What I would love to see is one or two short intro adventures that can be run in a session or two as PDF releases. I learn new systems faster if I can see them in action and get an idea how they're supposed to be run.
It also makes it easier for me and my group to just try it out without having to build an adventure from scratch. I get that the RPG side of BattleTech is far smaller than the tabletop side (both Classic and AS), thus making a steady (if slow) stream of official adventures unlikely. But it would make it easier for people to come to the franchise via a RPG. As it stands, it often feels like the current RPG rules are a nice add-on for people already invested in BattleTech.
It's talk like this which was why Shrapnel issue 7 has an RPG adventure called
One Last Favor, Old Friend. There's enough of a story and background as to why it's happening and enough flexibility so players don't get railroaded badly (i.e: "No this next part takes place in Mechs so find a way to get in your blasted robots! lol).
I'm kinda on the opposite side of that spectrum: I'd rather see more mechanical content released for Destiny as opposed to published adventures. Whipping up adventures for my gaming table is exponentially easier and less of a hassle than having to convert existing tabletop equipment and designs into Destiny's ruleset. That said, though, I definitely feel like Destiny could use at least one publication (as in, not in Shrapnel, but an actual *book*) that had some pre-made adventures and/or possibly a pre-made campaign within it. Like you said, Gorgon, there's value in seeing a system in action to learn it.
I think this is why there's various weapon articles in Shrapnel, I know most (maybe all) are A Time of War stats but conversion should be possible. So here's to those hopefully getting Destiny stats some day from the magazine officially.
Quite honestly, personal opinion and all, mileages will vary, take with table salt, etc but I don't see the RPG side getting a book on its own without some heavy add ons to it; thus why Shrapnel is the decent compromise to it. The other sourcebooks as well are decent with content in spots.
Herb puts out a few fun A Time of War seeds that can be used for Destiny: Necromo Nightmare, the Wolfeinstein parody, all of the Nebula Calfornia stuff for ideas, etc.
However the rest of us? The ones that haven't been here a quadrillion years? Shrapnel is probably going to be that vehicle for a while on ideas we have. Battletech's first focus is the boxed set for the Mechs. Vehicles are getting love because they contribute to fighting against Mechs. I mean look at how ridiculous the kickstarter zoomed up just in a few days.
Still the more esoteric stuff like aero or even RPG? For a while we didn't get much if anything because if it couldn't be in a sourcebook that moved with Mechs, it was good as gone. Shrapnel however gives us at least a voice for the RPG players and still manage to be economically viable enough to keep pumping issues. It's gone from "we'll try 4, because Kickstarter" to "Hey we made a 10th issue double sided because you keep throwing the money at us".
I think because Battletech was never really made as an RPG in mind first; we won't get RPG level detail on adventures like how Pathfinder or even old MW2 books went. Yet for what we've got, we're making a good showing of support however possible.
