Author Topic: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er  (Read 151276 times)

Sartris

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #360 on: 07 January 2020, 17:17:04 »
taken from the coming releases page. unsure if the text has always read like this, but the last line caught my eye this time:

Quote
Core Book Reprints
Release Date: New print editions and PDFs of Total Warfare and TechManual are available now.

A two-volume reprint of Tactical Operations will be available in PDF soon and in print later this year; PDF sales of the previous Tactical Operations volume have been suspended pending this thoroughly revised PDF release.

Plans for reprinted material from Strategic Operations and other core BattleTech books are underway.

hmm. "reprinted material from" makes me think significant cuts, crops, or revisions. Ray had mentioned in the destiny thread that a potential future AToW could mean revisions to the system as well as information from AToW companion so a more substantial shakeup of SO / IO / CO might also be possible


« Last Edit: 07 January 2020, 17:56:17 by Sartris »

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #361 on: 07 January 2020, 17:25:55 »
Well, at least they told the people currently looking for a copy of TacOps why they can't get one...

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #362 on: 07 January 2020, 21:24:45 »
taken from the coming releases page. unsure if the text has always read like this, but the last line caught my eye this time:

hmm. "reprinted material from" makes me think significant cuts, crops, or revisions. Ray had mentioned in the destiny thread that a potential future AToW could mean revisions to the system as well as information from AToW companion so a more substantial shakeup of SO / IO / CO might also be possible




I can understand SO needing revision: since Quick-Strike got spun off into Alpha Strike, that's a pretty sizable chunk of the book that is now redundant...

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #363 on: 07 January 2020, 21:33:00 »
That only looks like about 10 pages out of more than 400...  ???

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #364 on: 07 January 2020, 21:40:03 »
the question is what (if any) future plans they have for BattleForce.

SO's breakdown is basically

BattleSpace 2, Big ship construction rules (14-161)
Maintenance, Repair, Salvage, and Customization (166-199)
BattleForce (212-381)
Miniature Rules (including quickstrike) (386-409)
« Last Edit: 07 January 2020, 21:41:46 by Sartris »

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #365 on: 07 January 2020, 22:12:31 »
IO has Strategic Battleforce, so they were still thinking about that at some point.
Honestly, all of the Operations books are kinda a hodgepodge mess of where do I find the rule for X?
It's probably too much to ask to reorganize them into: Campaign/multiple scenario play book, Less granular forces for larger armies book, and equipment and construction book.

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #366 on: 07 January 2020, 22:45:21 »
About all BattleForce and strategic BattleForce share is a name. BattleForce shares a lot of territory with AS so updating becomes a redundancy (there’s also a question of how much official support or even how many people even use the rules)

A consolidation is probably in order (I’ve suggested similar in the past)- I think the mishmash nature of the current rules is a product of the years-long rollout. Unsure how much of that is going to happen before the successor line to TW comes along

If the mission of the reprints is to cut down page counts like the TO split, amputating the BF rules from SO would go a long way in reaching that goal

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #367 on: 08 January 2020, 01:26:54 »
I haven't given it a thorough reading as of late, but I could have swore it was pretty much the same but each piece was a company or more.

Anyway, my ultimate hope is the restructuring of TO and other rulebooks is just a temporary stopgap, and they reorganize along unit type.
So BMM gets a tech manual sorta book that has rules and equipment for JUST mechs, but includes some of the advanced gear from TO (much like how there's some TO rules in BMM.  Then they can have a combined arms book for vehicles and infantry (I figure it'd be better to combine them than trying to sell tanks and troops separately), as well as a construction book for those that contains equipment not found on mechs (to avoid duplication these would probably want to refer back to the mech books for shared stuff).  Alongside that a pair of aerospace books (though, I admit, that sounds more like a print on demand product than a sold in stores one.  I never got the impression battlespace was in any way popular).  The real question there then becomes where does the IO equipment go  it seems like it would bloat the construction books a bit too much, but if they just did a TO equipment book again we'd still be in this same situation where gears split between 3 different volumes for everything except mechs.

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #368 on: 08 January 2020, 09:14:13 »
hmm. "reprinted material from" makes me think significant cuts, crops, or revisions. Ray had mentioned in the destiny thread that a potential future AToW could mean revisions to the system as well as information from AToW companion so a more substantial shakeup of SO / IO / CO might also be possible

It's one of the lines I added to the page when making a change. I don't have specifics, but that's my sense of things - that the books would not be straight-up reprinted with new covers.

Well, at least they told the people currently looking for a copy of TacOps why they can't get one...

I answered those people directly here, too--this isn't some information we're trying to slide past anyone.

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #369 on: 08 January 2020, 09:24:51 »
I haven't given it a thorough reading as of late, but I could have swore it was pretty much the same but each piece was a company or more.

Anyway, my ultimate hope is the restructuring of TO and other rulebooks is just a temporary stopgap, and they reorganize along unit type.
So BMM gets a tech manual sorta book that has rules and equipment for JUST mechs, but includes some of the advanced gear from TO (much like how there's some TO rules in BMM.  Then they can have a combined arms book for vehicles and infantry (I figure it'd be better to combine them than trying to sell tanks and troops separately), as well as a construction book for those that contains equipment not found on mechs (to avoid duplication these would probably want to refer back to the mech books for shared stuff).  Alongside that a pair of aerospace books (though, I admit, that sounds more like a print on demand product than a sold in stores one.  I never got the impression battlespace was in any way popular).  The real question there then becomes where does the IO equipment go  it seems like it would bloat the construction books a bit too much, but if they just did a TO equipment book again we'd still be in this same situation where gears split between 3 different volumes for everything except mechs.


i figure a revision of TW along the lines of BMM is in their strategic pipeline, but who knows how long that is down the road. Whatever it looks like, it probably won't contain any dramatic changes for mechs unless it comes YEARS after the clan box. 

the delay on IO until 2015 probably meant a longer lifespan than they were counting on - this will be the 14th year TW has been in force as the core rules. If you overlay that with the original core rules releases, that's the same distance between the BattleTech Manual in '87 and BMRr in '01 (aka every other core rules ever released).

