curve!  So in the next few months, I will confer with Jon and others and see if the scene has stabilized enough to get the ball rolling again.

-  My son is going off to France for school in a few days.  Wish him luck!  He will be over there for four months and we will miss him terribly.  This will be the first Christmas he has not been home in twenty years.

-  Bad Syntax is hard at work on a new BT unit generator, and by that, I mean something that uses the new rules to create just about any unit you care to have.  In his own words...

"This program will be an all-encompassing battletech support utility. But mostly it'll be a build-everything production, you can build everything in the game with it. This includes things never supported before like buildings, mobile structure, support vehicles, and infantry platoons. However, I'll have lots of other stuff implemented in there too like random tables, star maps, system generators, and whatever else I can think of.

It would be nice to get something stable like HMP that can be easily modified for new units in the coming years.

Thank you for stopping by.

Regards,

Steve

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

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...

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

Sollte es eine TRO 3063 in Deutsch sein?

Greetings!

It has been two years since we published the fan-made TRO:3063.

I have been busy with other hobbies and interests since then, but have continued to maintain my OpenDrive account for downloads.

If you want to download the Technical Readout and accompanying files, the links are in the September 2012 blog entry.

Meanwhile...

--------------------

I have recently been discussing a German translation of the fan-made TRO:3063 with Andre Winter, a professional translator.  He seems to think such an effort would be worthwhile.  I have never detected a demand for a German language version, but I do know BattleTech is quite popular in Germany.

Does anyone out there have an insight into this?  I cannot promise it will be done quickly - we're talking probably a couple entries a week, if that, and it would be a year before it would be ready.  And of course, I would have to run it out there and check it with German-speaking editors.

However, my son John is studying German in college (sophomore) and so this seems appropriate.

Thanks for stopping by!

Steve Satak

The Fan-made Technical Readout: 3063 Final Entry

Welcome!

The fan-made BattleTech Technical Readout:3063 is finished.

There are two versions: one is Web-quality and about 37mb in size.  The other is Print-quality and is about 95mb.

There are several additional books you can download that are directly associated with this TRO.

- Record Sheets: 3063 - as you might imagine, a PDF file containing all the record sheets for the TRO entries, including all the variants mentioned in each entry.

- QuickStrike Cards - these are cards corresponding to each record sheet; they are for use with the BattleForce version of the game.

- Art of the TRO - a fifty-plus page book outlining the evolution of the TRO art.  This includes the art we did not use, as well as sketches and alternate views.  Also inside is a section on the playtesting of the entries and an illustration of the various miniatures we created for our playtest.  Also! a bonus TRO entry.

Here are the links:


Art of the TRO
https://od.lk/d/158106767_QNqAD/Art%20of%20the%20TRO%20PQ4.pdf

Alpha Strike Rules Cards
https://od.lk/d/158106768_7EXkN/AS3063.pdf

TRO: 3063 Web Quality
https://od.lk/d/158106772_Vxg6e/TRO3063%20WQ9.pdf

TRO: 3063 Print Quality
https://od.lk/d/158106771_OeJlZ/TRO3063%20PQ8.pdf

Record Sheets: 3063
https://od.lk/d/158106770_NCyWM/RS%20TRO3063%20Mk33.pdf

*** I have been having trouble maintaining the integrity of the files on my OpenDrive account.  If any of the above links fails, please visit the link below to get your copies. ***

http://www.mediafire.com/?rvjwz4nxzscacrk,2do30rpvgop1p0g,lgih87s3d5i25h3,4rd4slraun2male,mgvpefslpfzkc2e

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please note that we have been receiving errors in the various books, mostly to do with art quality, typos and record sheet errors.  We have corrected all of the issues thus far.  If you spot an error, please leave a note!  We will fix it and update these links.

*** If you want a copy of the 'Lessons Learned' from making this TRO, go here:

https://www.opendrive.com/files?61619906_4n6Qd

Our next project will be a BattleTech Infantry Primer.  We feel that infantry are a much-maligned, much-ignored force in the game.  This, despite the carefully designed rules for their use!  So we are writing a book to guide you through the process of selecting, assembling and deploying infantry in a game of big stompy robots.  Think of it as 'BattleTech Infantry for Dummies'.

This is the link to the new blog.  We hope to see you there!

http://infantryprimer.blogspot.com/

Thank you for your support - and for stopping by!

