How do you want TRO's formatted?

[Orin J.]

Whichever one gets the books in stores, then into people's hands. i don't care if the come in godsdamned scrolls and i have to break a wax seal on the next TRO i pick up if it means i see three other people buying the things at my store and i don't have to special order for once.

[sadlerbw]

Whichever one gets the books in stores, then into people's hands. i don't care if the come in godsdamned scrolls and i have to break a wax seal on the next TRO i pick up if it means i see three other people buying the things at my store and i don't have to special order for once.

Not gonna lie...I think I would actually pay money for a wax-sealed scroll with a single TRO entry on it. Make it look like some sacred ComStar text or something. Behold ye, the mighty Guillotine! Keep it's secrets safe from the unwashed masses of the inner sphere!

I've seen enough of the CGL employees at cons now that I feel fairly confident in saying that SOMEONE who works at CGL probably already has a signet ring that could be used for wax sealing...and they may, in fact, already have the sealing wax as well!

[Daryk]

You, sir, have just increased my already significant admiration for CGL!  :D

[Bedwyr]

I voted landscape but wouldn't mind portrait at all.

[idea weenie]

Not gonna lie...I think I would actually pay money for a wax-sealed scroll with a single TRO entry on it. Make it look like some sacred ComStar text or something. Behold ye, the mighty Guillotine! Keep it's secrets safe from the unwashed masses of the inner sphere!

I've seen enough of the CGL employees at cons now that I feel fairly confident in saying that SOMEONE who works at CGL probably already has a signet ring that could be used for wax sealing...and they may, in fact, already have the sealing wax as well!

Let's see:
Wooden scroll pieces (designed to be clamped over the paper), the end pieces to hold the two pieces of wood together, and then using a fancier printer to take A1 sized paper, and print multiple copies of the TRO.  Looking at A1 vs A4, you could print 4 pages of A4 in a single column, with 4 columns per sheet of A2.  So maybe 2 Mechs per scroll, and you'd make 4 scrolls at a time?

End pieces would be a painted Mech (preferably each of the two types in the scroll), in resin.

From there, you'd want some sort of fabric at the end of the paper so you can keep dust off it and the fabric sticks to itself.  This lets you unroll the scroll to view the Mech stats, then roll it back up and rely on the fabric sticking to itself to keep the scroll from unrolling.

Given the complexity (price), this would be only for special Mechs and only for custom orders.

[sadlerbw]

The most important question, however, is do they have anyone on staff who is qualified to illuminate manuscripts? Can you rent Gregorian monks?

[Orin J.]

do gregorian monks even like robots? it might be a lot easier to investigate the viability of this if we can find one that enjoys a giant robot or two.

[Wrangler]

not sure I follow. The books are letter sized. Any slight difference in size can be easily tweaked.

POD can do letter sized. Among a great many size options.
For the longest time, this company couldn’t do landscape. It can now.
The problem with landscape, in POD, is that it’s expensive. Not that it’s not possible for the size or orientation we need.
Setting up past (X)TROs for POD for landscape is easy. To do them as portrait is essentially laying out a brand new book from scratch. At best.
This is all in regards to POD. It has no bearing on the decision to make future TROs landscape or portrait. Hope that clears things up?

Sorry, i kept forgetting the books are letter, not Legal size.  I casually work in the copy/printing industry, so i get confused sometimes about the size of the TROs. I've seen alot things landscape be associated with Legal Size products.

Its too bad PoD so inflexible.  I made my own combination of all the primitive XTRO for myself to read and used GBC comb together.  It came reasonably fine.
I've been in many a copy/print shop alleged to be state of the art, but state of the art maybe in later 1990s or early 2000s.

Cost make a book cover and being glued must been main issue i suspect.

Either case do what guys need to do what you can do to put book out, but i can't say i will like it as much as Landscape oriented book.  They fit better in my bookshelf anyways.

[RomulusDC]

Landscape. Old school

[idea weenie]

Sorry, i kept forgetting the books are letter, not Legal size.  I'm casually work in copy/printing industry so i get confused sometimes about the size of the TROs.

