Hey Xotl! Here are my tl;dr comments. I've kept most of my comments at a higher level since you mentioned a good deal may be subject to change.
To give perspective, I'm coming at this under the following assumptions about the book:
1. It's geared toward newer players who have AGoAC and maybe the BMM, but not much else, with one player understanding the rules better than their friends and appointed the default GM/scenario-builder (and therefore in possession of this book).
2. It will have some versions of rules to build forces, etc., for a one-off tabletop scenario as well as rules for multiple scenarios in campaign play.
A) Front Matter1. I would actually combine the "Time Period" and "Supporting Products" sections into a single section, with the single section having summaries of major engagements, and then the related sourcebooks under each summary. So for example:
Operation Guerrero (3057-58): The FWL and CC combine to invade the Federated Commonwealth, taking a group of worlds near Terra and leading to such destabilization of the region that it leads to the creation of the "Chaos March."
Current Products: Brush Wars: Operation Guerrero, Spotlight On: Zhanzheng de Guang, ...
--The logic here is that it highlights specific events that players could build a campaign around and ties the products more tightly to their relevant events.
2. I'd also separate out the TRO/RecGuide products from the above.
--The logic in this case is that the sourcebooks are less relevant for one-off tabletop games than the TROs, so this would make it an easier reference the relevant products for those just creating a single scenario.
3. With regard to calling things "out-of-print," maybe a good alternative from a branding standpoint would be to call them "
Current" vs. "
Classic" products?
4. I know this is purely a 'Mech-focused book, but I think it might be worth it to also have a
short "Battlefield Support" section for each era. The idea would be to give a general idea of how to build a combined-arms force for factions in each era. For example, snippets for the CI era could be something like, "During this era, the frontline and even 2nd-line Clan forces used Elemental battle armor and ASFs almost exclusively as their battlefield support. Vehicles were frowned upon by most (Clan Hell's Horses was a notable exception), and relegated to solahma duty." And, "Battle armor appeared at the start of the era for major successor state factions, but mostly only with the most well-equipped frontline units (i.e., A/B rated), and initially only at the company--or rarely--battalion level."
--The idea here is to just give a general flavor of how to tie the Mercs box set and KS vehicle packs to the force building rules here, without getting into any detail on non-'Mech units.
B) Force Building Matter5. I get the idea behind the "Standard Formations" section, but I'd actually suggest revamping it by instead interspersing those formations throughout each era in company/trinary sized "Example Forces" placed in inset boxes throughout each chapter. Each force would be a grouping of formations already in the draft, displayed in a condensed version of the example forces on pp. 194-197 of
AS:CE.
--My concern is that these subsections come off more as specific requirements than suggestions. Experienced users will know how to mix and match 'Mechs into these formations, but new players may not realize they allow for more flexibility than the current exposition implies, and might get turned off and/or overwhelmed as a result.
--Example forces will also allow you more flexibility in presenting stuff. For example, you can present some forces with
AS stats and others with
TW stats. You can have some represent Elite/A-rated forces and others represent Urbie-filled militia forces. I'm also guessing it would also reduce the amount of work on formations you would have to do for each era chapter.
6. I actually have the opposite suggestion for the 'Mech Availability lists--I would add the specific variants for each era/sub-era that are Iconic/Common/Uncommon/Rare where possible. I'd also maybe put them in table form (columns = Lt/Med/Hvy/Aslt, rows = Iconic, Common, etc.)
--My reason for this is that the MUL can be daunting for a new player for the more-common models... for example, imagine reading that the Archer is an Iconic/Common 'Mech for a faction and then searching for "Archer" on the MUL without additional guidance. Specific variants on these lists should help a lot.
7. I also think it might be worth having multiple RATs and Availability Lists for each era. For example, Clan Invasion could have each for 3050, 3057, and maybe 3062. Jihad could have 3067 and 3072/3075, and so on. It just seems that some of the major eras (outside of the Late SW) have too much tech advancement to be captured in a single RAT, but also don't have much different regarding their force building and canon to warrant their own chapter.
8. On the flip side, I think you could get away with consolidating the chapters to "Late SW," "Clan Invasion," "Jihad," "Dark Age/ilClan," and then "Other Eras." In the latter, you could have much shorter sections for each remaining era (SLDF/Early SW era, Republic Era) with only select factions represented with RATs and availability lists (i.e., SLDF and RotS). That would align the detail of each chapter a bit better with how much existing product there is for each era.
9. I'm not certain how useful it is to have recommended BV by formation type and skill. To be honest, I don't know how I'd balance forces using those tables. Maybe a more useful table would just be Lt/Med/Hvy/Aslt lance vs. Green/Reg/Vet/Elite, and then separate tables for Clan/IS/Comstar(WoB)? That would give a less experienced player a good idea of what BV they could expect to spend for a given force and skill level, and allow them to choose forces using the rules in the book accordingly.
10. For the RATS, I like having the A/B/C/D/F designations for forces, and hope that makes them easy to correspond to the upcoming Force Manuals. That being said, most sourcebooks use Frontline/2nd-Line for the Clans (and given the recent fiction, you may want a 3rd category for solahma). You may want to stick with that if you are going to reference older products for force building (with similar points for older RotS and WoB RATs).
11. While not directly related to the draft, the draft got me thinking this book would be the ideal place to replicate the BV Skill table on p. 315 of the
TM, along with the relevant force BV adjustments on the same page and on p. 198 of
TO:AUE (likely somewhere before these chapters). If this is going to be
the force building book, that info is essential, and currently a pain to look up once you are already at the tabletop.