Steve Satak

3...2...1... Liftoff!

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.

The Current Status of the Fix...
(1pm PST, Saturday 1 September 2012)

The old Record Sheets

The NEW Record Sheets

           Please Click on the Images and LOOK!

- As you can see, we have made some changes in the RS book.  The internal structure dots are back, we added data to the Quick Selector bar on the left and there is now a time/date stamp at the upper left of each record sheet... so you can keep all this shit straight if we have to 'fix' anything again. We are working through what appear to be tonnage issues - a good part of it is simply me not keeping my buddy Bad Syntax up to date with changes, and part of it is design software that has not kept up with changes in the actual design formulae.

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.  

Issue date for the Revised TRO files:

Evening - 1 September 2012

Again, please accept my apologies....

Steve

Back on Track... GenCon Release?

Free Worlds League Bengal (draft)

Art by Stephen Huda and Karl Olson

As many of the folks who would be setting up distribution of this fan-made TRO are *at* GenCon, the answer is: probably not.

Hi,

We are debugging the RS, it looks good but there is some polishing left to do.

We have located the anachronisms, repaired them, rewritten the entries and edited same.  Thanks to John Baker and Eric for their hard work!

One piece of art is unsat, for various reasons.  It did not come to light until we had to rewrite the entry.  It is currently being redone by Stephen Huda, though we are keeping Karl Olson's background.  The rough draft is at the head of this post.

I am trying very hard to have this ready by Saturday morning, 18 August 2012.  My work schedule (and that of Bad Syntax) is not helping things, but that's just the breaks.  I will use tomorrow morning (after the dump run) to begin going through the TRO and updating the BVs.  Everything else seems to be in order, though Eric did spot some errors (they are fixed) and we may have missed others....

We still have the time, but as mentioned above, the folks we need to coordinate with for the release are simply away for the weekend.  We can't make it available for download even if we get it done by deadline.

In other news:

Bad Syntax has an online reference, a sort of Super MUL consisting of every machine ever made for BattleTech.  It has a LOT of data.  Some of that is the fan-made TRO:3063.  I will list it here when I get the address.

Thanks for your patience and for stopping by.

Steve

Houston, We Have Anachronisms...

Eric brought it to my attention that several technologies featured in the fan-made TRO:3063 are anachronisms.  I knew that, but thought we could cover our arses with heaps of handwavium - 'experimental' and 'prototype' waved like majestic fronds...

Well, even with Quirks inserted from Strategic Operations, we can't really justify the appearance of weapons so long before their 'official' intro date.  SO - no HPPCs, no LPPCs, no LACs, no SNPPCs, etc.

But we have Blazers.  Yersh we do.  And ERPPC capacitors.  We already have fixes for most of the, er, issues on a roster.  Intro dates are changing.  But I am going to be one writing SOB for the next week.

I still think Rocket Launchers should be available in 3063, and comparing notes with my sources, find that The Powers That Be might have made a mistake on the intro date.  Erg.  BLEH.

I don't want to turn this book into an XTRO.  IMHO, the XTRO machines were so many McGuffins, never intended for players.  Ours are meant to see action.  So the Quirks, while popular with some, are thus far a no-go.  But what do you, the BattleTech reader, think?  Keep the Quirks?  Leave a note and tell me.  

But do hurry.  After tomorrow, I am gonna be up to my ass in textual alligators and draining the swamp is not going to be easy....

After all this, we are still on schedule!  It's just that we have very little time to effect these changes.  Please stand by....

Thanks for stopping in.

Steve

Meanwhile, on the Launch Pad....

Taurian Concordat Forge

Art by Stephen Huda and James Lafferty

Welcome!

The project is done and on the launchpad.  It is a huge old beast - as mentioned in a past blog post, we have the high-rez Record Sheets clocking in at about 550mb.

That, dear friends, is unsat.  It takes too long to download, for one thing.  And I want this to be easy to get, to pass around.

We are currently working on reducing the file size while maintaining the hi-rez printouts.  So far things are going pretty good.  The largest file I have seen thus far - with everything basically in place - is about 13mb.

That's right, about 2% of the original size.  Bad Syntax is doing a stellar job.  But it isn't done yet.

I just received a donation that paid off the last bit of art - as you can see above.  Stephen Huda worked off a design originally done by James Lafferty.