Its too bad PoD so inflexible.  I made my own combination of all the primitive XTRO for myself to read and used GBC comb together.  It came reasonably fine.
I've been in many a copy/print shop alleged to be state of the art, but state of the art maybe in later 1990s or early 2000s.

Cost make a book cover and being glued must been main issue i suspect.

Either case do what guys need to do what you can do to put book out, but i can't say i will like it as much as Landscape oriented book.  They fit better in my bookshelf anyways.

Now I'm imagining someone setting up a small PoD shop that only does books in Landscape format, with the short side as the spine.  Everything is set to be flipped on the short edge, so you could even have a regular book printed by them, but it would be read top to bottom, where page 20 is above page 21 (instead of standard books where page 20 is to the left of page 21).

Though technically you could have the TROs displayed Landscape mode, and use the standard long-side print option.  When you read it the spine is horizontal, the details about the Mech/ASF/vehicle/satellite/station/Jumpship/Warship/SupVee/Structure are on the top half (above the crease), and the pictures are below the crease.  The layout is the same, you just have the spine horizontal instead of vertical.  This would allow TROs to retain the landscape format, yet fit on a shelf like regular BT books and still have their spines easy to read.

The spine text would be set up similar to the footer on a page, but instead of using left/center/right formatting, it will use top/bottom formatting, so the stuff in the top (i.e. title) is printed at the top of the spine, and the stuff at the bottom (i.e. book number) is printed at the bottom.  This way no matter if the book has a long or short spine, the data will be laid out the same (though someone will need to make sure the length is short enough to fit on a short side spine).

The key with either option is making a sturdy spine that can handle being opened and closed often, plus being left open, all without wearing out too quickly.  If that isn't practical, then printing out the sheets and putting them in a binder notebook will be necessary.

[mbear]

Where's the option to just answer "yes"? :)

Seriously I've done some cut and paste work to make a landscape TRO page into a portrait page. Kind of a pain, but it can be done.

[Cubby]

a landscape TRO page into a portrait page. Kind of a pain, but it can be done.

times every page in a TRO.

times every XTRO / TRO to be done as POD.

To create a product that's unpalatably costly to the customer as a POD.

It's not an issue of not understanding how it could be done. It's an issue of where, how, and on what layout time is being spent, and what the ROI is for it.

[mbear]

times every page in a TRO.

times every XTRO / TRO to be done as POD.

To create a product that's unpalatably costly to the customer as a POD.

It's not an issue of not understanding how it could be done. It's an issue of where, how, and on what layout time is being spent, and what the ROI is for it.

Gotcha.

[DarkSpade]

I hold no delusions that we'd ever get the old books reformatted. I doubt it would be worth the time effort and resources.  I may prefer portrait, but I'm not about to buy a new book I already have because of it.

I'm only thinking about future releases.

[Xiwo Xerase]

I voted landscape... but mostly for nostalgia.

Plenty of other games have their "catalogs" in portrait format (CAV, AD&D, etc.) so I don't have anything against that format.  (I think the only other books I have that are landscape format are some Calvin & Hobbes compilations, a book on sumi-e painting, and reissues of old Jane's Fighting Ships editions.)

Whichever one gets the books in stores, then into people's hands.

But, ultimately, this.  Getting new players and/or new products (preferably new players) trumps nostalgia.

[Wrangler]

Wait....is the reason why haven't seen XTRO/TRO because of POD costs?

[Bedwyr]

Wait....is the reason why haven't seen XTRO/TRO because of POD costs?

I think that's an inference you shouldn't make. Most likely there are independent reasons (reestablishing the main box line; getting logistics themselves figured out; oversaturating the line with one product; etc) all plausible. That doesn't mean you're affirmatively wrong, but let's hear that from the horse's mouth first.

[Cubby]

Wait....is the reason why haven't seen XTRO/TRO because of POD costs?

EDIT: Hang on, I mis-read your question, I think - there has been no hold-up in XTRO or TRO production specifically due to POD issues. There are simply other priorities.

So, that said, here's my original response when I thought you were asking once again why XTRO/TROs aren't available in POD.

