BB:Beyond A Time of War: What does Interstellar Oprations do

[DeJaVu]

With A Time of War so close to finally being put to rest, I've been trying to grapple with the insanity that is Interstellar Operations (lost the thread through too much of the summer insanity, so picking up the disparate pieces and flogging everyone forward again).

Now a lot of work is either done or well on its way to completion. For example the Solar System Construction Rules were banged out and finalized a good half year ago. In addition the next few weeks and I should see first drafts of the Alternant Eras, Creating a Force and Running a Force sections, which take up a big chunk of the book and I know a lot of players are anxiously waiting for new versions of these fan-favorite rules. And of course some of the sourcebook treatises (nobility, communications, and ranks, for example) have first drafts in, while several stories are sitting on my desk to approve/reject. So all told there's a good chunk of this book well on its way.

But at the end of the day, arguably the most important and difficult part of the book is still very much in the trenches. TW/TM/TO are all on planet. SO works off planet to the solar system and also scales up towards regiment play. But there's a whole level (several levels in fact) beyond SO.

For example you move beyond a solar system to multiple systems and up to being a House/Clan leader (speaking more on logistics there). You've then got rules that span well beyond regimental play, both on planet (playing out the invasion of Tikonov by 8 RTCs during the Fourth Succession Wars at the current BattleForce level is pretty insane...though I'd love to see it...send pictures!) and then you move to the strategic movement of dozens of regiments and how do you play that out?

So if you look at the scaling of the rules within the framework that we've already built with the core line, you generate something like this:

A Time of War (RPG): 6 secont time, 5 meters, 1 person
Total Warfare: 10 seconds, 30 meters, 1 'Mech
BattleForce: 30 seconds, 90 meters, 1 lance
Strategic BattleForce: 3 minutes, 500 meters, 1 company
Planetary Assault: 1 week, 1500km, 1 battalion
Strategic BattleTech: 2 weeks, 10 light years, 1 regiment

Now the names for the three levels above BattleForce are placeholders for now, while the exact nuances of the Time, Map and Unit scale are still being banged on...but it gives you an idea of the direction we're looking at.

Now rules for a Strategic BattleTech were generated under the "Inner Sphere in Flames" rules published in Combat Operations many moons ago. However it was about as barebones framework as you can get and as the Fan Council has found out through years of playing, lots and lots of problems that we're working on solving (thanks for the playtesting, guys!)

Now some of you may be wondering why there's a "Strategic BattleForce" level in there? Well, at the end of the day we might figure out how to fold that and Planetary Assault into a single level (as it was under the BattleForce 2 box set rules). However, currently what we're discovering is that to be able to play all the various scale battles that have been depicted in the fiction, you need a whole level below Planetary Assault, but above the current BattleForce rules, or some scale of BattleTech play becomes almost unplayable unless you've weeks and weeks on your hands.

Now at the end of the day, building three rules sets to cap off everything we've done in 5 rulebooks (once RPG is out) would be a tough nut to begin with. But then we want to provide a complete set of Zoom rules, that will allow players to move their force/unit up and down to play at any level of play they want, based upon the scenario or campaign your playing, and upon the time and room you have and so on.

For example, using the 9 RCTs against Tikonov, you'd be using the Strategic BattleTech rules to run the entire Fourth Succession War. But instead of a few simple dice rolls at that "risk" level where most of the action around the Inner Sphere is taking place, Tikonov is important enough that everyone feels you need to run the conquest of that world at the Planetary Assault level. You run most of the action at that level except for the fighting on the continent of Kazan, where the majority of the combat takes place, so you rotate that fighting down to the Strategic BattleForce level. When you actually reach the battle for Tikograd, the capital, again, the importance of the fighting for this part of the world is then rotated down to BattleForce. Then, in between BattleForce sessions you decide that a few scenarios of fighting directly around and in the Earthwerks plant is just too important and cool so you rotate down to Total Warfare level for those games. Like the original battle as depicted in the fiction, you even see some opportunities for some roleplaying sessions and toss in one or two of those, particularly surrounding the infiltration and attempted demolition of the power and communications lines running near the Tikograd Wall and its turret emplacements. At each stage, game sessions are rotated up or down based upon what a playing group wants to do or how important they think a particular battle is and once that sessions done you rotate it back up into the level above. So once Tikonov is all played out, all the information the players need to know about what happened to all the units involved is ready for use back up at the Strategic BattleTech level as the Fourth Succession Wars moves on.

Sound cool? I sure hope so...because I've always wanted to see that level of flexibility myself as a fan and what the entire core line has been building to.

However, that "zoom" part...that's currently kicking us pretty hard, as we're banging out how to to create the building blocks for the top three levels that will mesh with all that's been done to date, and will allow that zoom. Off of that framework we can then start fully fleshing out the rules to provide the ultimate end cap set of rules for all the BT core line of books has to offer.

Enough talk...back to the trenches...will ping you with further details as we continue the work.

Later!


Randall

[Andos]

Дух захватывает, наконец все встанет ровно

[Red Dragon]

Забавно. Неужели стандартизация.

PS BF рулит, PA рулит, но меньше. а теперь еще SBF значится.