My hopes and desires. I've broken it into three modules: some players may only want the basics. Soem may never play campaigns or care about repair rules. Waiting to do it all at once would just be too long.
An initial Creator and Force Organizer.
Quick and good enough is better than perfect. Although eventually all units would be great, covering the core, Mechs, Tanks, and Infantry, is enough for me initially. For speed and ease of release, better not waiting. Aerospace and Warships can wait. It should support Battletech and Alpha Strike.
It should be able to print out units in many formats: traditional record sheets.
It should print out compact unit sheets that avoid armor diagrams and bubbles for Armor and Structure listings.
It should print out Alpha Strike Cards, or as Sheets.
It should be able to store forces; you should be able to designate a group of units, with skill ratings, and save them.
Unit construction should include limits by tech, era, factions, as well as letting the player set a BV, tonnage, or Cbill limit.
It should be able able to save or associate multiple forces, so they can be balanced and compared against each other.
It should be able to search for units by name, by faction, by era.
It should be able to sort and group mechs by weight, name, era, tech level, and faction.
It should always note a custom design from a Canon Design, including on the record sheet print out. No custom design should ever be able to be printed with a designation that it is a Canon design.
It should have the design functions we are used to, to create custom designs.
Every rules sheet should state if the unit has advanced, experimental, or custom made tech.
Bonus feature, would be nice: Players should be able to note their miniatures collection, so an option on the force listing can indicate if they own particular mech to help build forces.
Bonus feature, would be nice: Players can create Custom equipment or weapons. (This might be put off to the next moduel below) It may want to be flexible enough where players can create a custom tech file to add to designs.
Next upgrade for later purchase as an option: Combat Module
Allows you to store units, tracking damage to armor, structure, critical damage and pilots.
It should be able to allow you to load up force rosters, then go from unit to unit, noting damage and tracking combat effects such as heat, critical hits, and other modifiers, such as ECM, currently prone, shutdown, etc.
It should have a tactical module, where forces are loaded up and tracked. Much like Hero Labs does with Shadowrun Character portfolios. This would help track initiative, damage, heat, damage, note various status effects like on fire, shutdown, ecm, etc.
It should allow you to run/calculate hit numbers.
It should help you manage ammo.
It should be able to save a force, with notes section on hexmap location and facing to save games for future play.
This module adds in utility for mech quirks and pilot abilities.
Bonus feature the ability to handle off map artillery and abstract radar map combat for aerospace.
Next to develop and sell: Campaign module
allows players to choose a from a few options of repair resolution. Warchest points, BV campaign management, or C-Bill management. T
Ties in with Combat module to help players manage repairs using one of the three campaign options.
Allows a unit builder, where techs and support personnel are noted.
Repair Times and costs are noted and calculated.
Allows players to note payments for contracts, deduct repair costs, add units as salvage.
Allows units to purchase parts, ammo, components for use with the repair process.
Allows tracking unit participation in a scenario, kills, and promotions in skill levels.
Crazy feature: Inner Sphere map with Jump calculator. Calculates transport costs based on selected dropships.