Some New Features...


While compressing it, we have incorporated new features into the Record Sheets and the Master Unit List.

- We are including BattleForce values.

- We are including the cost of the machine in C-Bills.

- We are including a side bar with hypertext - zip down the side and click on the unit you want and presto!  the sheet pops up right in front of you.  No more Table of Contents needed!

We are working hard to get this stuff ready for launch!  Nothing is holding it back - we are working in the time I set aside for de-bugging and proofreading.  So far, we are on schedule.  Hey, there is a first time for everything.

Thanks for stopping by

 Steve

Looks Like We're Done....

Capellan Xuan Wu

Art by Stephen Huda

Lyran Panzer X

Art by Karl Olson/Stephen Huda

Hello, all.

We are done.

There is a spot of proofing while I wait to pay the final artist off, but we are done.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steve

Back to Three Weeks and Counting...

TRO Artwork - Bonus Section

Cover by William S. Burt

Welcome back! 

It has been four years of hard work and many, many false alarms that we were ‘finishing the TRO’.

You have all been patient.  For this I give thanks.  KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR UPDATES!!!

Here is where we stand:

The Fan-Made Record Sheets

- The Record Sheets are done, proofed and entered into a book format.  This book has covers, front and back, provided by Bill Burt.  I took advice from readers and downloaded PDFill, a software suite that allowed me to turn PDFs into image files.  We went in and, using the templates from MegaMek Lab (MML), built by hand the sheets that MML could not produce itself.  We also trimmed the entire lot of record sheets and added our own stamp, as you can see below.

It was a lot of work and I made quite a few mistakes, but we got our VTOLs, our aerospace fighters and vehicles using fractional accounting nailed down.  We even assembled the Magistracy’s Thunderbolt using this method.

All of the record sheets use the images provided by Denis Pottkämper of Germany.  I had to supply a couple of extra pieces, but he did a hell of a lot of good, solid work and my hat is off to him.  Thank you, Denis!

***UPDATE***  Oh... my... Gosh!!  If someone had come up to me at the end of May and told me that I accidentally put a jump jet in the right *arm* of the Free Worlds League Vulcan, I would have laughed them off.  I repaired that error and several others last night, courtesy of Eric S. Smith.  The 'S' stands for 'Sho' Nuff' when it comes to spotting errors, and while he may be persona non grata over at the company boards, he is welcome to come to dinner at my house any time.  Thank you, Eric.  Now get back to work and find all the rest of the record sheet bugs before we go live!!!

The Fan-Made TRO:3063

- The TRO has been assembled and put into book form.  With the exception of one last piece, it is done.  Chris Daranouvong and Anthony Scroggins finished the cover.  It looks amazing… keeping the original layout but adding polish and clarity to the point where you can actually see the pilots in the machines.  In my opinion, it is the equal of any TRO cover ever made.  I think you will like it!

Working as we did, we used the TRO itself as the ‘bible’ in the end, consulting the Master Unit List at the end to ensure our Record Sheets were complete.  Consulting the original collection of record sheets, it actually happened that the MUL had to be updated in a couple of places!  Between Heavy Metal Pro and MML, we got the numbers correct and I am as sure as I can be that the data has been entered correctly.

***UPDATE***   There is no love at the Satak house.  I had to re-design the Champion II for the Word of Blake [yes, I know... no one cries for the Robes] because in retrospect, putting TSM and Streak missile launchers together is a blunder of the First Order.  So I dutifully changed them out for Artemis-enhanced launchers.  More and different rounds in the expanded bins, more armor and still deadly.

 Then Eric pointed out that you cannot put a launcher in the Center Torso and its Artemis in the Head anymore.  Ugh!   Back to the drawing board.  Got rid of the TSM, restored the Streaks, etc.  Had to redo a good portion of the writeup.  *Sigh*

Once that was done, I had to go through the entire TRO and make sure the Battle Values listed agreed with what was on the Record Sheets.  The data for the TRO was pulled from Heavy Metal Pro v5, which is (sadly) showing its age post-Total Warfare rules.  The record sheets were created mostly using MegaMek Lab and conform more closely to the current ruleset.

Today (23June2012) I get to update the Master Unit List!  Wheeeee!!!

