Well,... after much discussion our little group has decided on a few simplifications to make the building of units less 'paperwork' heavy. Our conversion process is ongoing as we tend to discuss the sources and try, where possible, to live up to its spirit if not its letter.
First,... production would need to be open. What you build is known (a game master with no other needs in life might mitigate this need), where it is placed might be hidden (honour system? gamemaster?).
Next we pretty much threw out the basic lance structures as a bit pointless and concentrated on the Combat Team, the Combat Unit and then the formation. With all the dividing by three and rounding we found that House specific CTs and CUs could be build up from milking the random access tables (we play late 3rd SW so 3025 is our main tool). By basing the CU on the top 4-6 mechs, combat vehicles and AS fighters we could come up with 36 (or 48) elements and the shape of a standard battalion (light, med, hvy and aslt). This then becomes a fixed 'block'. All light mech battalions (for example) in regiments of whatever weight in my Marik forces will be the same. Theses battalions had to retain their 'weight' so they do have medium and heavy Elements but they must remain less than 1.49 size (we actually used 1.33) From here one builds (buys) a regiment (also has to maintain a weight class).
In this way one could build a heavy regiment that had 2 aslt battalions (CUs) and a light battalion (weight 4+4+1=9/3 =3). This build is noted, labelled and expensed. Move on to the tank regiments, aerospace, etc. We also changed the cost structure to take into account the difference in regimental weight. A light mech regiment 18 RP, med 21, hvy 24, asslt 27. Combat vehicle regiment costs 8 (lt), 10 (med, hover), 12 (hvy, vtol), 14 (aslt). The VTOL CUs (combat or transport) were made expensive due to complexity and logistics more so than weight
Supply for all of the above is also modified accordingly.
By focusing on the CU it also made garrison tank and mech battalions easier. Infantry forced a bit more 'non canon' tweaks as we could not see a leg (garrison) regiment costing, much less being equipped, the same as a mech infantry regiment. We solved this by using the mech inf regiment as the standard and giving them their inherent transports. This didn't boost the combat value as much as we thought it would but it did increase movement (a reg't of hover infantry is very fast but has little punch or armour). As with mech regiments the infantry regiment is built from battalions but we also expanded the infantry regiment choices to include leg (garrison), motorised, air mobile (para/leg, but it needs an airmobile VTOL reg't), jump and mechanised. Costs were 4, 4.5, 5, 5 and 6 (supply likewise modified).
Each of these CUs is 'standard'... there simply cannot be different battalion OoBs every time production comes along. In a few test game turns the battalions from one House to the next do not make much difference and regiments tended to sort themselves out depending on the opponent and how their regiments were constructed. Our Kuritan deployed different regiments against Davion than he did against Steiner. I did the same against the Liao vs Steiner fronts.
Anyway,... that's our take on the best way to possibly play a major campaign, if it can be done. We figure the sort of 'broken back' style of warfare of the late 3rd SW would be easier to play with reduced economics (exhaustion). It makes salvage more important and new mech units (or replacements) all the more precious. As our long running-play when you can manage the time-campaign is based mainly on one theatre per player and around a group of planets (on going since the days of BF2), we figure we can convert over to SBF (scaled SBF actually) to give us more latitude than the SO BF rules do for planetary manoeuvre.
Thanks for your time.