Assuming they do what they've always done, 3150 former-advanced/experimental-now-standard equipment will go in TW2/TM2 (much like BMM has done already). the exodus from TO leaves plenty of room for the IO catchall stuff like tripods and superheavies. I assume the AeroTech 3 parts of SO will survive in one form or another somewhere as it has enough universe precedent to not go away

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #370 on: 08 January 2020, 10:41:22 »
IS there going to be anything ready for Adepticon in late march???
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #371 on: 08 January 2020, 14:00:07 »
IS there going to be anything ready for Adepticon in late march???
You mean new, physical product for sale at Adepticon? It’s possible but not likely.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #372 on: 08 January 2020, 15:17:47 »
I could see the Game books being separated into Tournament Legal and Advanced Rules. If some things have changed they get moved into the applicable book. I would also include things from AToW and it's Companion as some things don't have TW rules.

I can also see the Construction Books being separated into 4 books. One for equipment and three for construction. I'd also reorganize them so that everything is together instead of spread out. That way information is easier to find.

For the equipment books I'd include all the equipment from every book, even the equipment that wasn't included in IO.  For the construction books, the first would be for Tournament Level Ground Units from TM, TO, IO and AToW+C. The second book would be for Advanced Level Ground Units, from TO, IO, and AToW+C. The third Construction Book would contain all the Aerospace Units from TM, TO, SO, IO.




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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #373 on: 10 January 2020, 20:05:31 »
Any possible word on when the next Touring the Stars might drop?

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #374 on: 11 January 2020, 14:14:25 »
Any possible word on when the next Touring the Stars might drop?

I’m editing the two previously announced volumes (Gulf Breeze, Rigil Kentares) this weekend and early next week. Shooting for February.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #375 on: 11 January 2020, 14:45:36 »
I’m editing the two previously announced volumes (Gulf Breeze, Rigil Kentares) this weekend and early next week. Shooting for February.

That is good to hear. As happy and excited about the Kickstarter I am a little annoyed that is derailed everything else it seems.

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #376 on: 11 January 2020, 14:57:47 »
I’m editing the two previously announced volumes (Gulf Breeze, Rigil Kentares) this weekend and early next week. Shooting for February.

Sweet!

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #377 on: 11 January 2020, 15:00:48 »
I’m editing the two previously announced volumes (Gulf Breeze, Rigil Kentares) this weekend and early next week. Shooting for February.

Great news
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #378 on: 11 January 2020, 23:13:24 »
+1 more for the TTS news!  Thanks Cubby!  :thumbsup:

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #379 on: 11 January 2020, 23:31:05 »
Fantastic news, thanks for your hard work Cubby and friends!
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #380 on: 12 January 2020, 00:29:55 »
Great news, thanks to you Cubby and your colleagues for all of your hard work  :thumbsup:
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #381 on: 12 January 2020, 01:33:31 »
Excellent news! New product always welcome.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #382 on: 12 January 2020, 04:52:21 »
Excellent news! New product always welcome.

Always good to see new product.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #383 on: 12 January 2020, 09:36:22 »
Team effort, not just me. Ray and I had a good call this week with Knightmare, the mini-PDF dev, about the next wave of those products for this year. And Ray's got a pretty ambitious list of ideas for non-KS products in the next year or 18 months.

That is good to hear. As happy and excited about the Kickstarter I am a little annoyed that is derailed everything else it seems.

I wouldn't frame it that way--remember that the bulk of products for the KS are going to hit retail as well, eventually.

IMO, the line desperately needed new miniatures and that would/should have been a priority no matter what. The KS backers are getting them first because they funded their existence. But it's not one or the other, it's one then the other. I think that distinction matters.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #384 on: 12 January 2020, 15:57:56 »
Hopefully minis on shelves increases the visibility and appeal of the game and increased sales gives Catalyst more income to work with in expanding other areas.

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #385 on: 12 January 2020, 18:47:54 »
Hopefully minis on shelves increases the visibility and appeal of the game and increased sales gives Catalyst more income to work with in expanding other areas.

Believe this is the end goal we all want to see.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #386 on: 12 January 2020, 22:38:06 »
Provided stores pick up on the new stuff and stop saying BT is dead.

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #387 on: 12 January 2020, 23:12:03 »
provided the large number of KS items make it to retail in sufficient number (neither a given), the long list from the distributor's catalog should prove that assertion indefensible

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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #388 on: 15 January 2020, 14:35:48 »
Provided stores pick up on the new stuff and stop saying BT is dead.

I don't think Lion Rampant and Picard will EVER agree on how many lights they see on that one.
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Re: Upcoming Releases Volume XV: Pitter Patter Let's Get At'er
« Reply #389 on: 15 January 2020, 15:49:20 »
I know lion rampent - who's picard?

universal distribution is the most common one in my area, and they're pretty good, except for getting barely any map-pack