Well based on the core rulebook primer, we know that:
Strategic BattleForce has 500m hexes and 3 minute turns. Basically, its battleforce with a max range of 2 hexes. Each unit is 1 company.
Planetary Assault has 240km hexes, and 24 hour turns. That means a planet would typically be around 150 hexes across, far too big to map, so I suspect planetary assault is more of a battle on a continent or state, rather than an entire planet. Each unit is 1 battalion. An example given is the taking of Tikonov in 3028, with 192 attacking battalions.
Then there is Inner Sphere at War. Each unit is 1 regiment or 1 galaxy, each turn 1 week for combat or 1 month for a campaign. The combat scale is 1 hex per 10 LY, and the campaign has no scale.
That same document also says these scales could be "tweaked slightly".
So, if you want to fight Davion vs Liao in 3028, you *must* use the ISW scale, as PA is far too large. That war encompasses like 100 mech regiments, and even if conventional forces are ignored for simplicity (which means the entire system is broken) it is still a very large game, on a map 2-3' across.
Planets can be assigned values on the map, little numbers beside system names, and those numbers added up for production purposes. If they use generic values like all planets are worth .5 points, except capitals which are 2, major capitals 5, and faction capitals 10, or some such, the entire system will be completely broken and not match the universe at all. Such a system (I bring it up as I feel very confident something like this will be used) will make all planets have the same value, and lead people to completely ignore many planets entirely. In fact, such a system may as well just remove systems entirely, and go back to the old succession wars board game method as that is how it'll play.
But even landing 8 RCT's on a planet vs over 80 other regiments, is going to require some considerable paperwork, there is simply no other way, even at a 1 unit per 10 regiment scale. I don't believe the intent is to redo the old succession wars game in abstraction, which is the only way you won't have to track stats.
Heck, I'm kinda worried that PA will be its own system completely, as the original in Combat Operations was. This won't allow decent scaling for people who want to use the system for campaigns. If your merc battalion of 3 heavy, 3 medium, and 3 assault lances, all with munchy designs so 20% or so more powerful than their standard counterparts doesn't give that same feeling when you scale it to 1 heavy, 1 medium, and 1 assault company it'll prevent the system's use. If that same system can't scale to a single heavy battalion, again it'll break and not be usable for campaigns.
Heck, right now I have no idea how they'll even do the map. 10 LY/Hex makes for a map that is too large to reach over, but over 75 hexes will have 2-3 systems in it. 7.5 LY/Hex is even bigger, but reduces the multiple system/hex count to around 25. If the systems aren't tracked and you conquer a hex, well, that'd be sad, as it would prevent any type of combat around jump points, pirate points, heck even recharge times become completely abstracted and break the scaling.
I am really trying to keep an open mind about the quality of IO, especially PA/ISW scales, but from what little I've seen it worries me. That is kinda ok though, I've already put a lot of work into my own version of ISW that scales down to individual mechs, and if I don't care for IO I'll pick and choose some things out of it, and just use my own system for a computer conversion. Heck, at current rates, I may finish my computer version before IO even comes out, without details getting me excited and confident in it, I'm loosing faith and moving my own timetable up.