The Fan-Made Bonus 'Art' Piece

- The bonus piece, the ‘Art of the TRO’ is also complete.  We added another page and designed new covers front and back.  The cover you can see at the head of this blog post.  This bonus is going out to all the people who donated funds or time to this project.  I don’t anticipate distributing it with the main body of work.

- Chris Daranouvong is working on the Capellan Xuan-wu.  He is very good with line work and did the Xuan-wu on the cover of the TRO, so he is a natural for polishing this entry.  When he is done, we will update the image in the TRO as well as the images in the Record Sheets.

**UPDATE**  Chris bailed on us, so I passed the commission on to Stephen Huda.

- The 256 MB thumb drives I bought were a good idea, but sadly, they are too small to contain anything but the web-quality versions of the TRO and Record Sheets!

This brings me to print quality.

The Web Version

- The web-quality versions of the TRO, the Record Sheets and the Art bonus take up only 132 MB.  While this is adequate for viewing on a computer or Ipad, it does not print out very well.  We tested some print versions of the web-quality Record Sheets and while serviceable, the fine print found in the Combat Tables is not very legible.  HMP and MML produce sheets of much higher quality.  I have all the HMP and MML files on hand, as well as the images we created for the VTOLs and such, so if you want them, contact me.  You might need them to ease putting these units into MegaMek.  Or you might like the old-school versions HMP provides.

On a side note, the folks over at MegaMek online have put nearly all the TRO:3063 units into their system, and from what I have seen on the combat result lists, many of our units are doing reasonably well.  Your mileage may vary.

The High-Quality Version

- The high-quality versions take up a bit more room – 402 MB.  The record sheets printed from this level of resolution are usable, but the fine print is still a tad hard to read.

***UPDATE*** We dropped the HQ version from our options.  It gobbles up space and doesn't yield that much clearer a picture.   Eric has been experimenting with a way to produce images that are crisp but that don't weigh in at a meg and a half each.  I don't look forward to re-doing everything, though.

The Print-Quality Version

- The print-quality versions take up the most room – 662 MB.  Remember, this is all three books.  Without the Art booklet, it still takes up a hefty 630 MB.  But the record sheets look great and the art is crisp!  Keep in mind that the TRO itself is 265 pages.  The Record Sheets are another 235.  The Art is 53 pages.  The whole package may seem like a big chunk (and it is!) but we don't have access to the software used by the company and this TRO is pretty big anyway.  112 TRO entries, with 215 total sheets counting the variants.

Where You Can Get It

I am currently arranging a couple of places where the print-quality versions can be downloaded.  We will also offer the web versions for those of you who want this for your collection and/or don’t have the time or bandwidth to download the big kahunas.  Remember, you can use the record sheets printed from the web version – they just don’t look as good.

*** UPDATE***

Due to an emergency replacement of my car's radiator and water pump ($530), I have had to push our publishing date back.  Sorry guys, but I have to get to work.  We still have to pay our last bits of art off (about $130) and that will take at least another month at the rate I am recovering from the repair bill.


So you don't think you're the only ones paying the price for my not flushing my radiator once a year, my son's birthday gifts have been put on hold as well.  He turned 17 today (the 4th of June).

***UPDATE THE SECOND***  The car is running and I am still employed.  The coolant temperature sensor is buggered, as is the oil pressure sensor.  Gonna get them fixed this Friday (fingers crossed).  Paid off everyone but Stephen Huda and that should be done this payday (fingers crossed).


Other Notes....

I am also putting together a ‘Lessons Learned’ piece for those of you who are contemplating doing a fan-TRO of your own.  Let me know if you want a copy.

Finally, there are several disclaimers throughout the TRO and associated books that firmly establish that these are NOT official products.  I asked Catalyst Game Labs nearly a year ago if they had guidelines for what sort of disclaimers should be on a fan work.  There was no response aside from what Herb Beas III posted in the Lead Developers section of the company forums.

Despite a polite reminder three months later (which reached TPTB for sure), I still have no response.  I have done all I can to ensure we are not treading on the toes of Topps, InMediaRes LLC or Catalyst Game Labs.  If there are any lawyers reading this, please let me know if there are any steps I might have missed.  Good as it looks, in the end the TRO:3063 is, as one fellow on the company forums likes to say, ‘nothing more than fanboyish crap’.

You are free to draw your own conclusions.  [Several already have: it's GOOD fanboyish crap!]

Thanks for stopping by!

Steve