Doing a landscape book as POD wasn't even possible until last year [2018]. Even now that it is, the end cost to the customers would be unpalatably high to be worth it. (And don't start with, "But, I'd pay it!" I'm talking about the aggregate of the entire customer base "worth it," not a handful of high-roller completists "worth it.")

"So just re-orient the books, then!"

As Ray has said, asking us to re-format a landscape TRO into portrait orientation is at best asking us to re-lay-out the entire book, let alone any cuts or additions to text that might be needed, art issues, so on. Layout resources remain limited and this would be a pretty bad use of them.

"Why not get the community on the re-formatting, make it a group effort like the MUL!"

A bunch of reasons. Starting with, that amount of work put toward an official, published product basically demands (IMO) that those who work on it be paid. Ending with the need for professional-level layout skills and accountability, which are not as easy to come by as you'd think. It's more than just clicking "Rotate Image" in Photoshop.

The best possibility is that landscape POD becomes more economical as time goes on. I'm not an expert in modern publishing, but personally, that feels unlikely due to a lack of demand - there aren't a lot of other landscape books on the shelves now, so the demand to accommodate them as more affordable POD is likely very low.

The other possibility is that we simply stop making landscape TROs, and everything going forward is portrait. That's not going to help make older stuff POD-enabled, but at least we can remove a known limiting factor for the new stuff. I have no indication that this is going to happen; the fact that TRO: SW and TRO:CI are both landscape should tell you that it's not on the immediate horizon.

It's a shame that a purely aesthetic choice made three decades ago is locking CGL out of a business opportunity now. But, it is.

[Bedwyr]

Oh, I thought he was asking about pdf publication drying up or something. I was like "wait, those two things can't be related unless it's development time crowding things out".

[Sartris]

I also got the impression that the xtro series had largely run its course outside of some potential one-offs. Its primary purpose was to incorporate tacops gear into the jihad, which we are now well passed. The primitives were a cool bonus as well as some of the others like succession wars. I’d like to see a couple here and there but I don’t see it being a major grown area going forward

[Colt Ward]

Cubby-  It's more than just clicking "Rotate Image" in Photoshop.


LMAO, even getting some people to do that is hard enough . . .

[Cubby]

Oh, I thought he was asking about pdf publication drying up or something. I was like "wait, those two things can't be related unless it's development time crowding things out".

I think he was. I didn't realize that until I'd banged out my magnum opus on TRO as POD. Thus the revision.

[Empyrus]

I also got the impression that the xtro series had largely run its course outside of some potential one-offs. Its primary purpose was to incorporate tacops gear into the jihad, which we are now well passed. The primitives were a cool bonus as well as some of the others like succession wars. I’d like to see a couple here and there but I don’t see it being a major grown area going forward

There's RISC-tech waiting to be incorporated into stuff. And Clan prototype/improved IS gear.
There's always more stuff for (X)TROs  :D

[Sartris]

Indeed. I wasn’t expecting them to drift into complete obscurity but I think we’re probably at the once a year on Christmas if we’ve been especially good boys and girls

[ANS Kamas P81]

I think the "Re-Orient" idea is less reformatting the whole thing and more simply running the binding on the top/bottom edge of the page instead of the left/right side.  It's how Star Fleet Battles handles its SSD books, they're laid out and printed in landscape but bound portrait style, so you end up flipping pages bottom to top, instead of right to left.

[DarkSpade]

That sounds even more annoying to try to read. ???

[Sartris]

Huh. That’s an idea. Not ideal, but the most practical if you want old TROs in print at a price that doesn’t suck.

[Doom]

Where have I read that idea before...

There is no absolute need for any existing images to change at all. They could remain 'sideways' in a portrait format book and thus require no manipulation. That might be a more viable option for existing art than for new TRO art going forward.

[ANS Kamas P81]

That sounds even more annoying to try to read. ???

Less than you'd think; you'd still end up with all the fluff information on the page on top and the stats and picture on the page on the bottom.  Like I said, SFB does just fine with its layout, and it even uses Portrait for all of its rules and just switches to landscape for its record sheets, then binds everything together on the long edge.