Help! I'm drowning in rulebooks!

[Phobos101]

I've been going through campaign ops, forming a merc company for my group so I can keep track of their expenses etc, and hit 2 snags:

1) what is the most up to date reference for contract types and how to generate scenarios etc within a contract?
2) is there a system or a chart or something for controlling the passage of time? Like a set of actions that need to be done to close out a week? Or am I looking for too much structure in something that is intentionally left open ended?

I have the mercenary's helper spreadsheet, but please understand I'm looking to learn to do this stuff on paper before I automate, as I'd like to understand what's going on in the background.

As usual, any help is appreciated.

[monbvol]

A lot of this is up to the GM/player and made a little more difficult by weird organization.

Campaign Operations does have a section for stringing together missions into a campaign but as I point out it is largely up to the GM/player to decide which ones to use for a particular contract type(in the case of mercenaries) and how often a mission should occur.

Strategic Operations does have a section on repairs and maintenance but again leaves it largely up to the player to decide what a cycle is.

[Col Toda]

Travel time management is the hardest factor to calculate for me .  Up to 30 light year jump every two weeks is a long time . This is why most contracts is six months on site for just about everything but objective raids.

[pheonixstorm]

First you need to know about the type of contract you rolled. CO is rather annoying in that respect as unlike previous merc books it does not explain any of the contract types and iirc doesn't even tell you where to find the information. Check FM Mercs or A Time of War Companion (or even Merc HB 3055 or the original Merc HB) for what certain contracts are. The name though should be a big hint.

For Garrison and Cadre you could and probably should go months w/o any combat, while on the flip side a Planetary Assault should have you fighting several days out of the week easily. That much is up to the GM. The end of CO does give you examples on how to setup a campaign and play it out though as well as different scenarios. The Chaos Campaign section has a lot of useful information even if you don't want to play CC. The objectives, options, and special rules can be adapted to any style campaign.

For my own campaigns I will sometimes do the first scenario on approach to the planet to have at least a token space battle between my own little fleet and a squadron of planetary defenders but that is usually only when I have a planetary assault or guerilla contract. Normally the first real scenario is clearing or defending my LZ. This makes a good start for a campaign the way I play. In the book I would say it best follows the probe scenario. After that for raids you could do 1 scenario per week or every other week since most raids are short. The same for pirate hunting. Relief and Assault would probably have more fighting so 1 scenario per week minimum. If you have a planetary map you could follow the Map-Based Campaign section from p148 using the strategic moves. This works well especially if you don't move your transport from its original LZ and your units are damaged and in need of repair. Really brings the battle to life and can bring out the feel of some of the novels. Stuck on world running from the enemy and being worn down. If you can't escape and get to the supply lines for minimal repairs you will start losing units quickly due to attrition.

But, at any rate, the section in CO going over different campaign styles is really useful for setting up or designing the scenarios. After that it is up to the players/GM on how often they should happen in the contract.

If you need further ideas such as how to setup the opfors numbers you could check out the Hot Spots book http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hot_Spots Overall a decent set of books

[Phobos101]

A lot of this is up to the GM/player and made a little more difficult by weird organization

Yeah, I'm beginning to put things together now, it's a lot of information in a lot of different places though. I'm working on a flow chart and some task lists simplified into a four week month, and it's starting to look sensible.

Travel time management is the hardest factor to calculate for me

I agree. My solution to this was just use mekhq for travel times. It just does other things a little too automatically for me.

Pheonix - cheers for the references. I hadnt really looked much into the merc books, as I assumed they would have been superseded completely by CO, but it seems like they will be pretty handy for my purposes. I like your idea of a space battle on arrival - this may be the motivation I need to start learning aerospace rules :-) 
I jumped on hot spots on the web store too, just a shame it doesn't have the second book of player info, only the GM stuff. The web store says it does, but it ain't there. Sigh.
Anyway, if I work up any useful spreadsheets, cheat sheets or infographics, I'll pretty them up for public consumption and post them, hopefully help out some other struggler noob GMs.

[Revanche]

I jumped on hot spots on the web store too, just a shame it doesn't have the second book of player info, only the GM stuff. The web store says it does, but it ain't there. Sigh.

I was going to suggest you claim a chargeback on your CGL purchase and try DriveThruRPG instead, but it looks like CGL only provided half of the title to them, as well. Sorry, mate.

Edit: looks like their half is the Contracts. $6.00. Instead of having to pay twice for the complete product, recommend you buy it from DriveThru and open a claim for the Catalyst purchase.