24 May 2010: BattleBlog: MechDreams - The Story of TRO3085

[Hobbit]

So what exactly does it take to make a BattleTech book?


I haven't a clue. No really, I'll have to leave the greater universe of BT books to Herb or Randall to answer. Technical Readouts are a very unique little kettle of fish very different from most of the other books. 3085 is even more of unique beast, just because of what's going into it. Given that disclaimer let me tell you about the early process of 3085 development. So about a month after I sent my pitch in (I did mention there is a lot of waiting involved), Randall and Herb emailed me back. They gave me the 'official' outline and told me something to the affect of "here's your chance, don't mess it up." That moment, reading the email, became one of those gut check moments. I'd just been handed the reins to one of the most iconic book types in the BT pantheon. I was part jumping with excitement and part sick to my stomach with fear. "What the hell have I gotten myself into?"


So what's an outline and what happens next? Well let's start with what a basic outline looks like. All pretty straight forward, you break down the book into sections and in each section and those are typically cut into at least an IS and Clan sub-section. Then you have units that fit the theme of the sections in weight order with BA, Vees, 'Mechs, Support Units, Aerospace. In 3075 we had Cutting Edge with an IS and Clan and we had Age of War cut into the various major factions of the era. TRO3085 started out with four main sections, two of those having the classic IS/Clan subsections. Now here's a place Herb or Randall will maybe chime in on someday. I don't know how the early process for earlier TROs were, but with 3085 being a bridge TRO, between the Jihad and founding of the Republic of the Sphere, it had a sizable portion of units that were pre-defined based on canon history. The Targe is an example. It has very strong DA era writing to put it as a very early Republic design. So the Targe ended up in the outline. The rest of the units were defined as "New" and what classes they would be. I don't know what the exact formula is, but my understanding is there is a certain 'mix' of units that works well for a TRO. Always 'Mech heavy, but with enough of the other types of units to make it interesting. Randall and Herb have had a long time to perfect the 'mix' in the TRO.


So now I had a TRO basic outline. My job was to get that outline to 'pitch ready'. What's that mean? Well in a nutshell when a book is ready to be written it is sent out to a pre-determined set of contributors. Depending on the type of BT book this list can change. Some people are great tech writers, but don't do well with Jihad news articles and vise versa. I've been a recipient of a pitch document and I had an idea of what needed to be done to the outline to get it ready. I also had my pitch proposal, in which I'd laid out what apparently was a compelling argument to do TRO3085 a bit different from past TROs.


Now if you reach back into the depths of BT lore, you'll recall the 3025 TRO had at least one 'Mech per weight range and rarely more than two. A nice balance of weights from 20 to 100 tons. Now take a look at TRO: 3060 and look at the assaults two 85 ton, two 90 and two 95. Not a single 80 ton or 100 ton 'Mechs and all but one had a ground speed of 3/5. A quarter of the IS vehicles were VTOLs and there wasn't a single tank in the 55-75 ton range. See some of our middle era TROs just had a broke things down by weight class. So there would be 20 "New Light BattleMech" and it was completely open to the writer to pitch a design. In 3075 Randall imposed a bit more order, defining the actual weights of each design. He did this after spending time layout out what weight classes were well represented in TROs and what ones needed more attention. With TRO3085 I proposed to take it a step even further. With the introduction of various engine classes and two types of jump jets, movement profiles had exploded with options. No longer were Assaults limited to 3/5 with tons of guns or 4/6 with 'barely enough' guns. In 3067 close to half of the assaults had jump jets, and in 3050U we actually see a 5/8/5 Charger that can do serious damage. But with all those new options, we still had some big gaps in weight and movement classes.


So I sat down and spent about two months creating a spreadsheet of weight classes, with movement profiles, % of units that jumped and so on. The findings were fascinating and key to the next step of the TRO 3085 project. For example, twenty ton Clan 'Mechs that jumped, were rare as a sane Liao . There are twice as many 100 ton IS ''Mechs then there are 95 tonners. In the 55 ton Clan 'Mechs you had a lot that could run 7/11, but a jumping 7/11 design was as rare as the life expectancy of a Fireball.


Armed with this data, it was time to tackle the outline.


Next week…



Joel BC

Product Developer TRO3085